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The Promise Blog
Family

Last Day at 47

  My 48th birthday was Wednesday, June 24. On Tuesday, as I considered the final day of my year at 47, I sat at the car dealership where we bought our Toyota Sienna minivan 15 years ago, nearing 200,000 miles, and all the memories in the world as the only car that has remained with us so long. The technician came in, after 2 hours of my wondering, and gave me the diagnosis: he could fix $1,978 worth of issues. I found that number particularly ironic, as that was the year of my birth. As I declined most of what he suggested, since it was more “you should do this eventually” than an emergency issue just yet, he agreed that what is being recommended is actually quite far from being broken. I often feel like this car. I have some miles on me at this point. 40’s are interesting. I’ve heard 50’s are really interesting! As I cross the threshold to 48 there are some people reading this thinking, “Oh man, you just wait!” or “My goodness, to be 48 again!” Those reading this who are younger may think, “It can’t be that dramatic”. Yes, it actually is. I spend

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June 25, 2026 4 Comments
Family

The Promise of The Father

  Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, father figures, and men who make a difference in a young person’s life. We as a family are currently in the throes of major phases of youth becoming adults: Redford is serving a 2-year full-time mission in Santa Fe, Argentina, 10 months in Romney is leaving for his mission to Antigua, Guatemala in August Ella is leaving on her mission to Limatambo, Peru in October Royal is 14 and wondering what happened to his family as he knows it   This has been a most spectacular time of our lives, and nothing could have prepared us for the opportunity to have 3 kids all serving our Heavenly Father at the same time, while all learning Spanish and living in other countries. We won’t be in the same place as a whole family one time between August 21, 2025 and September 2, 2028. That is sobering to think about, and yet, we wouldn’t want them to be anywhere else or doing anything different. We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and yes, we live in Utah. With the name of Jesus Christ on their name tags, it is

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June 8, 2026 2 Comments
Entertainment

The First $100 Gig – The Chipmunk Song by Alvin & The Chipmunks

  “The Chipmunk Song”, by Alvin & The Chipmunks, is a Christmas classic. For 3 decades now I have sung this song in every performance, regardless of the time of year, I just love it that much. In fact, 25 years ago, I was slated to do a 15 minute set at my first corporate holiday party, but due to the way the night went, the client told me to just sing this song and they would still pay me $100. I thought, “Wow, $100 for one song? That’s like $100 a minute! I should make a living doing this!” Walking to the stage, bright lights and client hoping for the song to land, I sang it without any tracks, AKA “a cappella”, and the crowd went bonkers, giving me a standing ovation. It was solidified corporate holiday party gold. It was the song with which I auditioned for the high school choir, as my teacher, Mrs. Hall, said it was “not normal” that I could actually do it, and thus began her mentorship to helping me perform throughout my life. “The Chipmunk Song” by Ross Bagdasarian (under the stage name of David Seville), has been around since the 1950’s,

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December 27, 2025 No Comments
Announcements

The Best Fathers Day Presents

  Christmas Day was nearly 6 months ago (this next week), and it has been that long since I have enjoyed the gifts that keep on giving in our home. That cold wintry morning, as presents were strewn about the house, wrapping paper piled high, the kids were thrilled with what we had given them, but they had something else on their minds. Finally, when they were done opening theirs, they sat Mommy & I down to reveal a gigantic box, wrapped special, as we wondered what they had purchased for us. Our kids are now teens, and they have incredible imaginations and personalities, so we were curious, due to the grins on the faces of all, if they had a friend wrapped up in there to do a Jack-in-The-Box scare tactic, perhaps had re-gifted some white elephant presents, or had bought us a family of geckos. Instead, the box revealed many presents, all hand wrapped as well, in a nesting fashion, meticulously placed just right. Mommy & I took the top ones and began to carefully open them, only to reveal something we hadn’t expected: Individually framed pictures we would be able to place around the house of them,

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June 14, 2024 2 Comments
Cardio Miracle

Your Favorite President

Who is your Favorite President of the United States? And why? I grew up in the eras of Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and have raised children during eras of Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. It’s amazing to think there have been so few presidents in my lifetime, only 8 of them, as I’m a few years short of having been around half a century. Watching people lead through recessions, responding to terrorism, initiating war, navigating pandemics, social issues, and have the magnifying glass of criticism for every decision, makes you wonder how come anyone would want to become president. When I think of the ultimate and favorite leader of our Country, I would have to say, in my lifetime, it would be hard to consider any that I have listed above, although perhaps with time they could be in a top 5-10 list. My Favorite President seems to be the one most people name: Abraham Lincoln. In my office alone I have 2 paintings, one bronze bust, and one wooden statue of Lincoln, along with one of George Washington praying at Valley Forge as the only other president on my shelves. I often look at these images of Lincoln and

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February 13, 2024 4 Comments
Coaching

72 Hours of Greatness: The Legend of Redford Hewlett

  For the past month we have hardly seen our 16-year old son, Redford. He is a straight-A student, leads our church congregation in music every Sunday, and seems to be asked to a girl’s choice dance at a different school every other evening. And yet he has gone missing for almost the entirety of December. Every morning at 6:40 AM he bolts out the door, always gets to school on time, and recently has even been gone before 6 AM. Each night we await his return, often past 11 PM.   What is happening with this boy?  He is an SBO, Student Body Officer, at his high school, and the month of December is dedicated to raising money for single parents in an effort termed Hearts of Gold.  Every SBO is expected to go door to door, business to business, looking to do service in exchange for a donation to raise funds for parents needing help with providing Christmas.     My son has kept the ultimate Promise by being completely absent from our home while serving every stranger he can find for an entire month. It’s hard to put into words how proud I am of this wonderful son,

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December 23, 2023 8 Comments
Business

Anonymous Gift Giving

Yesterday the doorbell rang. Delivery! Candidly, this is not a new thing at our house. In fact, I have joked, with a tear in my eye, that Amazon drivers should have a room in our home since they’re over here so much delivering who knows what. But this was different! It was not Amazon, it was another one of those carriers that used to dominate all delivery services. The box was big! It was from Wisconsin. I was hopeful it was filled with cheese, pretzels, and Brett Favre paraphernalia. Cracking it open, I was blown away to find delicious bottles of root beer, glass mugs to match, and a few other goodies, in a packaging that was very impressive. Smiling, I said aloud to my wife, “Wow, this is so nice! Who is this from?” The further I got into the box, taking apart the styrofoam and searching high and low, inside and out, there was no sign of who could have sent this thoughtful gift!  What was a moment of fun now became riddled in mystery, confusion and guessing as to who this anonymous gift giver could be. Suddenly, the root beer wasn’t as enticing to crack open and

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December 16, 2023 6 Comments
Family

Happy Father’s Day

  In less than 4 hours on the Saturday before this Father’s Day the following occurred: I picked up my youngest son’s bike from the shop, where the flat tire was repaired, and we added a suspension fork to make riding more comfortable and fun; The AAA guy came by, broke into our car, where the only key had been locked in by one of our teenage drivers who was in a hurry rushing to the next thing and got locked out with all their stuff in the vehicle (we made this young driver tip the AAA guy for his help); Cheered on my son in a championship game where he had some great rebounds, a put-back shot, and won the tournament with his awesome team; Paid for multiple flights of one child headed out of the country to end the summer doing humanitarian trips. This is the opposite of what our lives were like a decade ago, when they were 7, 6, 5, and 1.  Those were days of diapers, crawling all over us at all hours, snot, eye goobers, laughter, playdates, binkies covered in sand and hair, parks, endless sunscreen, RV trips, wonder and excitement, every meal around

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June 17, 2023 4 Comments
Business

New Year Clean Out

How is your New Year clean out going? Not your New Years resolutions, I mean the normal minutiae you need to clean up. The list of items needing to be cleaned out for the New Year began to grow overwhelmingly long and time consuming for me: CLUTTER Closet Garage Office drawers   VIRTUAL CLUTTER Apps on phone Photo duplicates Videos   This is going to take me all year!    Next, I wrote down a really tough one: HABITS Throw out all the bad food…or just eat it all, so it’s out of my sight! Financial tracking and spending – keep a tighter budget!  Time spent in The Void (the spaces in between everything where time can vanish or be spent well) such as: Waiting in the car for the kids to come out of the school What happens in between phone calls Switch-tasking (a Dave Crenshaw phrase) between one task to another…or do I still convince myself I’m a great multitasker?   RELATIONSHIPS Friends on Social Media – my friend, Heidi Totten, preaches, “If you faithfully click on a Facebook friend the day of their birthday, and have nothing personal to say to them, it’s time to make some

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January 10, 2023 10 Comments
Entertainment

Magic Eraser Time of Year – Happy New Year 2023

    Magic Eraser to the rescue! In December 2022 I made the big jump from my awesome, handmade, expensive custom leather TAFT boots to white laces, black tops, and white soled VANS. Kicking and screaming I changed my clothing and shoe style, although it feels fresh and like the right direction to go, and fits my personality. The only thing worse than making sure not to nick custom made boots from Italy, is figuring out how to keep the constantly scuffed, marked, and sullied white soles of my new VANS bright and shiny! Luckily, my wife introduced me to Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser!  It has truly saved the day so many times before I walk on stage, knowing everyone is inspecting the perfection of my black shoes with white soles. Here’s the problem: Recently, I did the usual routine in my hotel room – I got the Magic Eraser wet, cleaned the shoes, and then tossed it in my suitcase.  I figured it was dry and just threw it in there as I wheeled my bag to the event location. Upon arrival I was horrified, opening the bag, my stage jacket had a stain front and center that refused

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December 31, 2022 8 Comments

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