Close Your Eyes & Jump!

The last day of High School my senior year I remember standing on the stage in the auditorium looking out at the seats. I was alone, it was dark and I was center stage. That's where I enjoyed my High School years, on the stage performing or on the stage painting scenery or on the stage goofing off while I was supposed to be in another class. I was the President of the Theater Club and more than half of my classes involved theater in one way or another. I was wondering what I was going to do now. I was graduating, I worked at Pizza Hut as a waitress and Zach and I had just broke up "for good" this time. Lots of my friends told me I should go to New York to try and make it on Broadway. I loved performing but I knew that's not the kind of life I wanted forever. Trying to decide what to do with your life is probably the hardest question you'll ever ask yourself. It's also a question that I've learned you don't just ask yourself once but several times throughout your life. At least I do.

I eventually got a job at America First Credit Union as a Teller. I was the worst Teller ever! I was immature and was better at talking to the Members than counting out their money properly. I got "promoted" to the Loan Officer side of things... mostly just to get me off the Teller line. That ended up being a good fit. Something clicked and my career took off. Zach and I were married, we had Hailey and by the time Brooklyn came along we felt like I needed to be home with our kids. We were going to be negative $65.00 every month. It was so scary but the leap was worth taking.

I sold Pampered Chef for a while. I sold boxes of my homemade caramel. We started selling stuff around our house on eBay. Then it turned out... we didn't need that money. We took the money from eBay and started going to local auctions and bought more stuff. We sold that! We found a great deal on some "ATI Remote Wonders" ( I don't even really know what those are but they sold great.) We had the opportunity to buy a whole bunch of them only... we would need an $8,000.00 loan. (Which we had no way to pay off if this didn't work out.) Once again, we closed our eyes and jumped. We paid off the loan in two months and that's how our eCommerce Business got started. Now we have several manufacturers for our products and that business is pretty successful. What if we wouldn't have jumped? It was super scary pushing ourselves off the ground and into the air not knowing where we would land. We did though, crossed our fingers all the way (we still are) and so far (6 years later)... we're still in a pretty good spot!

I've always loved real estate and I really wanted to flip houses. I knew nothing about it really so I went to real estate school to get more information. When I was finished I decided to take the test to become a Realtor. Then the scary part came when we started submitting bids to purchase houses. We had to take out mortgages on them so if we didn't fix them up and flip the quickly we could be upside down pretty quick. We did two at a time and it worked!

People tell me all the time... "Wow! Look at you guys! How did you even start something like that?" or "Julie! If there's something you want to do you just go do it! Don't you!" Is that wrong? Should I not take the risk? Why is that weird? Why doesn't everyone do that? If it's something that I would love, shouldn't I take a chance? Not everything I ever did worked out but I did learn something from everything I ever did! It's freaky to stand at the edge of the cliff, not be able to see where you're going to land and jump anyway, but if I don't just close my eyes and jump... won't I still just be standing here?

Fireworks & Traditions

When I was little, I got to ride my bike (with about 30 other kids) to start off the 4th of July parade in Layton. My Dad was involved with the parade for a few years so I had an "in". I was so excited getting my bike ready with streamers. After the parade we would go visit my Grandma & Grandpa that lived right by Layton High School. There would be a BBQ there during the day and the whole family would be there. I mean everyone! My Uncles, my Great Aunts & Uncles & all of their families were there eating, playing volleyball, frisby or just sitting around and catching up. The anticipation of the coming fireworks was so great we would be exhausted by 3:00. My Mom would take us home to take a nap and we would fight and cry all the way home about how "untired" we were... and how we wouldn't even be able to sleep... and Grandma would never make us take a nap... and our Mom was the meanest Mom in all of Layton!! (She was pretty proud of that title for many years.) Of course, we were asleep the moment we got into our beds and a couple hours later when we woke up we were on our way back to Grandma's & the excitement started all over again waiting for the fireworks. We all sat in the football field at Layton High School and watched the amazing fireworks!

This didn't vary much from year to year and being at Grandma's & watching the fireworks in Layton goes back to my earliest memories. I'm not sure if they always had the booths in Layton Park or if we just didn't start going until a little later but soon that became part of the tradition as well. The Baptists started making an amazing BBQ to sell there & that became part of the tradition. (If you haven't tried it you have GOT to try it next year!)

My Grandma passed away, my Grandpa moved away, I don't see all of my Great Aunts & Uncles anymore except at family reunions or if someone gets baptized. An amphitheater was built (which my Dad actually helped create), I got married & so did my Brother & Sister, we all have children of our own.

Today I watched my girls in the Kaysville Parade. We ate lunch and my kids fought me all the way home about taking a nap. Turns out... I'm the meanest Mom in Kaysville! After a 2 hour (much needed) nap we got everyone up and went straight over to Layton Park. After we had so much cotton candy, slushies & junk food we thought we might explode we walked our kids with their freshly painted faces straight over to the Layton Amphitheater. There we met my Mom & Dad, my Uncles & their families, my Brother & Sister and their families. What used to take up 3 blankets on the football field at Layton Park now takes up the whole middle section of the upper Amphitheater! It's not planned out... we all just find each other there, year after year.

The symphony played, the fireworks started and I'm holding my daughters & son. I'm looking at them and the family around me and I'm missing my Grandma. I look at my children in the different stages of their life and I can remember doing those same things, during each of those stages, in this same place watching the fireworks. I feel like that just happened. I feel like I was just barely the two year old in awe of the glitter & sparkle in the sky. I feel like I was just barely the four year old that still wants to bounce from Mom to Dad and finally to Grandma's lap to watch the excitement. I feel like I was just barely the 6 year old that watched the fireworks intently because I didn't want to peel my eyes away and miss something. I feel like I was just barely the 9 year old who wanted to go sit with her friends instead of her family... I mean how uncool is sitting with family?

For 30 minutes of fireworks every year in Layton park time stands still. It's the only time & place where my past is mingled with my present and where some memories linger and new memories are made. Each year at that place, during that time, another stage of my life is marked.

I'm watching my children and I know the memories they will have of this magical place where Grandma's live forever, where family always unites and I know that every year a stage of their life is being marked in that same place.