The City that never sleeps - NYC

I love this city for a couple of reasons, first is because I spent two years of my life serving these great people and the second reason is that I love the atmosphere of the city life. Everyone is always doing something and it is the city that never sleeps, literally. I keep telling Mandy that I could live here, but it would be hard with three kids. Don't worry grandparents it's not going to happen, but if the right opportunity came around, you just never know.

One Saturday night we went downtown all dressed up ready to go clubbing. We had heard about a couple of clubs that were pretty cool. The first club that we were going to go to was closed for some reason. So we drove around looking for some more clubs. We found another cool club dropped the girls off, and had to go and park the cars about 1/2 mile away of course unless you want to pay $65 dollars to have your parked in a parking structure. This picture is right outside of Club One, it was so fun! Right after we left the club, there was a bar fight that ended up in the street. We all watched guys and girls hitting, kicking and pulling hair. NYC police was trying to drive in to break it up, but because of all the taxis that wouldn't move the fight had to stop on its own. It was crazy. In the picture from left to right is Spencer Carlson, Me, Ryan Starks, Justin Bankhead, Taylor Dame and Jared Kalama.

After the bar fight, we decided to get something to eat. There was this pizza roach coach van parked down the street. We were all really hungry, and needed a break from clubbing for a minute. The ladies all dressed up to. Simi is Jared's fiancee and then you have Mandy and Courtney Bankhead.

Nothing like a NY pie! It was really good pizza from a guy that was making pizza in a small van on the side of the road. After we ate pizza, Mandy and Courtney wanted to go home, at this point is was about 4am. Luckily we drove two cars. So we told the girls where we had parked the car, gave them cash for a cab ride to the car, but the car was not where we told them it was. It was one street over. So Mandy and Courtney walked up and down the street we told them where the car was for about 20 minutes bare foot. Their shoes were really hurting them. They finally found the car one more street over, and headed home.

As for the rest of us, we weren't quite ready to go. So we went to another club for the rest of the night and into the morning. Ryan Starks is a smooth talker and got us in. We didn't leave the club until 6 am. When we walked out the sun was almost up. We didn't get home until 8 am. It was a really fun night, but I don't know how people can do that night after night. Next NY trip we are for sure just going to go site seeing or see a show.

Ryan's 31st Birthday

Ryan's birthday was back on the 17th. Ryan's sister Whitnie also has a birthday just a few days prior so they had a joint family Sunday birthday dinner to celebrate. This is the delicious, moist, homemade pumpkin with cream cheese frosting birthday cake I made for them. Whitnie actually got to pick the flavor since Ryan was unreachable down in southern Utah on a boys dirt bike trip.

The two birthday kids

Whitnie & Ryan




"Happy Birthday!!"

The next morning, on Ryan's actual birthday, when the kids got up nice and early we headed off to Magleby's Fresh for a birthday breakfast with Dad.

All the kids loved the french toast.

Our beautiful fresh morning faces!

That night we left the kids and went out to dinner at Tucano's, and since Ryan is such a big 007 fan it was perfect to top off the night with the new James Bond movie.

Happy Birthday Babe! I hope you had a great birthday. You really deserve it.

Snowbird

For as long as I can remember my Grandma & Grandpa Hill have had a time share at the end of July up at Snowbird. One of the funnest thing we used to do is go swimming. It's a good thing that our kids love to go swimming as well. I love Clara's face. She could not get enough of the water, she wanted to swim on her own, until she realized that she couldn't do it without help.

Ellie is our other swim bug. She loves the water as well. She always wanted to go swimming and Mom was lucky enough to come with dad this time. We had fun doing flips, floating our her back and jumping into the pool from the edge. She was so brave to do all of this, and I'm thankful that Mandy put them in swimming lessons because I know that this has really helped McKay and Ellie love the water. Great idea babe!

The typical breakfast at Snowbird is French Toast by Great Grandpa Hill. On this morning our kids were enjoying Coco Puffs. Uncle Jackson wanted to be in the picture. The kids love having Jackson to play and wrestle with, and especially go to the game room.

I had to get a picture of Ellie's typical crazy morning hair and a mouth full of cereal. Love ya kid!

Snowbird had this new swing set built since I had been up there last. It has only been about 5 years since I have been up there. It was so cool! They have made some great changes up there. Mom, Dad, Aaron, Kenz, Jackson and Grandma and Grandpa Hill all played tag on the swing set. The catch was that we couldn't get off the swing set, the kids really loved it and both of them had to go the the bathroom in the bushes because they were laughing so much. We all had a great time.

Clara had a great time up there as well. Here, she is so proud of herself walking. She had walked all the way down the hall from our room. This was her first week of walking. I'm so grateful that we where all up there together to encourage here to keep going. She is getting so big. You go girl!

The weather was great up there and the kids loved to be outside. We went and walked down to the tram building. Here is McKay and Ellie standing in front of the Tram building, this is one the of the classic Snowbird pictures.

Clara just couldn't stop walking. She loved to push the stroller around until Ellie wanted to take a break from walking and it got a little too heavy for her. She got distracted by chasing squirrels around the patio. She kept pointing and squealing.

Family picture in front of the Tram building. If you notice the scooters that are behind us, people can rent these scooters, get a ride up on the tram to the top of Hidden Peak and ride them down to the bottom, and do it all over again. So if you look at the last picture on this post you will see what happen to me this time.

Aunt McKensie and Ellie had a great time together. We know of this fun little covered path that you walk through a small stream. You have to step on stones as you cross the stream. Ellie always wanted to be with Kenz and especially going through the water. Thanks for being such a great aunt to Ellie Kenz, she really loves you.

So as I explained up above, we had made two runs on the scooters. It was getting to the end of the day, and so we all new that this was going to be our last ride down. If anyone knows me I like to push myself harder than I can handle sometimes. I was riding behind my dad and was about to pass him. All the sudden he slows down, and of course I'm going faster than I can handle, so I hit the breaks, hit his back tire and went over my handle bars. As I came over the handle bars my initial response is to put my hands down to help stop my fall. Well as I came over the handle bars my foot got caught on the handle bars and pushed me to the ground faster than I could respond. Luckily I hit my helmet first and then came the top of my nose. I was so pissed and in shock, that I just got up and wanted to ride down. My dad made me lay down and relax. I thought at first that I had opened up my nose again like I had done earlier in my life. Once we got down to the bottom of the mountain, I went to the First Aid office and they checked me out. Everything was fine, he said that I may have broken my nose, and he recommended that I still go to the hospital and get it checked. The funny thing about this story is that I had called Mandy on the way down the mountain and asked if she could look up the closest Urgent Care with our Insurance carrier. She wanted to know why and I explained everything to her. She was not surprised. So once my parents and I arrived at the Urgent Care, there were two people that had greater needs than mine, so they recommended that I go to an Emergency Room at the hospital. I was a little taken back. We drove to the Timpanogos Hospital and did all the X-Rays and stuff, and they told me that it was not broken, just cracked. I also didn't have to get stitches. They cleaned up my nose and put this special glue on my nose to help seal it. So that is the story. I hope that you enjoyed it.

Adam "Ace" Bullock Bachelor Party

Our good friend from High School Adam Bullock is getting married this month and none of our friends can get married without a good Mormon bachelor party. The closest thing we could think of was taking him to Hooters. Of course the other guys and I enjoyed it too. It's really the only time we could go and do something like this with our wives approval. We stopped and picked up some fun trinkets for him and Sara to enjoy after they get married, of course. One of their items was this Love Voucher coupon book. The girls at Hooters had a great time with us, and we really made if fun for Adam. Congratulations Adam!

Like I said the girls at Hooters really enjoyed helping us celebrate Adams bachelor party. Adam was a great sport! If you look really closely, you will notice he is wearing one of the surprises that we picked up for him. I think the girl in back really liked Adam.

What is a Bachelor party without the strip club. It was just down the street from Hooters, so we figured that it was Adams last night out on the town, why not? Only the four of us will know what really happened that night, right boys?

Just helping Adam prepare for what to expect in the strip club.

Wow! What a night! Just coming out of the strip club, you could see that we all had big smiles on our faces and the ultimate thumbs up. We will have to make this a annual event. I think Bracken spent the most money inside though. Again congratulations Adam. We are all so grateful to have a great friend like you. Sara is a very lucky lady and I know that you will extremely happy together. I hope that you had a great time that night we sure did. We will have to plan on having many more.

For all of you who know us, we would have really liked to have gone into Southern Xposure, but we know better. I was just kidding about just coming out. We actually went and watched a movie that night right boys?

First Ski Lesson

Ryan took Ellie up to Sundance for her first ski lesson a few weeks back. She had a great time and did a wonderful job. They have even been back another time since. I guess Ryan's experience as a ski instuctor is coming in handy.
They met up with Whitnie and Jackson up there. Whitnie was our camera person so we have some great video shots of Ellie and her Dad. Occasionaly Ryan would let go of Ellie and have her ski down the mountain to crash into Whit. Here's to a lifetime of skiing, and maybe next time we can even get McKay to go.

What made Bajio, Bajio . . .

THE AMIGOS!!

Wow! What can I say about these two hard working women. Carmen is the one to my right in the black hat, and Gudelia her sister is the one to my left. You know how every business has that one employee that you would give anything to have! Well Carmen was that employee.

She was with me from the very start. She was very quite at first, and I really never paid that much attention to what she was doing for Bajio, but she was creating customers for life. She has great customer service skills, very friendly and outspoken. There is no way I could have done what I did at Bajio if it wasn't for Carmen. I know that we learned a lot from one another, and I think that I learned more from her than she ever learned from me. She had great experience and helped me with scheduling, translating (ya those 4 years in High School taking Spanish from Senior Thomas didn't do much for me). I wish I would have really focused on that. Well the past is in the past. Carmen is amazing. She along with my wife Mandy kept me very patient, and believe me I needed it. It seemed that I didn't realize that I was so high strung there, that when ever anything happened I would always get upset very easily, and Carmen was always there to help me understand the situation better and calm me down, which helped me run a smoother store where everyone was happy. I hope that she learned from me the power of leadership. I don't say that to pat my self on the back, but we would play off of each others strengths and weaknesses. I know that is why our store in Reno succeeded the way that it did.

Carmen is there running the Bajio all buy her self. Why? Because she can. And she is doing a damn good job at it to. I'm very grateful that I found Carmen when I did. If you are passing through Reno, please stop buy and say hi to Carmen and the amigos that work there. Tell them that Ryan sent you, and maybe you can get a discount:). Thanks again for all your hard work and effort Carmen, Gudelia, Anita, Araceli, Olivia and Laura. Yes, almost my whole staff was women. They are amazing guys, take care of them. I will deeply miss all of and will always have the highest respect for each and everyone of you.

Anita! Anita! Anita!

She was like the energizer bunny. She would keep going and going. She was my morning Hot Prep. I think she could read me the most of of anyone. She was very scared of me at first. I wonder why? She would tell Carmen every day that just by looking at my eyes, she could tell if I was mad, happy, sad, frustrated you name it. And 99% of the time she was right. It seemed that she would always find a way to avoid me while still getting her food prepared on time. A special thank you goes out to this wonderful women. Lunch time was always busy and she kept that Hot table always full. Thank you Anita for all you did for Bajio I will miss you.

Carmen again doing everyones job without being asked. She is pealing the Tomatillos, which will become the Verde Enchilada sauce and Salad dressing.

Victor. We shared many stories, and had lots of laughs. Victor was a very hard worker and also made it possible for Bajio to run the way it did. Thank you Victor.

Araceli! She was my Cold Prep at night. She was so much fun to tease. I would always scare her when her back was to me as she was preparing food. She hated it, but it was fun. She was like a second mom to me. We could talk about anything. She cleaned houses in the morning and then would come and work most of the night preparing food for the next day.

At night, many of my employees would tell you that I was much nicer and funner to be around. I guess I could relax at night, because we didn't have the push like we did at lunch. I really enjoyed my night crew and they worked very hard as well. Anita worked nights sometimes and she would actually smile at me, because she could see that my eyes where happy.

Thank you all for your dedication to Bajio and helping me run the restaurant the way that I intended it to run. All of you where always willing to help, and go beyond what you where asked to do. I will miss the 12 to 14 hour days spending time with all of you, and I will NEVER forget the memories all of you and what you all mean to me. Now it's time for me to spend time with my family. I can't wait to do that. I love you all and hope that you have great success in the restaurant business.

Farwell Bajio

The Sunday before our move some of the crew took Ryan and I out to dinner to thank us. Well the dinner was mostly to honor Ryan but I got to go as well.

It was fun as Ryan's wife to be able to go and witness the true appreciation and respect they have for Ryan. They all agreed that Ryan is the hardest working white person they have ever met and he proved to them that not all white people are lazy. Go Ryan!

Thanks ladies for a wonderful dinner. It was a joy working with all of you.

Ryan Turns 30!

We got back to Utah from our California trip on November 9th. Since Ryan's 30th birthday was November 17th, we decided to have his birthday party while we were still in Utah and able to celebrate with family.

Grandpa Jeff, Clara, Ryan, Jackson, Great Grandpa Hill

Ryan with his two sisters, Whitnie and Mckensie

Clara playing cars.

McKay "playing" cars.

Like father, like son.

Ryan with his black frosting "Over the Hill" cake.

"Make a wish!"

Ellie with Aunt Lindsay doing their favorite pose.

That is what black frosting will do to you.

The beloved Wii!
We still need to get more accessories for it but the kids enjoy the sports games.
McKay has already bowled a 219!

Thanks to everyone that came and helped make 30 a memorable birthday for Ryan.