Chad & Marleah

Amanda's Shower

2010-05-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

I'm the worst blogger ever! I always think of things to write, but never take the time to write any of it down. Hopefully I'll get better as this is my only source of journaling!

A really good friend of mine got married last month and I was able to throw her shower. She is the sweetest and married the sweetest guy. I couldn't be happier for their new family! Click here for some pics from the celebration!

Teachers

2010-03-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

I love twitter. I follow about 15 people that regularly tweet links to cool stories and what not. Its a really simple way for me to stay up to date with the things I care about. But every once in awhile, they'll tweet normal stuff about their lives. Recently one of the guys that I follow tweeted this:

Great kindergarten e-mail: "Please remember to send your child to school tomorrow with a stuffed animal for a class project on measuring."

Marleah and I don't have kids yet, but when we do, I hope they have teachers that email us parents. I think it would be such a cool thing to get daily emails from my kids' teachers. Imagine how cool it would be if everyday they sent something like:

"Ask your child about the game we played with fish today. Everyone loved it!"

I think these quick emails would increase parent participation by a hundred percent. I think it would create more communication between parent and child, as well as create more interest from the parents in what they are learning at school.

I may be wrong, but I think it's a small thing that could create a huge change. That's Change I would believe in!!!!

Reading for the A.D.H.D

2010-03-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know me, you know 2 things: 1. I'm Mexican. 2. I'm the poster boy for A.D.H.D. That being said, I love to read. I am constantly reading blogs, magazines and books. One thing that has always been difficult for me is to concentrate on things for a long period of time without being distracted. It takes all I have to focus on my scriptures to read even a chapter because my mind is always racing about one thing or the other. So, much to my joy and happiness, a new company has come out called Vook. Basically, they make books that are a combination of Text, Video Clips and links to other information on the web. You read them on your computer, or on your iPhone (and soon your iPad! ) I have read two of them already and I absolutely LOVE them. The combination of text and video clips makes for an absolutely immersive learning experience. Plus, whenever they are talking about a place, person or company, they always have a hyperlink to the web somewhere so you can see exactly what they are talking about. I friggin love it!!!!

The two that I have read so far are Unleashing the Super Ideavirus by Seth Godin (which right now is only $1) and Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck. Both are business books, but there are plenty of Vooks on the site that are fiction. The next one I'll buy will probably be the Sherlock Holmes vook.

My dream is to have a Vook of Mormon. I would just love to be able to read and have video clips of general authorities about a particular scripture or principle. That may not happen in my lifetime, but I'm certain there will be iPads in heaven, and a Vook of Mormon will come standard on each one of them.

Mechanics Suck! Except for...

2010-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

This last week Marleah and I were put through the ringer with her car. We needed new brakes, but everywhere we took it, they said we needed different things. I was pissed! Some mechanics said we needed $700 worth of work, some said just brake pads, but they wanted to charge us $400.

I hate mechanics. It's the same crap everytime.

So, we decided to buy our own parts and hire someone that her Dad knew. While shopping at an Auto Parts store near our house, we were talking to one of the guys that worked there. He mentioned that he was a mobile mechanic and I asked him more about it. He said that he only works at the store part time and does this mobile mechanic thing the rest of the time. He then whipped out his appointment book and showed us how booked he was. And man, his entire book was friggin full. I thought, either this guy took a long time to fill in an entire book of fake names and numbers, or this guy is really really good. Turns out to be the latter.

I am very pleased to announce that we have a mechanic that i will go to for the rest of my/his life.

He even bought the parts we needed, brought them with him and we paid for them and his time all at once.

He came to our house. Worked on the car there. He showed us what he did. He made some recommendations of things we should look into in the next few months and gave us a receipt. He charged us $100 plus the $70 in parts. Done and done. Can you believe that? Compare that to the last time you took your car to Jiffy lube!

I love honest people willing to do an honest job for honest pay. He was probably Republican. ;)

Give him a call and tell him Chad sent you. He probably won't have any idea who you're talking about, but I've always wanted to say that.

Dropbox and Evernote

2010-02-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

Ok guys,

I wanted to tell you about two things I use EVERYDAY. Both of them are free and both of them are absolutely awesome.

Dropbox allows you to have a file folder that holds all the normal things you would put in a file folder (word docs, pdfs, excel files, etc...) except that this file folder is available to as many computers you want to install it on. This way, it is totally simple to save certain documents at work, and then have access to them at home. Or in my case, I can view and edit documents on my computer, and my assistant can view and edit them on hers. And whichever is the last to be updated, is the one that is available in the Dropbox folder. Brilliant! It runs on macs, pcs, and iphones.

Evernote is every bit as awesome as Dropbox, just for different reasons. I'm one of those guys who uses To Do lists extensively. I have too much going on in my head to function without them. So, i've always used to-do lists that synced to both my iphone and computer so that no matter where I was, i could view and edit those to do lists. The thing is, to do lists aren't very good at keeping notes. Alas, comes Evernote. The killer app with Evernote is it's ability to "tag" notes. This way, you can easily sort your notes into sections. I simply use one of the tags as "To-Dos". So this way, I have one place to keep all my notes as well as my to-dos. You can easily sort voice memos, photos, web clips, text memos, basically whatever you want. I love it. And it, too, is available on macs, pcs and iphones.

Enjoy your weekend.

My wife is AMAZING!

2010-02-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

This weekend was Marleah's first official event as owner of Limelight Events. And WOW, did she do amazing. I do have to also say thank you for all the friends and family members who helped us (especially our Moms who spent countless hours putting up the damn ceiling....twice!) ha ha. The event was gorgeous and the bride cried when she walked in and saw everything. I know that meant a lot to Marleah because she worked really hard on it. We'll add pictures of the event soon, but I just wanted to give her a shout out for all her hard work. And if you guys haven't seen her new website, CLICK HERE.

I love you babe and this is the beginning of something AWESOME!!!!!

Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam

2010-01-31T16:27:00.000-08:00

Every Sunday I am entertained by a group of 3 year olds for 2 hours. My Sunbeams have LOTS of energy, but say the craziest things that makes it all worth it. This week we learned why Jesus loves us. They had to stand in front of the class and hold a picture of Christ while they finished my sentence. These were my most favorite responses:

Jesus loves me, because "He gives me stuffed animals."

Jesus loves me, because "my sister's tooth is wiggly, but the tooth fairy hasn't come yet, because it didn't fall out."

Jesus loves me, because "He builds me things with legos."

Oh to be 3 again!

December

2010-01-13T23:13:00.000-08:00

December was super busy for us, just like everyone else. These pictures pretty much sum up our month.

December 2nd marked the one year date of when Chad first kissed me. Normally a first kiss wouldn't be that big of a deal to either of us, but considering the fact that we had been friends for four years prior, it was a big deal to our relationship. I found this little present in my purse on the 2nd. He even engraved the date of when we first kissed on the back. Isn't he the sweetest?!

David Archuleta concert. Don't judge!

Knotts Berry Farm, which is now equally as ghetto as the Circus Circus Adventure Dome. The recession did not do this place good, or was it always this ghetto?

Bunco Group. Enough said.

Rodeo date night with the greatest in-laws EVER! I love Paul's face in this picture.

Paul and Nola took everyone to dinner at Lupo and Larry the Cable Guy for one of our Christmas gifts. We had so much fun! I didn't know red necks talked so much about their poo, but I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.

Quick trip to San Diego.

Our first Christmas!

Hope everyone had a great holiday month as well!

A Magical Birthday

2009-11-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

Chad rocks! That pretty much sums up this post. On Monday he came home from work and told me to pack my bags, because we were headed to California for a few days so we could celebrate my birthday at the Happiest/My Most Favorite Place on Earth! I was completely surprised and beyond excited. We got there around dinner time on Tuesday and had dinner at Roy's. They go all out for your birthday. I was totally impressed. On Wednesday we woke up early and spent all day and night at Disneyland. Chad was such a good sport all day. It will definitely be a birthday I will always remember. Thanks for making it so special babe!

Friends Thanksgiving

2009-11-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

When I was in college we started a tradition of hosting a Friends Thanksgiving a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. It was a great excuse to hang out with whatever boys we were crushing on, and who doesn't love Thanksgiving twice? This year my friend, Katie, and I decided it was time to start the tradition again. As a parting gift we made everyone carmel apples and wrote a short note as to why we were grateful for them. I was reminded that I am truly blessed to have so many amazing people in my life. The evening was filled with good food, good company, and I'm glad my current crush will be spending every Friends Thanksgiving with me.

This Week

2009-10-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

La Familia

Marleah's youngest brother Tomsen left on his mission to Goinia this week. We went to the airport to drop him off (it was sad), but we all know he's going to be such an amazing missionary. He read the entire Quad this summer. That's intense! We got the email from the Brazilian MTC saying he had arrived safe and sound. God Speed Elder Reed. God Speed!

This last week a bunch of us went to the beach. It was a ton of fun. This picture is the perfect example of the difference between married guys and single guys. See if you pick out which is which. :)

On that note, everyone I know is on some kind of diet. Everyone from my mom to all the ladies in my office have done this crazy HCG diet. And, to their credit, they have all had awesome results. So, my wife really wanted to try it. So far, in 6 days, she’s lost about 7lbs. Congrats honey! My brother and I are doing Nutri-System. I just got my shipment of food last night, but Jesse started about a week and half ago. He’s down 15lbs! Holy crap! I’m stoked to start it because the toughest thing for me about dieting is portioning out the food and trying to decide what to eat when. NS does all of that for you, so i’m stoked. Today I’m at 252. I’ll keep you updated with the progress.

Here’s a cool iPhone App for all y’all who aren’t eating pre-determinded meals out of a box.

Jesse had his business spotlighted in the Dixie Newspaper! Congrats buddy! Too bad they spelled your name wrong... at least they got the business’ name right! Check it out HERE.

My cousin KJ, who can always be counted on for a quality forward, sent me THIS. It really is unbelievable the crap you see in Walmart.

So, I’m in the YM presidency in my ward. I’m over the teachers and I love my guys. They are hilarious and a really good bunch of kids.... most of the time. Friday night was not one of those times. At about midnight, my phone started ringing. I didn’t answer it. About 4 phonecalls later I finally answered. Here’s the trasnscipt: “Hello?” “Hi, Do you still have the escalade?” [confused] “Um, yes, why?” “Can I come and get it?” [even more confused] “Come and get it? No, you can’t come and get it!” [now, the caller’s confused] “But I thought you said you were giving it away as charity?” [what the f?] “What are you talking about?” “Uh oh, someone must be playing a joke on you. Your name, number and pictures of your escalade are on Craig’s List right now. It says you’re giving it away for charity. Have fun with all the phone calls!” [son of a b] “Thank you”.

After about 10 phonecalls, i finally turned off my phone. In the morning I had about 20 messages and about 10 texts. The kids actually went through the trouble of finding pictures online of a blacked-out escalade to post with the ad. Touche young men, touche!

I came across this cool little product this week. It was a finalist in the TechCrunch’s “product of the year”. It just started shipping this week. I think having something that tracks both your activity level as well as your sleep is definately a cool device. I'm very much considering trying one of these bad boys out!

Did you guys see the pictures of the massive dust storm in Sydney last week? If not, here you go. Can you imagine waking up to this? I think many a folk were thinking it was the end of the world.

Quotes of the week

“A fool learns after his mistake. A wise man learns after yours” RevRun

“Even big gates swing on little hinges.” My hometeacher

It was a good week

2009-09-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

La Familia

I’m writing this week’s blog entry as Marleah and I are driving to California, thanks to a little iPhone Hack courtesy of my super cool brother-in-law Sterling.... who happens to be with in NYC this week with my sister Sara (his wife) on their first vacation without kids. He showed me how to enable Internet Tethering on my phone, so now, anywhere I get cell coverage, I can plug it into my computer and have internet access. Life is Good!

Marleah's Brother Tomsen had his fairwell today. It was such a great talk! He really is so prepared for his mission to Goiania. He's been working so hard for the last few months to learn portuguese, read the entire standard works and learn as much as he could about Brazil. A little bit different from my last few months before my mission, which consisted mainly of dates with girls that wouldn't talk to me in high school and as much goofing off as possible.

My dad has surgery on his shoulder this week. It wasn’t too serious, but they were putting him out so he decided to send us kids an email the night before. It was his impromptu Will! As I read the six sentances he wrote us, that basically covered everything, I couldn’t help but get a little tear in my eye. I called him up and said “Dad, what the heck are you doing emailing us your will?” He just laughed and said he didn’t have one so just in case something happened, we’d know what to do. Luckily he survived the surgery and is doing just fine! I think I should probably hire an attorney for him... I’m guessing that an email isn’t exactly a legally binding way to pass on your inheritance. We love you Padre!

Online

At work, for the last six months, I’ve been working on a brand new Online Auction Portal that we just launched last month. On the 15th, our first “totally online” auction ended. It was a rousing success and has literally changed the way we do business. In the 5 weeks the auction ran, we had over 6,000 people visit the site. 900 of them created an account. We received over 750 bids on the 20 properties. Yesterday, Eric and I drove around looking at the next 20 properties we’re auctioning off next month. We’re sooooo excited because not only are we able to sell these houses cheaper than we’ve ever been able to do before, it allows us to be so much more efficient than ever as well. It’s so awesome to have a project go so well.... especially since I’ve been working on this thing so hard for so long. Yay for the internet!

As you all know, I work on my computer a ton, but since I’m off the charts ADD, i usually jump from project to project. One thing I find incredibly helpful is to decide beforehand how long I want to spend on that project before I move onto the next. Or sometimes I just have a meeting in a certain amount of time that I don’t want to forget. So I started using an online timer. www.Online-stopwatch.com is a very handy little tool to keep you on task or remind you of something you need to do soon. I like it especially when I want to remember something that I don’t want to put into my calendar.

Lynda.com is definatley one of the coolest thing on the web. I love it! It is BY FAR the largest database of online video tutorials of software and computer related tasks. It’s brilliant. For instance, right now I’m watching the Excel for Mac videos. There are about 50 videos available... each one 3-10 minutes long, all sorted into topics. It’s the best way to learn how to use new software or just refresh your memory. Lynda.com is $25 a month or $250 a year, but there are tons of videos on each topic that are free (try before you buy style). Check it out... you're gonna love it!

Did any of you see the Black Eye’d Pea’s appearance on Oprah last week? It was the coolest thing I’ve seen in a very very long time. They got 20,000 people to dance in sync and surpised Oprah at a live conference they did for her. Watch it here.

This Week’s Read

Dan Brown’s long anticipated follow up to The DaVinci Code came out this week. I read it in a couple days and loved it. I still haven’t decided if I liked it more than Angels and Demons (which is my favorite of his 5 books) but it was definately a page turner. I’m not sure it has the same heart stopping action that A&D has, but it has a much better “moral of the story”. There were definately some great plot twists, really interesting concepts to think about and some very cool doctrinal truths that very few people understand. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t have at least one LDS scholar in his research team for this novel. (The Church was mentioned in the book, so it's definately a possibility).

Speaking of LDS in the media, check out this awesome audio slideshow of a Chinese born missionary in NYC that was in the NY Times this week.

The Boob Tube

For the last few weeks, my buddy Tod Bunker and I have been enjoying a show called Hard Knocks. It’s an HBO miniseries on the training camp of the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals. HBO just has a way of making incredible miniseries (John Adams is one of my favorites of all time). They do such an amazing job of showing the lives of these very engaging NFL stars. Last week the running theme they had (off the field) was the way the different players spend their money. It was hilarious to watch these multi-millionaires haggle sales ladies on things like the price of a bed. I guess old habits die hard. My favorite scene was when Chad OchoCinco (his name up until last season was Chad Johnson, but since his number is 85 he decided to legally change his name to OchoCinco) Anyways, he went to buy some new diamond earrings and where did he go? Ben Bridge, Jared’s, any jeweler? No he went to Claire’s, in the mall. Claire’s is a little store in the mall where teenage girls can get little accessories. (There’s nothing over $20). Anyways, Chad walks into this little girl’s store, picks up a $12 pair of diamond earrings, holds them up to his ears and says “No one can tell the difference!” How did he pay for those $12 earrings... his American Express Black Card, which has an unlimited spending limit. Hilarious! Tod and I follow a couple of the Bengals on Twitter. Chad’s tweets might be the funniest things you read all week.

This Week in El Mundo de Ramos

2009-09-09T23:48:00.000-07:00

La Familia

First off, I HAVE to start out with the most disgusting thing any family member has ever forwarded to me. And, not surprisingly ;), it was from my cousin Kjersten. If you guys haven't already seen the "Back Cyst" video clip going around (and you are a complete masochist) than go ahead and view it HERE. But I must warn you, IT'S FREAKING GROSS!

Ok, now onto a much happier and MUCH less disturbing bit of news. My cousin Brock has finally started to do the funnest aspect of his job. Since he started his new business last year, he told me about all the cool things he wanted to do for cars. This week he started making custom sidesteps for trucks. The picture I have doesn't have any of the custom designs, but those pics are coming. So, congrats buddy!

Labor Day weekend held for Marleah and I, the most delectable treat one can imagine. Hiking. 6 miles. Uphill. Both Ways. Ok, so not both ways, but you get the idea. Marleah's family is, what's the word?... fit. They do things like ride bikes to work (in Khakis) and hike uphill for FUN! Now, before you think Marleah and I are complete pansies for not enjoying the outdoor version of the stairstepper, you have to understand that some people just aren't uphill hiking people. I'm not talking about nice strolls in the mountains or scenic walks in the hills. I'm talking about out of breath, legs burning, wish there were such things as jet packs, hiking. Her grandpa is the perfect example of this. He's in his 80's and still runs marathons. AND SMOKES! And, what did he wear on this "Strenuous" hike (labeled by Mount Charleston as such)... Jeans! Oh, I have a long way to go to keep up with this family!

College Football

WOW! Did you guys see that Oregon football player LOSE HIS MIND? Apparently getting his butt handed to him on the Boise field wasn't enough for him. He had to go end his college career by punching out one of the Boise players (who probably deserved it). If you didn't see it, HERE you go.

And how bout them Cougs? My sister (who goes to Oklahoma and isn't LDS) was at the game in Dallas and after BYU scored the last touchdown texted this to me: "It's Not Fair. You guys have God on your side" . ha ha. Turns out my buddy Jeff went to the game too.

This Week's Read

I stumbled across the COOLEST book ever on the Constitution. It's called The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation. It's actually a comic book... sort of. It explains not only the history, but also the content (including all the amendments). Anyways, I read it in a few hours and I can officially say that I know more about the Constitution now than I've ever known before. I got it at Barnes and Noble for like $13. Highly Recommend it!

Online

Here's the funniest thing I saw all week, A japanese puppy trying to roll over.

Here's the coolest App I found all week, A human powered photograph identifier.

Here's the most clever thing I came across this week, an ad campaign by Grasshopper.

And to finish off this week's post, here's a tweet from Zappos.com's CEO:

This Week's Best... Part 2

2009-09-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

As promised in last week's post I'm making this a weekly tradition. I actually enjoy recounting my favorite things of the week cause it reminds me just how cool of a world we actually live in.

La Familia

My sweet sister Bri had her birthday today. The big 21! I made her a little video, you can see how adorable she is HERE.

Ben's birthday was also today, but he's got a wife and a ton of friends that threw him a birthday party, so he didn't need a fancy video from me!

Cody and Natasha had their baby this week. Mother and Baby are doing awesome, but it was a close call! Let's just say that 24 Hour Fitness almost had their first in-gym birth. They haven't picked a name yet but I'm hoping for Chad Nelson Hailstone.

Jesse continued his assault on world domination by landing 3 more schools this week. He's now signed up over 1600 students to start selling his book. There's nothing like having kids do the dirty work for you! (As if he hasn't been busting his butt for the last year on this project!)

ONLINE

First off, my Mother-in-Law sent me this hilarious video. So True!

BY FAR, the coolest thing I use every single day is an application called 1Password. It not only lets me save all my passwords in one convenient (and safe) place. But the best part about it is that it will automatically log you in to all of the sites you need logins for (which is basically everything these days!). For instance, if i want to check something on my bank account, with the click of one button, it will take me to my bank's website and then type in my username and password automatically. It's freaking amazing! It also allows me to store credit card info so that if I'm buying something online, all i have to do is click a button and it will automatically enter in my name, credit card number and expiration date. It really saves me so much time during the week. I can't imagine living without it now. I believe 1Password is just for Mac users, but I hear LastPass is an excellent solution for PC's.

This week I read this very disturbing blog on Cool Tools. It's generally one of my favorite blogs to follow. But does this creep anyone else out?

I read a lot of articles and things online, but I don't always have the time to read it right then. There's a new add-on for Firefox that I just started using and I love it! It lets me quickly and easily save entire web pages to read later. And the coolest thing about it is you can save them to read on or offline... on your computer AND on your iPhone. In fact, since it's a browser, you can save an article while you're at work, and read it at home (or anywhere else).

So, like I said last week, Marleah and I canceled our cable. And, as I suspected, we haven't missed it at all! One of the things we did was get a simple subscription to Netflix. The coolest thing about Netflix is that you can instantly stream movies to your laptop and watch them immediately. This week I watched an awesome little indie movie called Henry Poole is Here. It's got a great message and was pretty darn funny. I highly recommend it.

Simple Pleasures

Last, but not least, is my guilty pleasure of the week... Socks. This week, I went and bought two bags of brand new, fresh, yummy, perfectly white No-Show socks. It's seriously the best $20 I'll spend all year. I just love the feeling of brand new socks on my hainously large feet. They're wonderful. And they are one of the biggest reasons why God didn't send me down here during the time of the pioneers.

We Did It!

2009-08-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

That's right, after 4 years of being really good friends, I officially became Mrs. Chad Ramos on Friday, June 12, 2009 and I couldn't be happier. Our sealing was amazing and it was so fun to be surrounded by so many great friends and family members. The sealer said some words I will never forget, "The Heavens rejoice tonight, because an eternal family is being born." I was so touched and am so excited to start a life with Chad. I am so lucky to call him my husband and I am so happy I get to spend every day with him. We have so much fun together and I can't wait to share many more adventures and memories with him.

Our reception was the next night at the Harber residence and it rocked. We are so lucky to have such great moms (and step dads) who gave us a perfect night. So many family members and friends gave their time and talents that night and we thank you all! There were many highlights of the evening including Chad's surprise video to me and the Golden Spoon served. We're officially famous at the Golden Spoon near our house. It's fabulous.

We spent the weekend at Encore and Monday we were supposed to leave for Hawaii. We barely made it in time. More on that story to come...