When Kristy Met Matt: The Conclusion

Kristy was now home for summer in West Jordan, a couple of hours south of where I was. At this time I was taking an acting class and we had to go to Salt Lake City every other Thursday to work on our acting portfolio for the Eastman Agency. Salt Lake was not far from West Jordan at all so I had the perfect opportunity to see her and visit her family as well.

She would come up on the weekend to visit her sister Lynn (it was just an excuse to see me though) and she also had a wedding reception for her former roommate Heidi. I was grilled by all of our roommates about what was taking so long. I told them that while I am only going 3MPH (miles per hour) I would still get there!

We saw each other at least weekly, with her either coming up or me going down and it was a lot of fun. But I wanted to know for sure if having a relationship with her was something she wanted too. Our next date was the one where I would figure this all out. I got tickets to see Les Miserables down in Salt Lake so I drove down and picked her up. We ate dinner at the Training Table (a yummy Utah stable) and we parked the car and walked to the Capital Theatre. We should have brought some tissue, not because that the musical was sad (and it did have its moments) but because we had bloody noses because our seats were so far up! The musical was just as good as I remembered it (I saw it already in New York) And Kristy really liked it too. After the play we walked back to the car and I took her hand. I was bringing her back to Logan so we went back to her parent's house and she packed and got ready. The drive home was great. I told her how much I loved being with her and I wanted to know if we should continue. She nodded (too shy I guess) and I took her hand again and told her she was the best thing that has happened to me.





Kristy had to come up for another weekend for a Track meeting at Utah State so we planned a date for that weekend. My friend Lared got a date himself (Carrissa) and we planned something fun. I called Kristy and I told her to dress all in white if possible. I dressed in purple, Lared dressed in green and Carrissa dressed in blue. Why? Because we went and played Clue at the mall and got Orange Julius for drinks. We were supposed to be dressed like our characters. We played a couple of board games at the mall. The mall people let us stay while they cleaned up and closed the mall. We took them home later that evening and told then that we would be back tomorrow night. We had another strange date planned.

One of my favorite date ideas to do with Lared was to take the girls to a grocery store and have them pick an item that they would be willing to eat. No condiments and nothing raw were the only rules. Lared and I would also pick out something too but we knew what was going on, they didn't. Kristy picked out sugar cookie dough, Lared and I picked out some Mixed Fruit Jello and Carrissa picked out a sausage. We went and paid for them and then headed to the local ice cream shop, Charlie's. We gave the waitresses the items and told them to make a shake for each one of them. And we had to eat them since we all said we were willing to eat them. I was so glad that I tipped Kristy off to get something sweet. The Jello one was not that great but the sausage one was horrible! But we finished them. You think that is gross? Wait till you find out what items were chosen when we did it last time! Kristy had a great sense of humor and I was finding myself much more comfortable being around her.

The next day I went and met Lared and we picked up Missy and Kristy and we headed to Hailey, Idaho to visit their roommate Angela. That was a pretty long road trip but it was fun singing and cracking jokes. We got to Angela's house and met her parents. Her mom was so excited to meet me. "Oh your Matt! The one dating Kristy!" I guess that made it official. "You know Angela has not had date one since she has been home!" Such a funny lady. It was during this trip that everything was all out in the open. Kristy and I were dating officially and I never dated another girl.

Hailey is a pretty place nestled in a canyon. We took a tour of the city with Angela and we saw Arnold Schwarzenegger's summer mansion. It was so big! I could probably live there and he would have no idea it was so big. We all went to the park and fed some ducks and birds. Lared was the Bird King. He sat down in a chair and all these birds surrounded him and he gently fed the birds. Kristy and I on the other hand were a little more fearful (as you can see in the picture below). I don't care for birds chasing me around and pecking at my feet. I was feeding the ducks talking to Missy when suddenly we hear this small yell. It was Kristy. We turned and saw her run away from the lake and right behind her was this large goose. She didn't think it was funny but Missy and I certainly did. The drive home was fun. It was nice to have the relationship all in the open now. Missy and Lared were certainly grumpy all the way home. I accidentally took a wrong turn and we drove past Snake River and we saw a beautiful canyon. The walls that surrounded the river were so high. But Missy and Lared didn't care, all they did was complain like little children!



We dated for about a year or so when I finally popped the question. But that is another column.

List-Mania: The Atari 2600

DAY 6 List-Mania Friday!

I apologize to those that were eagerly awaiting the conclusion to my 'When Kristy Met Matt' series of columns. It will come back Saturday. I have decided that every Friday will be List-Mania! Since I like making lists I thought it would be fun to have a weekly column devoted to the list.

The topic this week is one of the greatest toys ever invented, the old Atari 2600. When I look back on Christmas, I really remember the one where my sister and I scored the Atari 2600. We each got a game with it too. I still have the old system and it still works. Years later I replaced it with the Atari 7800. That system had a few cool games on it but the best thing is that it was backwards compatible. Every once in a while I will dig out the old Atari and play the all the games. The only game that I didn't have as a kid that I wanted real bad was Frogger. One day I will snag this game for myself.

So here are my Top 5 Atari games from when I was a kid.

5) Ghostbusters
I'm not sure why I liked this game so much but even now I will dig it out and play it out to the finish. Catching those ghosts can be frustrating and some of the logistics were silly. I mean really, you defeat the big Stay Puft Marshmallow Man by walking underneath him? It still made a fun game. Oh, and make sure you spend the money to pick up the vacuum to suck up the ghosts when you drive from warehouse to warehouse.

4) Vanguard
Getting to the main bad guy was hard but beating the last guy, not so much. I think the reason why I liked it so much was that you can shoot from all directions. There were a variety of bad guys and pitfalls to avoid. But the ending was horrible. One shot killed the bad guy. But you got to play it again, this time faster! I played this for hours and hours.

3) Pitfall
My sister Jennifer got this game for Christmas when we got the Atari. This game certainly had its charm although crossing the crocodiles was very frustrating. I only made it the full twenty minutes only once and always failed in getting all the treasures. It seems that the silver bars were the most rare. But what frustrated me more was when I would go down the ladder and hop over that stupid scorpion and end up trapped by a brick wall!

2) Ms. Pac-man
I got this game for Christmas when we got the Atari and this was a fantastic game. Much better than the horrible Pac-Man, this actually felt like the arcade game. It had its own mazes and you can change the difficulty so you could get rid of that pesky red ghost!



1) Joust
I loved/hated the arcade game. Loved it because it was different and fun but hated it because I sucked at it. My parents thought it was cute how the ostrich would screech with its feet when it came to a stop after a run so they bought the Atari version. I spent hours and hours trying to get the highest score (and I think it was around 800,000 or so) and the levels became just all those fast blue birds. And hitting that stupid pterodactyl right on the nose was next to impossible.

Man, this totally makes me want to dig out the Atari and play some games. I had a ton of games but unfortunately I didn't have the M*A*S*H* Atari game. I borrowed it from a friend and had it for two weeks and I played it non-stop. I visited our local game store and they had one but it cost $9.99. Not sure I want to pay that much for an Atari game.

If you want to go back in time and revisit the golden age of video games, I highly recommend this site: The Atari Age. The scans I used for this blog come from this site.

When Kristy Met Matt Part III

DAY 5

I had a successful first date with Kristy and I was happy I made an impression. School was ending shortly so I made an effort to see her as much as possible before she headed home for the summer. My friend Lared saw that I hit it off with her too and he made the extra effort to make sure we hooked up.

I used to work for Motor Cargo, I was a lumper. I would load these huge trucks with boxes and boxes of Pepperidge Farm cookies. I worked from 2 in the afternoon till between 8 and 10 at night. I got a couple of good trucks and I came home early, hoping Lared will call to hang out. He did call, he invited me over to a friend's house (Bear) and said "Kristy is here and you know what the best part is? Eric isn't!" So I showered and headed over there right away.

Lared was not the only friend that helped me. Kristy's roommate Angel was a huge help too. I was at their apartment and Kristy had to run upstairs and Angel took me aside and said, "I'm glad things clicked before she had to go home." I was glad too. That evening we all went for a hike and it was so cool because Kristy and I spent the most time together. Eric was there also, he was hiking with Angela. Angel was the only roommate in the beginning that was fighting for me, some of Kristy's other roommates were trying to have Eric win her over. That night we all went outside and watched a terrible movie, Cutthroat Island. The movie was horrible but the company was great.


Back row: Bear, Brandon, Lared, Kristy, Lared's much younger brother Dallin, Missy
Front row: Bear's brother, Steve, Angela, Me and Angel


This picture makes me laugh. It is Angela, Kristy, Angel, Me and Dallin. He looks so funny all curled up in the blanket.

The next day I went over and helped Kristy and her roommates clean their apartment. That was an adventure. Kristy's younger sister Renae came up and it was fun to meet some of her family. Kristy's roommate Missy was pretty grumpy and it was a lot of fun to really try to make her laugh. We cleaned the fridge/freezer together and that was so hilarious. Missy would take something out of the fridge and complain about it and then I would ask, "Does it have a name on it? No? Then garbage it!" Deep down inside, even though I am sure I was annoying the crap out of her, she was happy that I was helping it go by so quickly. Then I went upstairs to help vacuum some rooms and came face to face with the biggest strand of hair EVER! I picked it up and it was stuck in the carpet, I kept pulling and pulling and pulling and it kept getting longer and longer! BRRRRRRRR! Angela cornered me and asked me who I was after. I played coy and told her I was after them all! We then took a time out and went and got lunch at Quizno's. Kristy's family came up to pick her and her things up. Her mom seemed very nice and asked if I was going to visit.



Before I left, Kristy gave me a bag of Hershey's Hugs and a cute note written on pink paper. Basically she was inviting me down to visit. So she was making her choice, she wanted me.

Now I don't want to chronicle all that went on in our courtship. I have one, maybe two more columns to go, where it hits the fan. In a good way. Other columns will cover the wedding and how I asked and stuff like that.

When Kristy Met Matt Part II

DAY 4

The story continues...

My friend Lared knew that I was attracted to Kristy so he did everything possible to help get me to date her. We had a couple of group activities with a bunch of friends and I made sure Kristy and her roommates were invited. The more I hung out with her, the more I liked. She had a great sense of humor and didn't mind playing with boys by getting physical. So I decided to ask her out. Unfortunately I was struck down twice but for good reasons. Both times I asked her out and she declined, she was out of town running track. I was becoming desperate and I was getting discouraged at being rejected so many times. Lared then offered some great advice. "You need to take Kristy out before school is out and you are running out of time. Kristy needs to choose either you or Eric but you have to take her out!" So I tried again. She was studying at the library one afternoon and I went and asked her out. She said "yes" this time and I was on cloud nine. Let the best man win!

Lared and I knew that we had to have a special date. Something so cool and exciting and memorable. And we had the perfect plan!

After picking up our dates (we were with another couple of couples) we first went to Subway and picked up some sandwiches. We then took them up Logan Canyon and we hiked up to the Wind Caves. These caves are awesome looking and it was a nice hike. We ate the sandwiches up there and played around for a little bit. Then we hiked down and drove to Adam's Park in Smithfield. We got into Lared's trunk and we pulled out a ton of camouflage clothing and some Lazer Tag guns and told the girls to dress up. They looked confused so Lared and I threw some of the clothes on and Lared looks right at them and says, "It's War!" The girls complied and we headed into the park to play some Lazer Tag. It was getting dark after about an hour of playing. I suggested to Kristy that we should climb up this tree and act like a sniper. Lared and his date Marcie came across and didn't see us. Suddenly Lared was getting hit. And he knew from experience that it was me that was hitting him. Lared jumped into some bushes for cover.

It was then that Kristy and I noticed that there were a couple of cop cars looking at Lared's car. It is against the law to be in the park after dusk. Then we saw that they were coming closer and closer with flashlights. They were after us! We were in camo and up the tree so I didn't think that Kristy and I were in danger. Lared saw the cops and he yells out to run. I told Kristy to hold still but then I noticed that she was gone running! I jumped down the tree and my foot got caught in the branch and the cops were getting closer and closer. I got lose and the cops saw me and yelled for me to stop. Kristy was running so fast that she was literally kicking dirt in my face. Lared was leading us the couple of miles to our friend Joey's house. The cops flashlights were on me, I could see my shadow from the flashlights they were so close. We climbed through a ton of bushes and made it into a guy's backyard. We travelled silently in the night from backyard to backyard escaping the cops. We crossed into a horse pasture and crossed over some barb wire fences. Lared was leading and I was last, making sure that no one saw us. Both Kristy and I were startled when we saw this horse just looking at us when we got to the fence. Suddenly we looked up again and it was right beside us! We finally made it to Joey's house. He was having a party inside and we thought it would be fun for us to crash into his house with our Lazer Tags and camo. Not everyone thought that was funny, we certainly scared them! We took off our camo and laughed about the experience but we had a problem. We needed to go back to the park to pick up Lared's car.

So Marcie and Lared (now back dressed in their civilian clothing) and Joey got into Joey's car and they drove over to get Lared's car. He got back safely so we all thought it would be fun to climb into Lared's car and go back to the park. We wanted to see really how far we went. That was not a bright idea. There was six of us all crammed in Lared's car and we passed a cop at the park. Lared quickly hit the gas when he saw the cop turn around. Lared's quick and rash thinking saved us. We sped into another neighborhood and parked his car in one of the house's driveway and shut off the car and we all ducked. We were lucky, we lost the cop car. We should have waited a bit but instead we thought it would be best if we got back to Joey's house and end the night. On the way back we got to a 4-way stop sign and sure enough there was the cop on the other side. It passed us and I looked at the cop and he looked right back at us. Lared hit the gas again and the cop turned around. Joey's house was located right in the middle of the block so we took off down his driveway extremely fast and shut off the car and ran into Joey's. We got lucky once again.

I knew at that moment that Kristy was worth fighting for. She had a real good time on that date and she was not mad or disappointed or anything. I found a keeper. After we dropped off our dates, Lared and I met after to talk and we made Certificates of Bravery to award them (with a plate of cookies) when we saw them next.


Front of the card. Notice how I spelled her name wrong.


Inside of the card with the certificate. Right when I finished I realized that I may have spelt her name wrong. So I took some toilet paper and wrote an apology.




After I also heard that Eric was quite mad that I got to Kristy that weekend before he did. He was the one that wanted this war, and I was not about to let up either. I mean really, could he top my first date with Kristy?

When Kristy Met Matt: Part 1

DAY 3

I get asked this question quite a bit. Especially now that Kristy works with the Young Women. They all want to know if I asked Kristy to marry her all romantic like or if we knew we were for each other on our first date. I am not a romantic guy, I can be cheesy but I am not all that romantic. Sorry people, don't expect a romantic story here.

I was coming off a bad break up. Well, it really wasn't much of a breakup since she did it over the phone while I was sicker than a dog. I guess it was not much of a real relationship since she was cheating on me anyway. My last girlfriend was using me to lure her boyfriend to propose and marry her. Mission accomplished! My friend Lared was wise because he never really liked her. I knew things were heading downhill and it really hit when Lared called me and said she was macking with some guy that was not me. Soon after I was dumped. The only good thing that came out of that relationship was Scott and Kari. Kari was her roommate and I set her up with Scott and they ended up getting married. It was totally worth the heartache I went through to have them happy. I was the ultimate wing man! Funny thing is that she had the nerve to invite me to the wedding and wedding reception. Yeah right lady.

Anyway I was down in the dumps and went completely Anti-Girls. I decided to grow a goatee (as was the style at the time) because I could care less about dating and meeting girls. I felt bad for my friend Lared because he wanted to double date all the time and I barely had any interest. I took a marriage class at the LDS Institute and my teacher Bro. Gudmunson said that after you have been burned and spurned you would found the one you would marry right after. He was right.


My best friend in high school, Damond Peterson was running for Service Vice President for Utah State University and he asked me to help campaign for me. He was then dating his campaign manager, a pretty girl named Christa. I was happy to help out when I was available. Lared and I went from dorm to dorm and provided service for each door we knocked on. Whether it was washing dishes or taking the garbage out we got Damond's name out there by doing the service and handing them this little flyer. My hands were so wrinkly from washing all those dishes and some of those dishes were disgusting. After one of our outings Krista held a meeting at her apartment for all the volunteers that were helping Damond so Lared and I went. That is when I was first introduced to all of Krista's roommates. And they were all pretty which delighted Lared. I thought so too but at that time I could care less. But then this little blond girl came in from running and ran up the stairs and she caught my eye. The frost was starting to thaw. I had a girl I was interested in.


As it turned out it was awhile before I actually would take her out. One day I saw her on campus. It was snowing pretty hard and I tried to hit her with a few snowballs. I caught up with her and we talked and I knew I wanted to date her. But I was not totally ready just yet. Something was standing in my way and his name was Eric.

Eric was a former roommate of Lared and was a pretty cool guy and I considered him a good friend. We introduced him to the Girls of G4 (that was the apartment number at the Old Farm Apartments) and he was also interested in Kristy. At first I was okay with it, I was still a bit Anti-Girl and it didn't help matters that all of Kristy's roommates wanted Eric to take her out. One time Lared and I stopped by G4 and Kristy was the only one there and we took her over to Eric's apartment to see a movie with a group of friends. Eric was totally interested in her. One time Lared and I were running around and we dropped by Eric's to see if we could use the phone and Missy and Kristy were there playing games. I was so jealous and mad. They invited us in and we played some games but honestly I was still steamed at the idea that Eric was making moves on Kristy. I became frustrated because Eric was there all the time with her and I couldn't take it anymore and became Anti once again.

Then something happened that completely changed the game. Lared, Eric and I were heading to a dance at the University and we were talking about girls. Eric asked "You dig Kristy right? Why don't you ask her out?" My reply was "No." I explained that the reason was I don't want to cause any problems and I was fine with him taking her out. "That's weak!" is what he told me back. And that irritated me. It totally struck a nerve.

So what did I do? I took Kristy's roommate Angel out. That will show them! Angel was such a nice girl, she knew I was interested in Kristy. We had a cool date, we were in a large group with Lared taking out Angela (another one of Kristy's roommates) but unfortunately Eric was with Kristy. We cooked up some breakfast food on the roof of Thomas Jeweler's in downtown Logan. Afterward we went bowling and it was a lot of fun even though my eyes were not on Angel and I was irritated and it showed. I couldn't stand seeing Eric have a good time with her. Angel knew this and was a great friend to have at the time. She told me not to give up and I didn't.


Left to Right: Kristy with the arch rival Eric, Angel and I, Angela and Lared.

Stay tuned for Part II. It involves our first big date which included being chased by cops!

The In-Laws

DAY 2

Congrats to fellow blogger and sister-in-law Andrea for joining the 365 Madness Tour. Already I am glad that she is aboard, I stole her idea for the "DAY XX" subtitle. Now I have no excuse for quitting. She wouldn't let me hear the end of it!

She is a perfect segway to my next subject. Since I exposed my family to the masses yesterday, it is time to expose my other family. THE IN-LAWS!

Actually they are not that bad. In fact I couldn't ask for better in-laws. I am so thankful that I have Kristy's parents for my in-laws. I hear horror stories from friends about not getting along with in-laws. Some of them cannot believe that I call my mother-in-law "mom" and not by Colleen (unless I am trying to get her attention!) I come from a family of two, so marrying into Kristy's family was a little bit intimidating. She has six brothers and sisters and a ton of extended family. Even after twelve years in the family, I am still having trouble keeping track of who is who. At least I got the brothers and sisters right but that was just a recent development. Kristy's family is a lot of fun and they can be loud and rowdy at times. I was not used to that but I soon found that I can be as rowdy as them. My first meetings were memorable.

Kristy's family is from West Jordan, Utah. About an hour and half south of where I was living. Kristy and I met at Utah State University and eventually married. Her family would come and visit and as the relationship got a little bit more serious I went down to visit them with Kristy.


Front left to right: Steven (the youngest), Milton (Dad), Colleen, (Mom), Aaron (2nd youngest)
Back left to right: Renae (3rd youngest), Sherry (my age; 3rd oldest), Eric (2nd oldest), Kristy (the one laughing as always; middle child trying to get attention), Lynn (oldest, they need to separate Lynn and Kristy, they spend too much time together!)

They first impressions are important. So what did I learn from these guys?

I met Renae first. She came up to help Kristy clean out her apartment with her roommates at college. I immediately liked her. She was a lot of fun but I should have seen the signs of how rowdy the family could be when only two of them are together. I am not sure if it was this visit or when Renae visited us a different time. But we were driving down this hill and the road split into two directions. Some kid was trying to cross the road on his bike. I yelled out "Lookout fatty!" (he was a little chunky) as I got closer and he freaked out and scrambled as hard as he could out of the way. Now I wasn't trying to run him over obviously but Renae has not forgotten that story. Hmmmm, maybe that was not the best first impression I could have made on Renae. Kristy's roommates were all cranky as well when we were helping them clean out their apartment which made Renae's presence even better. We made so many jokes and laughed about everything I thought for sure Kristy's roommates wanted to kill us. Renae eventually married when she got older to a guy named Gregg. They have two boys (Naythan and Zade) with another on the way.

The next person I met was Kristy's mom Colleen. Now I know where Kristy and Renae's sense of humor came from. She was very kind and very funny. I didn't get a chance to get to know her better until later on when I came down to West Jordan for a visit but I will cover that when I get to Steven. And just wait till I met Dad.

I soon went to visit Kristy in West Jordan to meet the rest of the crew. I was working for the Eastman Agency and taking some acting classes in Salt Lake City once a week so I had a good excuse to see her. Meeting her family was a lot of fun. They were all extremely nice. Steven was so young then, he was bouncing off the walls when suddenly Kristy's mom clotheslined him (like an actual wrestler!). Kristy and I had a double date with Aaron and Steven came along too. I thought it was strange that you would invite your little brother with you while on a date but now that seems so normal. This family is extremely close. Meeting Milton (Kristy's dad) was different. When I met him he extended his hand to shake it and I went on and spoke to him. Suddenly he turns and just leaves. I thought "What did I say?" He just left, at that moment I thought for sure I had struck out with the dad-in-law. All throughout the rest of the date and the whole two hour drive home I replayed that event over and over again. He's deaf and no one bothered to tell me about it. The reason he didn't talk back to me is because HE HAD NO IDEA I WAS SPEAKING! It took a couple of more visits for me to figure this out. Her family was great. It was fun meeting them all. I only had Eric and Lynn to meet next.

Steven is now married to Andrea and they have a cute little girl named Adalie. Aaron is also now married to a girl named Wendy (INSIDE JOKE). Actually her name is Heather and they are blessed to have three children. Rebecca-Lynn, Drake and newly born Emily. Sherry was already married to a scary guy named Jason and they had one little daughter that hated me named Cassie. Now they have two boys (Joseph and James) and another little girl named Kelly.

Lynn was next to meet. Lynn and her first husband Roger lived on the "Island", which is a cool suburb of Logan. Lynn had already graduated from college so you would think that she would be the mature one right? Nope. Both her and Roger had keen senses of humor. The first thing I learned about Lynn was that she could cook! Her homemade Turtle Brownies and homemade Peanut Butter Cups are to die for! Lynn and Roger lived up in Logan so it was nice to have some family here. The first time I met Roger he asked me if I was "the One". Roger sadly passed away years later due to Cystic Fibrosis. Lynn did remarry and had a child of her own. She married a great guy Darryl, who has 2 boys (Alec and Casey), Darryl has a unique story and a helping hand for everything. They have one girl named Jessica. They still live in Logan.

Eric was the last one to meet. All I remember about meeting Eric was when he teased Aaron of having a date that night. "You gonna take her swimming so you can see her in a swimsuit?" He kept asking that to Aaron. I didn't want to laugh out loud since I wanted to make a good impression but I thought that funny and I wanted to jump in. Eric had four children with Rachel. He has three boys (Josh, Scott, Ryan) and one girl (Breanna). Eric divorced and later remarried. He married a fun Halloween fan named Raelene who has three children of her own, one boy (Tristan) and two girls (Breanna, Danielle) They currently live in Wellsville, a small town about twelve miles away. Which is nice, I have a partner to play Madden with, we just don't get a chance to play much.

Now it has been twelve years since I have joined this family. I think I fit in. The best part is that I am not alone. I have an in-law support group to help handle the rowdy Breinholt clan! Like I said before, I am very fortunate to have this family as my in-laws. I really couldn't ask for anything better. Scratch that. It would have been nice if they were rich! Some of my fondest memories are with this crazy Breinholt Bunch. Nothing like watching scary movies together and fighting with oars, two blog columns coming up sometime.


Left to Right by appearance of their head:
Rebecca-Lynn, Aaron, Heather, Alec, Drake, Lynn, Darryl, Casey, Jessica, Tristan, Breanna B, Raelene, Ryan, Eric, Milton (Dad), Breanna, Colleen (Mom), Jason, Sherry, Yellie, Kelly, Cassie, James, (geez there are a lot of us), Me, Joey, Kristy, Steven, Logan, Adalie, (and we are missing Josh and Scott too!), Andrea, Naythan, Renae, Zade, Gregg, I hope I spelled them all right!

It Begins!

I can't believe that November is here already. Time certainly goes pretty quickly. We had a saying while on my LDS mission. "The days seem like weeks but the weeks seem like days". While that may be true most of the time, there have been some weeks that felt like months but I think that is only during football season. This morning I debated about which entry should be the inaugural entry but I couldn't pick one out. Instead I think I will start out with some of my basic family history. Maybe put some faces on some names I am sure to mention again.

My full name is Matthew Paul Platis. I go by Matt, I think only my mom still calls me Matthew. I was born in 1974 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. So yeah, I am a Canuck. My parents, Paul and Kathy were both born in Utah. They had my sister Jennifer and then they moved to Edmonton. My dad was offered a job with the Provincial Parks and they moved to Canada. I was born at the Royal Alexander Hospital. We lived there for thirteen years. My parents divorced and I and my mom moved to Richmond, Utah in the United States. My dad and sister stayed behind. Eventually my dad moved to Logan, Utah (just a few miles away from Richmond). My sister stayed in Edmonton and she got married to a fella named Dave. They lived up there for a few years and then he applied and got a job at Utah State University here in Logan. So they moved down. My dad got remarried to a Canuck and she (Pauline) moved down to the States as well.

I have a brother named Nathan as well. He is my dad's and Pauline's son. My sister also had a child while she was living in Canada named Jillian. Soon after they were born, I served an LDS mission to New York City. After I came home I soon dated Kristy, my eventual wife. My sister divorced her first husband and I got married. I married Kristy Breinholt back in December of 1997. My sister Jennifer then married a guy I used to go to high school with named Justin. Kristy and I had our first child named Logan in 2002. Soon after my sister had a couple more kids named Dax and Jace.

So there you have it, a basic family history. You will be hearing about these people again so that is why I am giving you a brief look at my family.


Kristy, Logan and I.


My Mom.


Logan, my brother Nathan holding nephew Jace, my niece Jillian and my nephew Dax.


My sister Jennifer and her hubby Justin.


Grandma Pauline, my Dad (Papoo) and Logan

One of my future columns will cover all about Kristy's family. They deserve their own column altogether.