About Us

The "about us" page is for you to get to know us a little bit better.  Some of the things you'll read might surprise you, while others you might have expected to be true about us all along.  Either way, we hope it will be a fun read.

About Richard:

First of all, my name is Richard Neldon McLaughlin. Yes, Neldon. It was my grandpa's name, so don't knock it.  Anyway, I was born in Ogden, Utah.  I lived in Layton for the first 5 years of my life and at that time, my parents owned a farm, which was full of chickens, pigs, horses, the whole shebang. 

Though I was super young at the time, I do have a few sweet memories of those days.  I remember stepping on a rake on the ground that had the fork sticking up and getting hit in the eye with the handle.  I remember throwing eggs that the chickens were laying and one of the eggs having a live chick fall out as it hit the ground.  I don't remember getting kicked in the chest by one of our horses, but I'm told it was particularly painful.  Ahhhh, good times...

We eventually sold the farm and moved to West Valley where I spent most of my youth.  As you may have guessed, I am a Utah boy through-and-through.  I have some very fond memories of these years.  My father built a shed in our back yard, next to the house and we had a trampoline next to the shed and I remember doing some crazy things on that trampoline.  My brother and sisters and I would climb to the roof of our two-story house and run across, jump to the roof of the shed, which said roof had an arch to it, like a triangle, and we would jump from the highest point of the roof onto the trampoline and see how high it would get us. Let's just say that our parents had the trampoline taken down a few times. Luckily, those stunts never got anyone hurt. One seemingly innocent stunt that my sister, Angie, tried to pull off did get her arm broken though...

I went to high school in West Valley, at Hunter High School and joined the drama class, as well as media productions.  For a very long time, it has been my dream to be an actor.  I love the rush you get from hoping your performance satisfies the audience and that you don't forget your lines.  I'm a bit of an adrenaline junky, yet I'm also a very cautious guy.  I love the feeling of adrenaline, but not doing anything dangerous to get it.  I love the SkyCoaster and the Catapult at Lagoon, but I don't think I would ever bungee jump or go skydiving.  I love scary movies and stories, as well as going to haunted houses (real houses, not the ones you pay money to go to, though those are fun as well).  I enjoy having nightmares.  I love the feeling I get from these kinds of things.

I love to play sports, though I'm not particularly talented in them.  When I was in junior high, I joined the wrestling team and made it on the varsity team.  During a game, I broke my arm in half, literally making an L shape with my forearm.  I was told I couldn't play any sports again for at least a year or so.  If you've ever seen the scars on my arm and wondered what they were for, I had to have surgery to put plates in my arm to keep them straight.  Eventually they were taken out.

Shortly after graduating high school, in August 2005 I went on a mission to Brazil. Specifically the "Brazil Salvador South Mission." There, I had some of the most amazing experiences of my life and I learned so much about myself and about my church. I taught many people the gospel and even got a couple married before they were baptized. I learned about an amazing culture of people I knew virtually nothing about before and came to love them.  Brazil is etched into my very core and I will always hold a special place for its people. Don't get me wrong, I'm an American through-and-through, but even though I don't litterally have Brazilian blood in me, I feel like a Brazilian at heart.

Oh, and by the way, that's where I met my amazing wife... But that is a story for another page.

About Mila:

 I'll let Mila explain about herself when she gets the chance.