Wow! Almost Two Months!

I've been quite remiss in keeping up with our online blog/journal. I'll have to summarize several events to catch up. I'll explain them in approximately the same order they happened. Adrienne has been swamped with a couple of audits at work, so she wasn't able to go to a few of these things.

First, our dear friends Kim and Dan celebrated Kim graduating from UVU. She earned her degree in Elementary Education. I was able to go and take some photos for them and we went out to dinner later that night.

The very next week, my brother-in-law, Austin, graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelor's degree in business finance. I hadn't seen my sister and her husband in way too long. It was quite a bit of fun to catch up with them and see all of his family.

Then I headed out to Missouri and Illinois to help out my parents. My mom picked me up from the airport in St. Louis and we drove out to Peoria, Illinois so that she could sign the papers to sell their old house. Both parents were a little sad to sell the house, but it didn't seem like they would find a way to move back there in the near future and it was a bit of a hassle to keep it rented. We drove back through St. Louis the next day and continued on through to Ft. Leonard Wood Missouri (where they live now). They had been renting one home, but it sold, so I helped them move their stuff over to a new rental. My time flew by while out visiting them and soone we headed back to St. Louis to put me on a plane. Before I left, though, we stopped by the giant arch and took some pictures.

Our team finished up the Payson Coed Volleyball season by winning the middle level tournament. We had been undefeated during the regular season so they bumped us up to the Flight 2 tournament. It took all we had, but we were able to finish the championship game 2-1. We won athletic bags for each team member and a $50 gift certificate for the whole team to have a victory party at a local pizza joint.

In the Spanish Fork Coed Volleyball league we played in a much harder league (the top level). We ended up 4th during the regular season, but fought our way to third in the tournament. No prizes, but we had a ton of fun.

Adrienne had her annual MRI to check on her Multiple Sclerosis. Once again the doctor was astounded at how good she is doing. None of the lesions are progressing and some are even shrinking. It's great news for both of us. Her doctor thinks that the way my wife exercises and her diet must be how she is able to continue such positive results.

As soon as volleyball ended I had scheduled to have knee surgery. My knee has been bothering me for a couple of years and the orthopedist discovered that I have an "Osgood Schlatter's" variant...which basically means that they needed to cut open my knee and remove an extra piece of bone from my patella tendon. Fun, right? On May 18th, we went into the hospital and they performed it as an outpatient procedure.

My mom came out to visit and take care of me as I recovered (since Adrienne could only take off 1 day from work). She was a huge help for both of us and really made the whole situation better. I was pretty loopy for the first few days due to the anesthesia and lortab, but soon switched to ibuprofen. It's now been about 12 days since the surgery and I'm not even using crutches anymore. I've got a doctor's appointment one week from this Friday. I think he'll be removing the stitches. In the meantime, I need to start riding our exercise bike to begin rehabbing the knee.

Another part of mom coming out to visit was to bring out my dad's old Camry. It's one year newer than my Accord and it has about 70,000 less miles on it so we think we can keep it for a while. My parents bought my old Accord to pass onto one of my cousins. We were very grateful for this exchange because they paid just enough to cover the cost of both my surgery and my wife's MRI.

Now we are down to the two most important events of the last couple of months. Our brother-in-law Will is a Marine. He came home from Afghanistan yesterday. I am grateful and humbled by his service for our country. He got off the bus at Camp Williams and hugged his wife and 1rst daughter, then got to meet his second daughter for the very first time. It was a touching moment and we felt privilege to be there. Of course he also got to see many of his brothers and sisters and his mom too.

Last, but not least, today is Adrienne's birthday. We did most of the celebrating during the week, so today we decided to take it easy and rest.

I will do my best get back to consistency in posting on her for the future. Also, maybe I can post a bunch of pictures for the things that have been transpiring recently.

Oh, and by the way, HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! May we all never forget the sacrifices of those that protect our freedom!