Knee Recovery and Priest Man-to-Man

It's been another few weeks since the last post so I should catch everyone up on a few things. My knee is doing much better. I've been riding an exercise bike for 1/2 hour a few times a week. I'm fine going up and down stairs and feel good doing most activities. I'm still not allowed to run (1 more week) or jump (4 more weeks). I can't wait to finally get back to my normal sports.

This last weekend we had our bi-annual Man-to-Man activity. Basically it is a huge father and son outing for all the priests (16-18 year old boys) in our stake. We went up the canyon to a camp area and stayed overnight. Friday night we had dutch oven prime rib (3 varieties) as well as potatoes, veggies, cobbler, ice cream...all kinds of yum. To finish off the evening we had a great fireside program. In the morning (after a great breakfast), we gave the youth and dads a chance to compete against each other in some shooting sports (rifles, pistols, and shotguns). The shotgun competition was the most organized. We had an elimination game with 5-6 at a time. Then we took the winners of each group and had a championship round. I snuck through my first round against some less than accurate shooters but got in some valuable practice. When it was time for the championship I surprised everyone by winning the whole thing! Pretty good for someone who hasn't shot a shotgun in about 7 years. They were even throwing types of skeet I'd never seen before. They had regulars, minis, mosquitos (very small and black), battues (very flat and black), and even a lollipop thrower. All in all it was a great time for everyone and we had a blast putting it together.

My mom had surgery this week. Nothing too serious and she is recovering well. She has a young man from the neighborhood coming by to help walk the dogs and help her out as needed.

Well, I hope all my friends and family had a great Fathers' Day. Take care and hopefully we'll keep up on this blog better in the weeks to come.

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!

Conference Weekend and Easter

We didn't have any big plans for the weekend. Just sitting around the house in our pajamas watching General Conference. It is always great to hear the messages of hope and faith.

Today is Sunday, Easter Sunday even. We are having Heidi, Trevor, and Stephanie with her two little ones over for dinner. I've never done much with a crock pot, but decided to try out a recipe online for a roast. I hope it turns out all right. Hopefully we can have Sarah and Austin come down sometime soon.

New Furniture

It took quite a bit of effort to finally get all the furniture in the house and assembled. We didn't realize how much work it was actually going to take. But the furniture is in and pretty much all of our stuff is moved over. It is so nice to finally have bedroom furniture that we picked out ourselves. We had been using furniture that my parents gave me for Christmas when I was 5 or 6.

We stayed with Andrea and Brent again in St. George on our way to and from the tournament. While in Vegas we stayed at the Rio and even made time to hang out by the pool for a little while. It wasn't quite warm enough to swim in the pool, but we did take a dip in the hot tub.

On the basketball side, BYU lost to UNLV in the semi-finals. It was a tight, hard-fought game. I hate it when I feel this way, but I truly feel the refs decided the game in the final minute. They weren't great during the game, but were even worse in the deciding moments. On the other side, BYU played their first round NCAA tournament game today and won...99-92 in double overtime. They fought hard and we able to come out victorious over some adversity.

Busy Times

I really will get better at posting. We're headed down to St. George and Vegas this weekend for two purposes. We are going to St. George to pick up the furniture we ordered last month. We're then going the rest of the way to Vegas to watch some of the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament. BYU has a tough road this year. Assuming we make it to the semifinals, we'll face UNLV on their home floor. If we make it through that game, then we'll most likely have UNM in the finals (just the #8 team in the country).

While we're down south I hope we get to see Lauren and Jimmy's new baby boy (Julian). It always seems as though we are running too and fro. I'll be sure to make more time to write moving forward.

St. George Weekend/Valentine's Day

We had a great trip down to visit our friends in St. George. We stayed with Brent, Andrea, and little Gabriel. He has become such a cute kid. When Ade and I would eat cereal for breakfast, he would alternate between us asking "please" in sign language to give him a bite of our cereal. It was adorable so how could we resist?

Part of the reason for the trip was to finally use the $250 gift certificate for Ashley Furniture we won last year. We finally (after 10 years of marriage) decided on a bedroom set that we both liked the style and the price. We also got a couple of end tables and a coffee table for the front room. We'll have to post some pictures later when they make it to our house.

Sunday was Valentine's day. After going to church with Andrea and Brent we headed over to the Todds' house. It was great catching up with everyone there. Tiffany and Colby's kids are getting so big, as are Tyler and Brooks. Lauren is due with her third on the 2nd of March and Jimmy was gracious enough to take some photos for us. I think I'll end with some photos that he took. Keep in mind, these are the unadjusted versions. He was going to send us some touched up later.

Catching Up

We've been running all over like usual. A friend gave me a couple tickets to the BYU basketball game against TCU. Ade couldn't make it but Dan came and it was a blast. The seats were way up high, but we had the whole row to ourselves so we could spread out and be comfortable. The best part? BYU won by 20.

Too bad they ran into a buzz saw last Saturday. UNLV whooped us pretty badly. They hit their first 9 three-point shots. Even their center was draining shots from down-town. BYU is a good team, but there are just some nights when the other team just can't miss.

Thursday night we are heading down to St. George this weekend to have a little getaway. We won a $250 gift certificate to a furniture store last year...and just haven't had time to use it (since it is in St. George).

BYU Volleyball and Physical Therapy

On my birthday, Adrienne gave me a "Voucher" that promised she would take me to a BYU Volleyball game. Last Friday she made good on the promise and we went to see the BYU vs Stanford game. It was a blast. We got there early and were able to sit right on the baseline. Normally we are in the first or second row by the net, but this offered a whole new perspective. You could see just how much the ball moves on those rocket jump serves. The best part was that BYU won!!!

I've been doing physical therapy for right knee tendinitis over the past 3 weeks or so. My therapist believes in "soft tissue remodeling" to help build your body back the way it needs to be. It's truly not a pleasant experience, but it does seem to help. Also there are exercises and stretches that I do to help the overall process. The good side of enduring the physical therapy is that I am now able to play volleyball again, but I have to stop if it hurts again. If you want to get an idea of what I'm talking about...do a google search on ASTYM or Graston physical therapy (two different ways to do the "soft tissue remodeling"). I don't think you can understand just by seeing it online just how unpleasant, and painful, it is.

Fun Date Weekend

After a long week of work and busy-ness, we got a nice night at home playing cards and eating dinner in the family room.

And on Saturday we were able to go to BYU with some friends to see the Living Legends, an ethnic dance group. We went with the right friends too because our friend Dan who is half Navajo and half Apache recognized most of the Native American dances and could tell us about them. We also took Jason to Olive Garden and finally converted him to the diverse tastes of the pasta palace. Who can resist alfredo and bread sticks? Not me!

Jason is slowly taking care of his painful knee. Too many days without volleyball and basketball have finally pushed him over the edge and he can now be found with a thick rubber band doing thigh-master type exercises. We are both hoping the process will be worth it so he can join the family traditions of sports again (and not just watching them on the sidelines with Adrienne and friends).

We wish congrats to BYU football for ending 12th in national rankings and to BYU volleyball for starting their season out strong. We can't wait to see you next weekend against Stanford. GO COUGARS - HIT IT HARD!

-- Thinking of you all, Adrienne

CPR Certification

Adrienne and I got certified in CPR a couple days ago with Heidi and Trevor. It's pretty nice to have a friend that is an official instructor. We should get our cards in the next couple of months.

My new work is changing offices at the end of this month. I'll finally have my own space and it will be much better for all the employees.

I'll try to write more in the weeks to come, but we've just been so busy lately.