The birthday skeleton

When your wife is on crutches, your kids are all at work and at school, you are doing all the work for everyone and it's a Monday, for crying out loud....

You might have low expectations for a birthday celebration.

Because you are 47 now and so very wise. 

When she asks you what you want for your special dinner (as she lays strapped into the that leg machine for hours and hours), you say, "I've really been craving pizza from Minsky's, let's order in!"

When she worries about not being able to decorate, you say, "I don't care about streamers." 

And then you go to work and take care of business and you got to the gym and also take care of business. 

And then you come home for lunch and take your bored wife out to grab a burger and pick up your 12 ft skeleton that is kinda your birthday present because you really never could think of anything else to ask for. And you aren't mad about it, you don't silently pout or punish. Your 47 and there's no time for that. Not to mention, that skeleton is gonna be super cool.

 Megan picks up the Minsky's and Everly sets the table with the special red plate and one of the fancy glasses from the dollar store and there are all your girls. They love you and you are the man in their life and you get the best hand drawn cards in the world. 

We call up Mathew and Ethan and Kassie so we can all sing happy birthday, but despite your wife's repeated attempts to take a screenshot of everyone together, she absolutely cannot stop cutting someone's face out, turning down the volume or clicking the power button. Too many buttons!

Mathew comes to the rescue and offers to take the picture from his phone. 

Its a birthday singing, harmony finding event and then there is a clamor of "I love you!!"  "Happy Birthday Dad!' before the grown kids resume their activites.

It's cake time.  The best cake ever....made by the lady that loves you most of all. 

On crutches. Using her gardening roo pouch to fetch the eggs out of the garage fridge. 

Holy smack, we love you.  You make our world go around. 

Thank you for being our IT guy. You keep everything humming along, setting things right, fixing, automating, improving and loading the dishwasher. 

And not for nothing, that skeleton is very cool. 

We'll worry about where to store him in later. 

MNU Oly Meet

Have you ever cried for joy at a weightlifting meet? I have..and I'll do it again!

Everly has been doing Olympic weightlifting for a couple years now. She was lifting with Lion Chaser most of that time, but the drive out to Gardner and the cost was really starting to wear us out. 

So when we decided to start our own Oly Club at On Track, she decided to switch over. Coach Sahn has transformed her and her confidence has grown exponentially!

This was her first meet and she did awesome!

One of the very best things about On Track Oly is that Mark and Everly are doing it together. So they are able to spend lots of time working, talking and building their relationship. I couldn't love it more.

This was Mark's second meet. He set a goal to lift at least 200 kg combined on his lifts and he got 210!

 Their final numbers: 

Everly Snatch: 12 kg, 14 kg, 15 kg

Everly Clean and Jerk:14kg, 16kg, 18kg

She got 6 out of the 6 lifts and really loved the experience!

Mark Snatch: 85kg, 88kg, 90kg

Mark Clean and Jerk: 110kg, 115kg, 120kg

He also got 6 out of 6 and was so happy with all his numbers!

And she's still our girl. 

Father's Day Favorites

Breakfast made by these beauties!

Sacrament meeting selfies

Chicken on the grill

Potatoes roasted and seasoned with all the favorites: paprika, garlic salt, course black pepper, parsley and olive oil

Perfect cold seedless watermelon

A real surprise! He actually doesn't know what he's getting!! He really, truly doesn't know! For real!

(And can I get a shout out for that awesome hiding spot? Nobody wants to look inside the sewing machine case)

A Ninja Creami! Not only that, I drove to pick it up myself from someone on Facebook marketplace, talked the price down and didn't get murdered in the process. I made five flavors of healthy ice cream yesterday and they are ready to spin!

AJ cheers on the machine

That's the face! 

 I love that face.

Brace yourself

 He hasn't changed a bit. 

Under the knife

 While we were exploring in St. Louis, Mark had an unfortunate accident while doing a box jump at the gym. He knew instantly that he had really hurt his knee. He went in for an MRI and they confirmed that he had torn his ACL. He also had some additional damage on his meniscus. 

I was BUMMED. 

He needed to wait for the swelling to go down before they could operate. 

Finally the day arrived. He was ready to get this behind him and start recovering.

He said his goodbyes...

Coming out of anesthesia and hearing the new that the surgeon trimmed the meniscus was pretty hard for him to hear. He had hoped it could be repaired. 

Getting him in the car wasn't easy. He was so sick and struggling to stay awake. I was glad that Mark Anderson insisted on being there when it was time to get him from the car to the house. 

So he waits. He heals and does his physical therapy. 

He comes to the gym to see friends and get out of the house.

He takes terrifying picture of his staples. And maybe shares them on social media without warning. 

I'll be so glad when he's not hurting and can get back to doing all the things he loves. 

Deranged

 Just as we were leaving St. Louis, I got a frantic phone call from Janelle, one of our coaches at the gym. "Mark is hurt! You gotta get over here!"

It's hard to get over there when you are a four hour drive to the east. 

We headed back to Kansas, and Mark went over to Kansas City Orthopedic Institute to have it looked at. It was swelling up fast and after an MRI, it was determined that he had torn his ACL and meniscus. Or as they put it..."internal derangement of the left knee". 

Looks like it's surgery time. 

I guess 5 days of golf and high box jumps are a bad combo? 

Unplanned

I didn't know that I would be in Utah this weekend. Mom is very sick and the siblings there have been taking care of her around the clock. They are tired and we're all worried. She isn't eating or drinking and so I flew out to take a turn and give everyone a break. But mostly I don't wanna miss time with my mom if she isn't planning on sticking around for another 10-20 years. That's really not something I wanna think about, but when we lost Dad 16 years ago, reality came in uninvited. 

So I loaded the fridge with Costco meals and hopped on a plane. 

Mom stayed in bed for just one day, and then she rallied! She wanted to go outside and work in the garden. I know exactly how she feels. It's the best medicine. The siblings that had been watching over her these past weeks a monitoring how many ounces she drank or trying to convince her to eat a little something were flabbergasted. 

I'm not sure why she started feeling better, but I won't argue! We're gonna make the most of any feel-good days she has. The garden soil worked its magic on our souls and Mr. Carrot popped out to say hello. He was definitely a Mister. (stoooop!)

Mom grabbed her binos and we went out to check the water levels and look for any winged creatures. We drove around Burraston Ponds and remember the time I forgot that I had a straw in my drink and went to take a sip and that straw stuck straight up my nose...in front of my whole Beehive class at Burraston Ponds. This is what Utah does to me.

We drove past our old Payson house on the way back to Spanish Fork. It looks mostly the same, but sadder. I wish they had kept it up. That house deserves more love. 

Back in Kansas, Mark had a run in with a stray trailer hitch on his way to Arkansas. It was dark and raining and it completely totaled his Jeep. Which sucks. But I am grateful he come through that without any injury. That easily could have flipped the Jeep on impact, or he could have been hurt out there in the dark while he was checking out the damage. 

The offending hitch: 

But he didn't let it throw off his Dad game! I still got me Sunday Sacrament Selfie

And he forced the kids outside to go swing on the swings are get away from their screens. He's my favorite.

I got to sneak in some Ethan time and he introduced me to the wonderful world of Kolaches. 

I continued the tradition of being totally startled by the scarecrow girl in her basement. Dear Heaven, that thing looks like a real kid from the corner of my eye. Never fails. 

I set off with loaves of bread in my purse. A happier trip than I anticipated on the way out, but that's how life goes.