I was looking back at some of my old posts and realized I had posted for my daughters birthday but quit before my sons. Brandon turned 10 years old on Sunday. I honestly cant believe how big he is. I drop him off at the intermediate school in the mornings and I keep thinking "you're too little for this big school". I asked him the other day as we were headed there if he missed elementary school and he replied in usual Brandon speak, "no I'm ready to transition".

The problem is I don't think I am. I miss my little bubba, which by the way he has asked us not to call him in public but I will forever anyway. I miss the little him running around, peeing in the front yard, and throwing rocks through the neighbors van window.

That's crazy I know but I still miss that boy. Fortunately he is growing into the most amazing, caring, unselfish, giving person I have ever seen besides my Dad, which one day he will understand is a complement. I love him with all my heart and am sooooooooooo proud of that kid.

It's Been Too Long.

I just remembered about this thing due to my wife updating hers, we both like to practice the art of procrastination, She likes to say I'm better at it but when you get a chance ask her about her school work.

Tons has happened this last year so I will just touch on a few of the high points. We went to California this year for vacation and took a couple of girls from our church group. They are like daughters to us and they kept out teenage foster daughter company and were just lots of fun to have around. Two out of the three girls had never seen the beach, which we stayed right by. They had never been to Disney Land which is unheard of I know, but we helped fulfill their dreams.

Summer was a blast, my son joined a swim team and did amazing for his first year, I really cant wait for next year.

My wife and I are still plugging away at school, its a long road but hopefully worth it in the end. I started running again and have a relay race in about a month, the RedRock Relay, its like 180 miles and there will be 12 of us so I decided to actually do a little training for this race, I know not my usual thing but we'll see how it goes.

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Quarterly Update!

Its time once again for my every other month post due to my slackeritis disease. I contracted it sometime between the fifth and sixth grade and have been unable to find a cure yet.

Luckily not much has happened over the last few months so this will be brief. I started school again and am 3 weeks away from officially being a bachelor in some line of expertise. That is correct, I will be considered an expert of sorts in the field of business management. If you have a business you need managed I will know how to do it in 3 weeks, give me a call to reserve your spot.

We got a new pet. I begged my wife and she finally caved and now she loves the little dog like one of her own. I kind of like him too. He is a miniature Yorkie and is pretty darn cute for a punter dog. For those of you who don't understand, that is a dog you can punt across the room when they yap. Its an actual law on the books I think.

I finally entered the world of Face book. That's right, all three of you can now be my friend on the wonderful world of Face book. I can see why it is so addicting, I have to fight my wife to get on the computer once in awhile just to look at it. She lets me for a few seconds before grabbing it back and hunkering over in the corner again, yep she has a problem also. Yes that's her at the gas station.

It's All Cory's Fault

I'm going to die this Saturday. At sometime around 8:00 a.m. I will more than likely leave you all behind and go somewhere better than where I will be at that time. And it is all Cory's fault and I ask that you go after him to the full extent of whatever law you can.

Let me explain to you why I am blaming him in advance for something that I know is going to happen in the future. I'm sure you will come to see the logic in what I have to say. I read the blog of someone who I will only call Cory at this time, you can find out more about him by checking out the blogs I read. In this particular blog he ranted and raved about this amazing trail race coming up that you just had to try, remember it is AMAZING! I haven't really run much since the marathon last year because I ran that without training and hurt my foot. After months of doctors and rehab it feels pretty good and after reading his description I decided to sign up. My wife cautioned me that I may want to go run it before hand.....just in case. No, I thought, it's only 4 miles, I can handle that, plus I didn't recall Cory mentioning it being particularly difficult.

It sucks! I ran it today, and let me just say I think I might not make it back from this. It has what seems like a 500 foot drop off in the beginning. I'm not exaggerating this at all either, it is literally a drop off, sure it is a gravel road, but I'm fairly sure it is meant for mountain goats, not vehicles or people, especially people racing down it. Plus it hurts like crap, I think it might hurt less if I just tuck into a ball and roll down it.

Once I got to the bottom I couldn't figure out where it went from there. Sure there were some trails but every one I followed led me to nowhere, they just stopped. Now I have never been accused of being smart but seriously, they just stopped. After getting attacked by a massive, again not exaggerating at all, cloud of biting horse flies, I decided to head back because I had no clue where to go. Then I had to crawl, almost not kidding, back up the 1000 foot drop off I had just rolled down.

Fortunately for me that only describes the first part of the race, I still have to run another 3.5 miles. Besides that, no problem. I just hope the course is really marked well so they can find me later, or that they have anyone above 90 sign up so I have someone to follow that I can keep up with.

Worth the Effort

Over the weekend we took the kids and went up to Zions to do a little relaxing during the free national park weekend we had. Our plan was to go up do a little hiking and then get an ice cream cone and relax for a bit.

We decided to do the Emerald Pools hike and intended to get up to the upper pools. In order to get there you have to first hike up and through the other two pools which we did pretty easy. The final bit up to the upper pond was a little more strenuous than I remember it being years ago, that or I am incredibly older than I used to be. Either way, there were plenty of times that I wanted to quit and head back down for that ice cream cone waiting at the bottom.

The next morning as I was doing a little scripture study in the morning it got me thinking about that hike again. Here I was on this beautiful hike and when it got rough, I didn't want to continue with it. I had been satisfied (I thought I was anyway) with how far we had hiked and the sights we had seen up to that point, how much was I really missing anyway? When we got to the second pool a lady came by and told us not to waste our time going any farther, because it looked the same as the middle one . It did not in fact look anything like the middle one, and we would have missed this fact had we trusted her interpretation of the hike.

At the start of the hike up from the second to the upper pond, the path became quite steep, rugged, and tiring and I remember asking on a couple of occasions whether everyone wanted to turn back and go home.

Luckily on this hike, much like in life I had surrounded myself with people who would not be satisfied settling for less than the best. No one wanted to stop but me and that pushed me on through the rough spots to the end result which I was able to share with my whole family.

While on this hike we had so many little inconveniences and annoyances, from rocks and dirt to these little bugs flying around our heads, to people telling us it wouldn't be worth the effort, yet every time I felt like quiting, those around me wouldn't let me until we finished the hike.

How thankful I am for a family that hasn't let me quit any of the hikes I have been on in my life. I'm a much better person because of them.