::Fun in St. George Pt. 2::

Wow! This post has been a long time coming, hasn't it? Well hopefully it lives up to the suspense that I've created.
We had a great time in St. George as I said before, even though by now it was forever ago.
One morning Kris and Max went on a pretend bike ride and then read some stories. Here they are dressed in their biking finery. This picture is so cute!!

"Put me in the Zoo" is Max's current favorite book. We've all read it to him about a zillion times on this trip and he knows it absolutely by heart.
Later that morning they went and played some baseball. Max has a ways to go with both pitching and hitting.

He thinks he knows how to do it because of the Wii.



Maxes pitches are what you could call a "little" low.

Except for this one!

It's cute to see them play together. Kris is very patient.
The baseball game got interrupted when Max spotted a snail. He'd never seen a snail before so it was really exciting. They caught it and put it into a jar.

It made him a little nervous at first.

He was very interested in the snail's "backpack" and what it was for. It was fun to talk about snails a little bit. He's so interested in everything right now.



They found a few more and added them to the jar. Later that night the snails slimed out and went back to their snaily business.

Last but certainly not least Max got to go on a "slow" ride around the block with grandpa Ken on his motorcycle. This is a rare and exciting treat.
Here he is looking very concerned because the bike wouldn't start.

It needed a push. Lucky Kris got to push it.

They somehow avoided running over the little old lady that was walking down the street. It was a close one though.

It started up so Max got placed back into his seat.

He held on tight.

Grandpa did keep his eyes open for most of the ride.
This is my favorite picture. He looks worried, but I don't really think he was. He's a pretty trusting little guy. And he loves things that drive. I love the motion here.

Well, we will definitely be back to St. George, and nobody will have to twist our arms.

::Fun in St. George Pt.1::

We just got back from a week long visit to St. George. Kris's mom and dad have a condo down there where they like to spend a lot of time, especially in the winter. Actually, they're going to be moving down there more permanently after we leave UT, but that's a story for another day.
The week was great because as those of you that live in utah county know, the weather there during memorial day was cold and rainy. Which translated in St. George to cool and pleasant. Just the way I like it out there.
Today's post will concentrate on the funnest feature of the condo, which is the communal pool. Everyone loves it, especially Max. Max did a lot of swimming last summer because we belonged to a fitness club that had a couple of outdoor pools. It was just a short walk from our house so we went there all the time. As a result Max feels very confident in the pool, and is able to have tons of fun.
He was tall enough this time to actually walk in the shallow end which made him really proud of himself.

We had to force him to put on his waterwings--and he would only agree to do it in the deep end.


He made up all these great "dives"--you know, all the same jumps that we all made up at the swimming pool when we were little--jumping in all straight, backwards, spinning, etc. etc. He was so brave with jumping in. Nothing slowed him down. He actually made me nervous several times because he jumped in with such complete abandon.

Swimming is such a fun activity to do with Max because everybody has a good time. This is unlike a lot of small kid activities that sometimes have to be endured. We all like swimming. Grandparents included.
Here are some more fun shots for you.



I love this one, he just looks like such a cute little fish or a puppy or something!

Max and his Grandpa--Grandpa Ken was very helpful in making up crazy jumps with crazy names.

We're going to have to find a pool somewhere in Rhode Island!

.::Kris Graduated::.

I know youguys probably thought he didn't actually graduate because it's taken me so long to post about it, but the man did wear the gown and walk across the stage. And we were SO proud!
In fact, I really wish I had the cable to download video from my camera here in UT, because then I could show you how loudly Max was screaming for his daddy when his name was called. It was really cute.

Here he is just before graduation, in the room where they were all mingling and waiting. The light was obviously not so good, but oh well.

Does he look ready to graduate or what?

Here's Kris and one of his best friends from school, Jeff.

We had great seats during the ceremony and could see Kris right where he was sitting. They didn't start out with their extra robes on, they had to carry them up to the stage where one of the professors placed them over their heads. It was interesting. At mine we just wore ours. I guess these dentists think they're a little different or something... :)

Coming down the steps...a graduated man. Please note his shiny sneakers. We had to go buy new ones just before the ceremony because we had accidentally packed all his shoes except a pair of very casual sandals. At least he got some cool new shoes out of it!
At the end of the ceremony the audience was all supposed to wait for the graduates to leave the hall (oh, I mean the gym. We're pretending it's some sort of hall.) But Kris motioned to me that he wanted Max to come with him. So I sent him running over there. He was thrilled to parade out with his daddy. How special!
I don't know if you can see much of that in this picture, but at least now you know what it's supposed to be.

It was great. Actually graduating actually made the last four years almost worth it!! Just kidding, now that it's over I can say it was totally worth it. I'm just so proud of Kris for finishing it all, it was quite the big job and VERY stressful. Yay for being finished. It's an excellent feeling.

Some Adventures

Ginna asked me to post some pictures of some of the stuff I'm doing during my break. I'm glad to be done with school and out doing some of the things I really enjoy. I'm expecting these to be just the beginning of the good times until I go back to school.
Here is Sultan at the San Raphael Swell. He went swimming in the river and then retreated back to the car. This was taken a few weeks before school ended, while I was driving Sultan to stay in Provo.

I love to mountain bike in Moab. Here I am on the Slickrock trail, schooling my riding friends on how to climb hills.

Even the teacher had to walk his bike a couple of times.

This is the second trail head during our day of riding in Moab. My friends burned out a little before I did, but It was a good time nonetheless.

I won the award for the best crash, Jeff had some good falls too, and somehow the rookie, Cody came out unscathed.

Next, I took my friends down to the Grand Staircase for some hiking. They had never hiked in Utah, so I took them to some really great slot canyons. They were a little slow getting through, but It was really fun to have them with me and to show them something they had never seen.

One the narrows we hiked was called spooky. It was about as narrow as we could get through. Jeff and Cody are a little "pumped", so some of the stretches got really tight.

We eventually made it to St. George where I took them on a ride through Snow Canyon. The canyon is an incredible ride, but very strenuous to reach to top.

Cody, who isn't a cyclist, did an amazing job riding my mom's bike (I put this bike together for my mom, with a hidden agenda of making a bike I would also ride). The gears weren't shifting well and Cody rode better than many people I ride with regularly. He might have a career in modeling bib shorts.

Today, my dad and I hiked the Left Fork in Zion's National Park up to a famous rock formation called the Subway. It was really an amazing hike, but pretty tiring too.

This is a shot of the Subway. My dad put up a good post on the hike, so if you want to see more pics or read about it, check out his post.

~ A Year Ago Today ~

A year ago today I had just brought Kris home from the hospital after he had been through a major surgery for his shoulder and collarbone.
Why you ask? Well, let me tell you the story.
On the late afternoon of May 23rd Kris headed out the door for a bike ride. For any of you that don't already know, Kris rides bicycles a lot. He was on a racing team at the dental school with some friends and went/goes on a lot of rides alone and with friends, whatever works. He usually rides a long ways when he goes, at least 10 miles but usually more.
Anyway, this night he was going riding with a couple of guys from the cycling team. He left from our house.
I wasn't feeling that good that day, and so I was resting and getting Max ready for bed when suddenly my cell phone rang. Usually I don't answer my phone if I don't recognize the number. I'm a big proponent of call screening. Anyway, my phone rang with some weird kansas number, and against my instincts I picked up. It was a stranger who immediately told me that she had found my husband lying in the road. He'd had an accident evidently and had hurt his arm or shoulder. She put him on the line, and he talked to me and told me he needed me to come and pick him up (obviously!). My stomach dropped down to my shoes. This is like one of my nightmares! I immediately grabbed Max, strapped him into the car and took off. The unfortunate thing is that Kris had ridden miles and miles before this accident. It took me about 30 minutes to get outside the city to where he was. By the time I got close I was so nervous. I pulled up to the side of the road, and there he was, holding his arm. He was with the guys he originally left with--however, turns out that they had ridden far ahead of him and weren't there when he had his accident (which I'm still mad about).
The rumor is that he was riding along a kind of narrow country road and came upon a really cruddy one lane wooden bridge. There his front wheel must've slipped into a rut or somehow gotten stuck, and he went over the handlebars and fell on his head and shoulder. (He doesn't remember any of this--this is mostly just what the lady that called me said. Evidently she saw most of what happened)
Here's a picture of the infamous bridge. You can't see much, but maybe it'll give you an idea of what it was like. When you drive up on that thing, there's a big chunk sound. It's not well put together at all.

I loaded Kris into the car to take him home. Once I got him in there I realized something funny was going on. He had told me that his shoulder hurt and that he thought he probably had broken his collarbone as I was getting him into the car. As soon as I got myself into the car and closed the door he told me the same thing again. Then he told me again a minute later. He kept asking me about what had happened and where he was. He asked over and over again if his bike was ok. It was about the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I started to cry. That didn't help. All that did was make him ask me over and over if I was ok!
I realized this was more than just a shoulder injury and figured there was something really wrong and that we should head to a hospital right away. Unfortunately we were in a part of town I was completely unfamiliar with. So I called up Kelly (Kris's brother that lives in Kansas City). Luckily he answered right away. He went online, found the nearest hospital and gave me directions. He also said he would head to the hospital right away to pick up Max and take him home. So nice to have family around.
We got to the emergency room, Kelly came to pick up Max and Kris kept repeating himself. Over and over. It was so freaky.
The doctors took a look at him, took some x-rays and did an MRI. They seemed to think his repetitions were kind of funny, which I didn't appreciate. Finally they told me he had a concussion and a broken collarbone. They told me he should probably get his short term memory back soon, but it could take as long as a couple of weeks. Well that was great to hear he was going to be ok, but I wanted him to have his brain back NOW! Turned out later when we looked at his helmet that he had cracked it straight through. I'm so glad he was wearing that helmet or else he might not be around right now.
They gave us the name of an orthopedic surgery place we needed to go to in the morning and sent us on our way. It was the middle of the night by the time we got home. Kris had started to normalize a little by that time so I was feeling a little better.
Here's a picture of his shoulder from that night. Doesn't it look weird?

You can tell that something's wrong there, can't you?
We headed off to the surgeon the next morning, where max threw fits the whole time, and we waited for ages. They finally told us that his collarbone was so badly broken that it was poking up through his shoulder muscle. It had to be operated on.
Here is the shoulder the day after the accident, but the day before the surgery.

Ouch, right? What a crazy bruise. They tried to set his shoulder in the dr.'s office before they realized it was so badly broken and he almost passed out. Poor guy.
Here's one of the x-rays. Can you see the bone?

My friend Vicky watched Max all day so I could take Kris to the surgery. It took a lot longer than I expected and made me nervous, but he came out just fine. In a LOT of pain, but fine.
Here he is the day after surgery I think. Ouch again.

I thought I was going to be ok dealing with everything until I got Kris home from the hospital and realized that he was SO out of it and so in pain that I had to watch him every second. I called my mom and begged her to come. She flew out the next day. Aren't moms great? She helped me take care of Max and covered for me with a lot of other stuff too. I wouldn't have survived without her help.

Kris started to feel better after a few days of almost constant sleep. A care package from his mom certainly didn't hurt.

Max got jealous and told us he wanted a "collerbone" too, so Kris hooked him up with one. He felt pretty cool.

Cute huh?
Kris was supposed to be in Utah about a week after the accident for an externship with the U's pediatric dentistry program. He manned up and decided to go in spite of everything. I drove us out there and he went ahead and did the externship without really having to tell anybody about the injury. He healed really pretty fast luckily. He made a connection with one of the residents at the U which eventually led him to the interview for the RI program we're in right now. It's lucky things worked out the way they did.
And here he is close to a month after the accident. Looks pretty normal, huh?
Thank goodness he's a strong young guy. All he has to show for the accident is a titanium plate in his shoulder with a whole bunch of little screws you can feel through his skin. Yeah, it's weird, but ok. We can deal with it.
Just thought I'd share for those that didn't know the story! I was thinking about it this week as the year anniversary went by. Thanks for listening. :)

***addendum
Kris just found this xray for me. It shows the before and after and is very scary looking. He also corrected me and said that he usually goes out for at least 20 mile rides, but usually more.

Whew. Telling that story wore me out!!