So Where Are We Now

Well, to finish a thought from last post, this past weekend was most enjoyable. Heath Brown and I traveled to Mesa and met up with Spencer Bigler, Preston Bigler, Cody Claridge, Scott Carnes, Danny Barney, Lamar Echols and David and Jillian at the Buffalo Wild Wings for a full day of basketball, laughs and good food. (I know when Shannon reads this, she will laugh out loud at me calling Buffalo Wild Wings good food. Not her favorite.) The day started with just me, Heath and Cody catching the end of the Arizona State game. They won and in honor of the win, they held a Super Shot contest on the little Super Shot basket. I am proud to say, I won. I am also humiliated to say...I am proud I won. But you have to take pride in whatever small things present themselves. However, I got over the humiliation quickly as the prize was 18 free wings. We got started on our road to heartburn early. The rest of the evening was exactly what you would expect it to be, including one moment where Spencer made an inappropriate joke and all of us were crying from laughing.


This is a before shot of our yard. I hope to be able to post an after shot within a month or two.

After arriving home at 12:30 that night, I got up the next morning and with the help of Clinton and Rhett Dodge, I leveled out my front yard in preparation for a new sprinkler system and sod. A couple of questions from this: When did we start having 90 degree days in March? How much dust can someone inhale before they should start thinking about a trip to the emergency room and how did everyone let me get so out of shape that digging in the dirt for 5 hours came very close to killing me? Wait, don't answer that last one as I am sure the explanation will include something about Dr. Pepper and I am not ready to have that conversation.

It was a highly productive and fun weekend. Unfortunately, as we learned with our Disneyland trip, everything really positive in our lives right now is generally tempered by a negative sobering reality. Just before we left for Disneyland, my mom was complaining of a lack of strength in her right arm and leg. When we returned just one week later, she could no longer use either one. When we went to visit my parents Sunday night after our weekend, we were stunned to find that my mom could no longer talk to us. Sometimes when you learn something bad is coming, you think you are ready only to find you completely aren't. I believe that would best describe my emotions in this instance.



Which brings me to the last thing I wanted to mention. Through all of this, but especially since February, my wife has gone beyond her normal amazing spouse status, all the way up to saint. She has shut down her schedule and gone to Duncan several times to help my mom write letters to each of my kids. Because of work, I was not able to and now doing that would be completely impossible. My mom said she wanted to tape herself reading some books to my kids. Shannon dropped everything and went the next day. Ironically, it was just six days later that my mom couldn't even tell me how she was doing. I am a very lucky man. I can't say enough about how much I love and appreciate Shannon. As we continue to navigate this path we are currently on, I know I can count on her for anything and everything. And you know? There is no way to adequately thank her. I wish there was. But at the moment, I will at least say Thank You Sweetheart! You are the best!

The pictures on this post are just some random pictures from our last few weeks.