The Grand Canyon, St. George and a growing baby

Last Wednesday through Saturday I set out with the Priests of my ward to hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim. My group started on the north rim and ended on the south. What an adventure; 26 miles in 3 days, 115 degree high, 100 degrees at 7 am, 90 degrees at 8 pm. Sleeping was futile (a layer of sweat coated our entire bodies) and we (or at least I) felt thoroughly exhausted by the end. Still, I say hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim should be on everyone's to do list at some point in their life. Unfortunately I didn't take the digital camera for fear of it melting, but I do have one shot of Kris and I upon my return:

And now that I think of it, the above picture explains most of our recent happenings. You can see the increased size of the babe and the picture shows the condo in St. George which is where we, along with my family, spent the first half of this week. We swam, ate, watched movies and tv, and had an all around good time.

Now it's back to work...

Tagalicious

Bob -- thank you for the "tag." It is received warmly.

1. I hit a good friend on the head with a baseball bat. That good friend was Bob (Eric Vogeler).

2. A few years back I promised my grandmother I would never ride a motorcycle, or as she refers to it, the "suicide machine." This was probably a bad choice on my part because for whatever reason I can't get myself to break the promise even though my in-laws have multiple motorcycles and I'm pretty sure I could learn to ride them safely. Oh well.

3. I've spent more days / nights in the hospital than any one man should -- the list includes: deviated sceptum surgery, reconstructive shoulder surgery (both shoulders), tubes in ears and a repair of an already "set" broken arm. Let me explain the last one. Sometime during elementary school, all of the laughing gas has made me lose my memory, I broke my arm. During class my arm often itched -- so what did I do? Scratch it of course. But this wasn't just any old scratching, I had to shove a pencil between the cast and my arm and "itch" the itching area. Needless to say that lovely pencil did wonders for the setting bones and eventually I ended up in the hospital in surgery so the doctor could "rebrake" my arm to fix the damage my pencil had done.

4. I absolutely love basketball, hence the shoulders. Throughout junior high and highschool my friends and I met at my church circa 6 am every Saturday morning to play ball, in addition to Tuesday and Wednesday night basketball get togethers. I can't wait to have a son (October) who I can coach, cheer on, etc. I will live my basketball life through him because I am no longer physically capable of living it on my own.

5. I possess a strange ability to remember hymn trivia. Everything from page numbers to verse lyrics to origination details. Of the 341 hymns I can probably name half (okay maybe only a quarter) by page number and title, and the rest I can guess within 20 pages or so.

6. I am afraid of heights. Sometimes they really scare me (walking across the Golden Gate Bridge) and sometimes I can handle them (Angel's Landing in Zion), but all of the time I know they are there.

7. I will take the patent bar on June 14th. What is the patent bar you may say? It is a test which, if passed, allows an individual to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

8. My wife can out waterski me any day of the week. Not to mention she knows how to "airchair," let's just say my airchair attempt left something to be desired.

9. I played a duet of "I Need Thee Every Hour" with Stu Maxfield for the Prophet when he visited our mission in Philadelphia.

10. James Taylor is and will always be my favorite musical artist. Not sure why but his songs seem to brighten my day.