Cerebrate Good Times

It's the 20th anniversary of high school graduation for both Katie and me this year. I decided I wasn't interested in going to mine since we'd be in Utah a couple weeks before the reunion anyway. Katie wasn't interested in hers, but there was also a reunion for the kids who were on the seminary council. She wanted to go, but we couldn't decide whether to try making the trip. Eventually the week of this reunion came and we still hadn't made the decision. It was a breakfast Saturday morning on Toquerville near her parents' home, which is about an eight-hour drive. The thought of making the kids be in the car that long was frankly terrifying, so I had mostly ignored the possibility. There was also little chance that she would go by herself. Except she did. For the first time in our entire marriage, Katie took a trip away from the kids. Okay, once she left overnight to fly to Oregon for her grandmother's funeral, but that was the only other time. And at ...

On Saturday morning I got up early to run and beat the heat. I had a plan to run, do a little other exercise, shower, and go get a grocery pickup order we had placed, all while taking care of the kids so Katie could sleep in. And I did get out and run. But after I got back and was working on the list, our doorbell rang. It wasn't 8:00 yet, so that was a surprise. I thought it was probably a neighbor kid looking for my kids, who weren't awake yet. At the door was an older man who looked like an aging biker, holding a boy who was maybe 3. He asked if I knew who the kid was. He found the kid wandering down the street with no parents in sight. The boy didn't seem to know how to get home. He had walked up and down the street knocking doors but hadn't found where he belonged. I didn't recognize the boy but pulled up my LDS Tools app that shows all the LDS families in the neighborhood. I went through the list, and he didn't seem to fit with any of the families. I w...

A few thoughts about summer. I really enjoy summer, but I don't sleep very well. It always seems too warm at night, and it's light by 5 a.m. Plus the kids always go to bed later. I do like having the mornings to myself, though. I also have to get up extra early to run on Saturdays. I found this old post asking about whether it's better to have a nice summer but cold winter, or a mild winter and brutal summer. It's funny that ten years later I would have exchanged the hotter summers and milder winters of Utah for the awful winters and gorgeous summers of Idaho. I think it's better, since during the colder months you're mostly inside anyway. So whether it's 20 degrees or 10 degrees, you don't notice much difference. We didn't hit 90 degrees until July 5. It's been nice. The Fourth of July continues to vex me, with people celebrating their freedom by inhibiting the freedom of their neighbors to sleep well. It has always bothered me that choic...

I don't think I've posted about this before, but even if I have who cares? I've had some knee issues for the last three years that have limited my running to some extent. When I've tried to increase my mileage to train for a marathon, or just run faster, I've always had to back off. I would get swelling, and sometimes soreness. Last year I went to physical therapy, and they thought it might be related to a lack of range of motion in my ankle. So I worked on it for a couple months, and things got better. But early this year the swelling started to come back. Eventually I decided to go to a doctor, who recommended an MRI. The MRI showed that the cartilage on my kneecap has some damage, though the extent isn't totally clear. The doctor said it doesn't appear to be damage cause by running, but from some other injury. The motion of running can cause inflammation, which explains why it recurs, especially when I change things up or try to increase my load. He...