Saturday, January 31, 2009

Church Ball has always been a fun thing for me. I have found that when I play church ball, I get closer to the members of my ward. After about a two year absence, I found myself playing ball again for the Chapel Hills Warriors. I call us the Warriors because we usually only have five people show up, and we really have to fight to keep up with the other wards. So far our record is a blistering 2-2.

Today however was my last day of church ball for the season at least. You see, I think I may have torn something in my knee (ACL, MCL, or PCL). Let me tell you the story, because there are parts that are kind of funny.

We were playing another ward in our stake, it was the 11 o'clock game, and we were playing a team that had 7 players, one of which was an ex-Weber State Wildcat. He is a big kid, and is by far the best player on the court. We were in the fourth quarter and it was a close game. I believe we were up by four points when one of our towers blocked a shot and kicked it ahead to me for a fast break lay-up. As I was racing down the right side of the court, a defender was coming down the left side (not just any defender, but the one that was complaining about every call, and fuming from the ears because he wants to win so bad). There was under two minutes left, and I was going to take the ball to the rim, draw a foul, and dunk on him. Well everything was looking good, I had done the same thing a million other times, I jumped into the air. There was contact, and so all I had to do was dunk the ball in the rim, and sink a free throw. The only thing is, I can't dunk, heck I can barely jump. The defender and I collided, and came crashing down to the floor. I felt something in my left knee, and looked down to see that it was bending in a way that it shouldn't (kind of towards my other knee). In very slow motion, I thought "Crap there goes my knee" but those weren't the words that came out of my mouth, all that came out was a high pitched blood curling "Aaaaahhhhh". Kind of like how a girl would scream at a Haunted House. Then I thought to myself "Man, I just scream like a girl". I held my knee, as I laid on the hardwood. My team huddled around, and after a few moments, we got me up off the floor, and over to a nearby chair where I watched the last few minutes. Good news, we won the game.

After I was helped out to the car, I drove my way home. At a stop light, I had a moment to reflect about how this injury would change things. I wasn't really worried about any of the finances, but more concerned about how I was going to clean out Baby Jack's room, a worry that has been on Kristens mind for about a month. As I thought about this, I started to cry a little bit because I felt that I have let Kristen down. The last thing I wanted to do was to let Kristen down. So somehow, someway, I will get the two desks out of the room and get the room painted.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Boys can play Dress Up too.



Luke has always been such a good little helper. It seems that whatever the task, Luke is willing to get his hands dirty. He wants to be dressed up for whatever the task may require. If Dad wears gloves, Luke needs to wear them too. If Mom wears an apron, then Luke wants to wear one too.

But dressing up in work clothes isn't the only thing he does. The other day Luke wanted to dress up in his Spiderman costume while Kristen and Luke ran their errands. Kristen called me at work to tell me what he wanted to do (I think that was by far my favorite phone call ever recieved at work). So Kristen let him. Luke got dressed up from head to toe in his spiderman costume and put on his Spiderman mask, and they were off. They went to Lukes "Circle Time" (kind of like preschool) to return a game, and then they went into the Elementry School to say hi to his Grandma who is the principal where Luke goes to Circle Time. Grandma took him around to show all of her teacher friends. Lukes favorite stop was the First Graders. They all thought that Luke was really cool all dressed up like Spiderman. Luke would shoot pretend webs at them and even strike poses as all the kids hooted and hollered. The next stop on the Spiderman tour was to Lukes Grocery Store (we have to go to a special health food store to get all the food that he isn't allergic too). Spiderman looked really cute as he pushed around a kid sized shopping cart.

When I got home we went out for our Monday Night Snack, and Luke was once again dressed up like Spiderman. My favorite part was watching all of the smiles that Luke put on other peoples faces. He didn't realize that that he was making so many people happy, but he was and it was cute.