Day 83 – Spring Break Begins

My wife and kids have the week off—because of spring break—and my 8 year old has all this fun stuff planned (at least in his mind) to do all the things he wants to do.  He had his heart set on going to Yellowstone, and we really wanted to make that happen but alas were unable to.  He has wasted no time in bombarding us with his requests starting with this morning.

He wants to go to Topaz Mountain—a local place in central (Northern Central) Utah where you can look for topaz and trilobites.  He LOVES the idea of being in the “field” and taking his little wooden chisel and hammer so he can gingerly extract the fossils he finds during his expeditions (probably almost his exact words!).  We could not go that far today but we did agree to take him to Antelope Island (an island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake that has bison and antelope on them (as well as salt on the beaches from the Salt Lake).

I did go on a run this morning and am feeling pretty good—I never pushed myself to train for anything like I’m pushing myself now (and I’m not even training for anything yet).  I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to go but decided 6 was a good number.  I got all geared up (with my wife’s watch and hear rate monitor because I can’t find mine) and then got ready to go.

While hooked up to my heart rate monitor I noticed what my resting rate was (while I was just sitting on a chair).  Now understand that about a year ago my resting heart rate was between 70 and 80 beats per minute—which is still pretty good but not where I want it to be.  I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing… as I sat there I watch it go from 55 to 53 and then down to 52 BPM!  This was amazing to me.  I remember when I tried to do quite a bit of running about 11-12 years ago the best I did was getting my heart-rate down to about 60 BPM.  Here it is 12 years later and I’ve got it down to 8 beats lower than that and it feels great!

All the frustration I feel and all the anger I’ve felt over the past couple of months (almost 3 now) vanished for a while today looking at how great that was—I know the benefits are there more than I care to imagine right now and I can’t let how I feel (at least outwardly) affect how I feel about the changes that have obviously been made and have been happening in my body.  I get so worried about life at times and how we’re going to get the things done we want to do.  Our goals feel almost insurmountable.  I know I can’t—and haven’t—do/done it on my own, God has been there with me every step of the way.

For those of you out there that don’t believe in God I make no apology because I know that even the people who don’t believe in God generally believe in some combined power (energy) or whatever that keeps people together—this is God!  And no matter what each of us feels about the source of this power it is—in fact—the same thing, I just recognize it to be a power of a being that knows us to be his children and wants the best thing for us.  Every day convinces me of this more and more, especially days like today.

You see, my wife and I both served missions for our church (she served in Argentina and I served in Nebraska).  During these times we both met very special people who have been and continue to be very dear to us (they are our friends).  Well let me tell you about what happened when we visited Antelope Island (as we promised our 8 year old we would do.

We had every intention of driving around look at Bison, do some hiking and then head back to the island restaurant (Buffalo Island Grill).  As we were driving around we noticed a peak that people were hiking (Buffalo Peek) and decided to drive up there.  I had the urge to hike the peak (an uncommonly excited, almost giddy urge).  To my surprise my 8 year old and my 4 year old wanted to hike as well.  My wife was less than eager—since it was very cold outside and she had really only brought a jacket.

Well… we started to hike and really didn’t know how far we would get but just started hiking.  Our little 4-year-old was off and ahead of the group—cruising up this hill to get to the top.  I actually had to catch him because part of the trail was very narrow and really had a steep drop on one side, which I was positive he would find his way off of if we weren’t close. 

We found some rocks that had some pretty cool areas to take pictures and so decided to stop to get a family picture.  We have this pretty new camera and decided to use it—the coolest thing, we got set up and set it on automatic and it just kept snapping pictures and I ran there and let it snap a few.  We then snapped some 360 degree (panoramic) pictures just having a great time.

Well… these younger girls passed us and then this father looking figure came into view.  I thought he looked familiar but didn’t place him at all but my wife—who usually doesn’t say a word to people unless she knows (for sure) who they are—said: “you look familiar” to which he responded “so do you…”  He gave his name and my wife said: “Oh my goodness you served in the same mission as I did!”  He looked and couldn’t believe who he had seen.  They both gave each other hugs.

Well come to find out he actually is very good friends with a cousin of mine and they both went to law school at the same time.  This friend of my wife’s actually graduated from Harvard Law before I started law school.  I remembered him because he ran the St. George Marathon the same year my sweatie and I ran (2006).  He stuck out because she knew he was running and found out that he did extremely well overall and I remembered because I knew he was in law school when he did all this!  It may be hard to understand unless you are in law school, but that is a HUGE deal.

He is working at a law firm in Portland Oregon and is on vacation with his family in Utah and just happened to be on Antelope Island at the same time we were.  Not only that but he is working as an attorney and when I talked to him about one of the business ideas of mine he seemed very excited and thought other attorneys he knew would be as well.  Now it is easy to chalk this off to coincidence, and maybe it is—but I don’t think so… two people who met each other on the other side of the world with connections to not only my wife but to me—through my cousin—meet on some random mountain top in Utah at the same time.

Anyway… times like today are what keep the hope alive for things working out.  It was nice to talk to him about the struggles so many attorneys are feeling at this time—I told him I feel bad for the others but it is nice to know that I’m not alone.  Even he is looking to get out of the law and do something else—he is just sick of the hours and the being away from his family and I don’t blame him.  Things are changing!

A very good day!  We did cheat a little today (food wise) by stopping at Sam’s Club and getting a Rotisserie Chicken, which actually made both of us slightly sick—use to be one of my favorite fast meals and now it seems to make by body sick, not sure if I’ll be having that again.  We want to see if it will affect our progress with Candida at all but don’t want to go too crazy either!

I will post the rest of the spring break adventure tomorrow!