Day Out With Thomas

On Friday we took the girls to Heber Valley Railroad for their annual 'Day Out With Thomas.'  Ellery LOVES trains and Thomas, so this was for her.  It was fun and I think Ellery enjoyed it.  I really don't think it was worth the huge, large amount of money we forked over for it, but it was nice to get out and do something for Ellery.  The first thing we did was a little miniature golf course.  Jacob helped Ellery through it and she actually did pretty good.  Then it was time to get in line for the train ride.  As we were getting on they stopped us and told us Aayla's car seat carrier couldn't get on the train.  Well, she was asleep in it so we had to take her out and wake her up so Jacob could run it back to our stroller.  That was kind of annoying.  Oh well.  The train ride was about 25 minutes or so, it went out a little and stopped then reversed back to the station.  Ellery liked it, especially when it blew it's whistle.  After the train ride we waited in line for a balloon animal.  She wanted a kitty made with green and silver balloons!  She knows what she wants!  They had a booth with temporary tattoos, so Ellery got a Thomas one on her hand.  Then she ran through a hay maze a few times.  Sir Topham Hatt was there taking pictures with the kids but there was a big line and we were all getting hungry and ready to go so Jacob just took a picture of him in between kids.  On our way out Ellery posed in front of some posters of the engines.  She especially like Emily because she is green- her favorite color.

What The?!?!?!?!!!???!?

Woke up this morning to SNOW!!! I hate the snow more than the next guy, but make it fall in town this late in the spring and words can't describe how disgusted I am with it.



It was coming down so hard, wet, thick and fast this morning when I was leaving for school that I couldn't even wipe it fast enough from my windows. The drive down to school was... not fun... either. On my way my car started jerking and the "check engine" light came on. Wonderful. One more warm memory to make me "love" the snow. Bleh.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACOB WEBB!!!

Happy birthday to Jacob!  As many know, he turned 30 years old on Wednesday.  What a dinosaur!!  (sorry to everyone who's thinking, 'I remember when I turned 30...')  

We had a Japanese themed party!  It turned out to be a lot of fun.  I moved the table and chairs out of the dining room and we sat on the floor with pillows.  We all dressed up in Asian clothes and Katie made everyone head bands.  

I made food I've never made before.  I even had to shop at an Asian Market to get some of the ingredients!  I made my mom go with me though.  For the appetizer I made miso soup with tofu and green onions, and pork gyozas with ginger chilli dipping sauce.  The main course I made at the table (floor).  It was beef sukiyaki with chinese cabbage, shitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, bean sprouts, green onion, and cellophane noodles all cooked up with a special sukiyaki sauce.  Served on the side was raw egg to dip in.  I'm not sure everyone really liked the idea of raw egg except Jacob and my mom.  There was of course a bowl of rice on the side as well.  The food turned out good...for my first try with any asian food.  The gyozas were the best, they ALL got eaten.

 

Jacob got a lot of presents this year.  Mostly stuff for our new soon to be yard, a knife, school supplies, gift cards, wii remote battery chargers, and Dominion- (we were having withdrawals since the Walls left to Arizona.)  I think Ellery had more fun opening the presents for him!  She loves presents!

We ended the night with fresh strawberry pie that my mom made!  It was so good!  Ellery helped Jacob blow the candles out...otherwise I don't think he could have gotten them all in one blow! :)

I'm not sure what happened....I was upstairs putting Ellery to bed.  But Abbie, Jacob and Brad got into a little food fight.  Sorry, I didn't get a picture of Brad...but I'm pretty sure he was involved too.

 

It was a good party.  Happy 30 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Thirtieth Year - 2009-present

Last December, 2008, I FINALLY graduated from college - "hey, a lot of people go to college for ten years; yeah they're called doctors." No, this was not a doctorate, this was my bachelor's degree. I graduated from Utah Valley University with a BS in business management. Although the road was excruciatingly long, and I was glad to be "done" I never felt like it was any big accomplishment. Maybe it was because I knew it was just a stepping stone in my education; the beginning, not the end. I didn't even bother walking at my graduation, I was too busy diving into the next phase of my education - prerequisites for physical therapy school. Part of me wishes I had walked. I think there is something I missed in that rite of passage. I graduated college, and it took a LONG time. I worked and paid my way through, and I did it with minimal student loans (less than 10k). That sort of accomplishment and investment probably deserved a capstone celebration. Oh well.

When I started at ASU (with some coaxing and direction from Bret and Tevs) back in 2001 I had NO idea what I wanted to do or what I wanted to go to school for. While I was in Texas I met a physical therapist from Chile. As missionaries, we ate dinner at his home EVERY Sunday for ten and a half months. In that time I had several conversations with him about his profession. When I started school at BYU I decided I wanted to go in to physical therapy myself. However, the program was at least a masters' degree at the time. At 22, almost 23, years old and only having one semester of schooling behind me, I thought doing a bachelor's and then a master's degree would just take too long; so I found what I thought would be the next best thing: occupational therapy. Occupation therapy was still being offered as a bachelor's degree at the time (but only at a few schools, one of which was the University of Utah). After being in the exercise science program at BYU for three semesters I transferred up to the U, hoping to get into their OT program. As luck, or fate, would have it, the semester I transferred was the semester they did away with their OT program.

So there I was, faced with the fact that no matter what, I needed to get my bachelor's degree in something other than what I wanted to do for a career. At that point I like to think I had matured, a little, and understood better that life is not as much of a race as it is a journey. I took some time and weighed out my options and decided that if physical therapy was what I wanted to do, then that's what I was going to do - no matter how long it took. I just needed to figure out what to get my bachelor's degree in. After a bit of research I learned the profession was heading in the direction of physical therapists being doctors of physical therapy. Such a change would mean that therapists could receive patients to their practice without a referral - which meant the way PTs could run a practice would be changing. With that in mind I wanted to be diversified in my education and learn skills that I recognized many people I knew lacked and suffered for - business skills. Even though I knew it would take more time to graduate I made up my mind and started business school.

This last year I spent picking up the last few prerequisites (anatomy, physiology, chem, physics, biology... all the fun stuff) needed to apply to physical therapy school. I started applying to schools last fall and this year I was accepted to the entry-level doctorate of physical therapy program at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in Provo, UT. Classes stared last week - I'm a student in the inaugural class of the program, which will graduate December 2012. It's a great feeling getting up every morning, dressing in slacks and a button up shirt, putting on a professional appearance and preparing for my career. In just this past week I think I've finally started feeling like an adult. Before, I've always just felt like a college student. Although they said it all the time in business school, "dress for the position you want, not the position you have," I never really felt like I was ready to 'grow up' and accept that kind of responsibility: to be the professional I would become. But now, it's a great feeling.

This last year, other than my schooling, we spent a LOT of time on camping trips and at Seven Peaks. Our blog over the last year has been kept pretty well up to date; with the exception that sometimes I've left my feelings and inner thoughts out of the blogs I've posted.

The reason I've been writing a blog a day for the last 30 days is that I wanted to capture memories, thoughts and feelings otherwise lost over the last 30 years of my life. Yes, 30 years in 30 days - Tomorrow (minutes from now actually, and probably before I finish this blog tonight, I'll be 30 years old). Obviously I wasn't able to get everything in. Every night for the last month I've gone to bed with memories swimming in my head - many I got up and wrote on lists with the intent to blog them. I ran out of time. This last week, starting physical therapy school has made things challenging. But it's been a great experience for me. I've enjoyed the trip down memory lane and I've realized a few things about my life that I probably missed along the way. I look forward to the next 30 years.

In just a few weeks Millie and I will be closing on our first home.

Less than three years from now I'll be Doctor Webb (but I'm not going to make anyone call me that).

And life will only move faster and faster. My children will probably never understand the childhood I experienced - in some ways it makes me sad, in other ways they can never thank me enough for that. Already Ellery's and Aayla's life histories are being written and recorded. We had more photos of Ellery by the time she was out of the hospital than I think I had of me by the time I graduated high school - same story with Aayla. Life is different for the generation being born. I hope they learn from the past, especially my past, and avoid some of my mistakes and take advantage of some of my successes.

I never understood why my dad used to say he wasn't the best parent and that he wasn't perfect. I think as a young child I never realized he was once a child himself. The stories I remember my parents telling me of their youth are few and far between (not that they didn't tell them, I just don't remember many). It's easy to forget that everyone has a different perspective of you. There's so much even close family members probably don't know about each other. Some things are better left unknown, but some things open up a window that could help generations understand one another and become better for it. As I think back on those I've lost in my life, there's not one person that I wish I hadn't spent more time getting to know as a person - not just as my grandma or grandpa or aunt or uncle or cousin or brother or even my friend - but as a person, an individual with a story.

There are so many people I've lost contact with that have affected my life, both for good and for bad. These past thirty days of blogging have been less than a snapshot of the many people that have been a part of my life (including myself) and there are several more that I didn't get to blog about or even mention; but I think about them. They may never know that they meant anything to me but there's not a single person I have called friend or family in my life that I wouldn't give "the shirt off my back" to.

Thanks to everyone for being a part of my life and making me, me.

The Twenty-Ninth Year - 2008

As I go back and look at the thousands of pictures I have that document just the last few years of my life I'm amazed. It difficult to view my life as my own anymore - in fact it's impossible. The majority of pictures I have are of my wife and children - okay, mostly Ellery, and much of these last few years have been relatively well documented in previous blogs; post by myself and Millie.

As I was talking with JoLynn today she mentioned something I had been thinking, and even originally set out to do when I started this recent run of blogs - to document my thoughts, feelings and maybe even emotions of the events I've experienced; things that even the best photos just can't capture and convey.

In my (futile) haste to finish some of my blogs recently, I failed to record (or fully record) some of the biggest events of my life. One of those events was the morning of September 11, 2001. The date lives in infamy for all - never to be forgotten for sure. Perhaps the events of that day did not impact me quite as bad (or at least the same way) as it did for some. Not to say the events were not tragic to me or caused me great sadness - but rather, I can not compare myself, or how it impacted me, to how it impacted the lives of those who were there, the families of lost loved ones, or those that had visited or held a special place in their hearts for the city of New York, its people and those buildings.

I woke up the morning of 9/11 and started to get ready for work. I was living with Bret and Tevia at the time and Tevia turned on the news - Good Morning America, I believe. The first plane had hit the first tower just moments before, there it was the unforgettable image of black billowing smoke rising from the WTC. I was in absolute shock, but I'm sure it didn't compare to Tevia's emotions. I think she started to cry - Bret was from New York and they had just recently been back to visit (and went to the towers) the year before. I remember wondering what could have caused the plane to hit the building in the first place - the news was still speculating on it, terrorism was an idea but not confirmed. Everything seemed so unreal to me. I sat there unable to peel my eyes from the images on the screen - only half hearing what was even being said. Before I knew it, in the corner of the camera's view the second plane hit the other tower - there was no more doubt - terrorists. My heart sunk. I have a graphic imagination, perhaps too graphic at times - one I usually just keep to myself - I could envision the hundreds of people who were on that plane and in the building where it hit - their lives instantly ending. I continued to sit in unbelief of what I was seeing, and worse, what I was imagining. I called into work - told them I wasn't coming in - and sat there the rest of the day watching, almost unblinkingly, the replays, images and speculations on the TV.

News reports came in of the plane crash in Pennsylvania and another hitting the Pentagon. Was this real? Could this be happening to the country I grew to love during my recent time in Ecuador? And again, the images in my mind of the people who were there, on the planes, in the buildings, or on the ground below.

My heart continued to sink even deeper as the towers came down one by one - knowing crews of firefighters (just like my dad and uncles) were in there. Even now, I get teary eyed thinking of those that so unselfishly gave their lives in the line of duty.

I couldn't stop watching. I couldn't stop playing out the events in my head, in my mind's eye, seeing what it might have been like to be inside and thinking about what I would do in their situation.

I think many people questioned God that day; questioned His existence, His love, His plan, His willingness to let THAT happen - but not me. Not once did I think, why? Not once did I wonder where would be His justice, and where is His mercy.

All my life I was taught, and came to believe (and realize) for myself, that God does not typically intervene in the decisions and agency of man. This was simply one of those times. "Simply" - what other word can I use? I had just spent almost the entire day envisioning the events from the eyes of those directly impacted. Despite my deep empathy for everyone involved, I remained unchanged in feeling almost nothing but acceptance, and even gratitude, towards God and His choice to allow all men their agency - agency that is eternally tied to inescapable consequences. And yes, some consequences that I have had the unfortunate displeasure of knowing first hand.



Memorial Day 2008, just like every Memorial Day before and since joining the Roper family, we each put together bouquets of flowers from the yard to take to the Provo cemetery. But even the simple act of placing flowers on the graves of relatives turns into a competition in this family. Who can make to prettiest bouquet. Unfortunately, when the judges are the competitors a clear winner is rarely crowned - as far as I was concerned I never lost.

Bret and Tevs came up to visit with their boys that month too. Millie and I were still living in Pleasant Grove at the time. As one of our activities, to prevent a day of just sitting around staring at and talking to each other (which Millie really does not like) we decided to go to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. I think everyone enjoyed it. Ellery had just turned a year old was just at that stage of really starting to interact with her surroundings. It was a lot of fun and I wish it didn't cost so much because I would like to take her more often.

In June, Brandon officially joined the family by marrying Katie, Millie's older sister. Although Brandon and I don't have tons of interests in common, I was super excited to have him finally officially in the family, and why not, he had been around much longer than me. The added bonus, we both finally had someone who got each others Dumb and Dumber quotes! There were times, during the wedding day, that a part of me was a little jealous - they were having the wedding that every LDS couple, and really EVERY couple should, aspire to, and I could tell Mom and Dad (Kim and Rhonda) were just as excited as (maybe even more than) the bride and groom. I have to admit, there was a part of me that kept hating myself that day as I looked at what I deprived Millie of. She deserved a wedding like that - granted, ours was MUCH less stressful than Katie and Brandon's, but still, all my life I looked forward to my wedding day, stress and everything that comes with it. We didn't have that. To combat my selfish feelings I did everything I could to help make their day less stressful.

I love the Fourth of July with Millie's family. The previous year (2007) we sold pies at the Freedom Festival to raise money for our upcoming family trip to Mexico. Kim planned the heck out of that event - in his signature style of planning - and we ended up not doing too well. Lost money in fact, I think. But the experience was GREAT. I was even willing to do it again this year (2008) - but apparently, I was the only one, and instead we spent the fourth enjoying the festivities as spectators. We went to one of the Provo Canyon parks and the kids played in the river. Ellery sat in the freezing water (yes, the Provo River is freezing, even in July) and she didn't even flinch at the cold. Her diaper swelled right up and caught her interest - she was such a funny baby. We spent the night of the fourth letting off fireworks at Millie's parent's with her uncle Paul and his family. Millie kept worrying I was going to blow myself up.

That July we (Kim and I) started the big kitchen remodel. Kim spent months planning out the new kitchen, it desperately needed to grow to keep up with the family. Finally, July 11, 2008 we started the project by busting out the concrete patio in the back yard to make way for the addition. By October, we were basically done. I loved, and still love, working with my father-in-law. It reminds me of working with my dad when I was younger. The harder the work the more I like it. Most of the time I'm working with Kim I think about how much fun it'll be to do some of the same projects on my own home someday. I've learned a lot from him - sure my dad taught me how to work, work hard, but Kim has really taught me how to plan through projects and direct my work ethic to be more efficient.

July was a BUSY month. At the end of July we went to AZ and Mexico (Rocky Point) with my family for my mom's birthday. It was a great trip. We drove the entire way down and back, but Ellery did great and we enjoyed the time with my family. We were able to stay in the home of a friend of my parents - it was just about a mile from the beach. On our way into town (Rocky Point) my dad ran a stop sign right in front of a Mexican police car. Yes, he got pulled over. Fortunately 95 percent of his wardrobe consists of EMT and Firefighter T-shirts and the cop recognized he was a firefighter so he let him go with a warning - I don't think it hurt that my dad speaks Spanish. I think it was a good birthday for my mom. It seems in these later years of my life that she wants nothing more than to have her kids around - even me sometimes. We spent most of our time playing on the beach body surfing and boogie boarding and of course sitting and talking. and I can't forget eating at Mexican food vendors. We ate a small taco stand one night, got real fruit paletas at another (every night) and we ate at a chicken restaurant that made Bret pretty much pee his pants with excitement - I have to admit, it was dang good, make my mouth water just thinking about it. We walked the boardwalk and just enjoyed our time together. It really was a great family trip. Except when Millie got sick on the home.

We spent August keeping cool by going to Seven Peaks (season passes) and also down to Mona (Burraston Pond) to swim and swing on the rope swing. We went with Jeremy and Abbie and although I was a little bit afraid to go from the higher platforms, I could never let on that I was - since Jeremy was doing it I HAD to too. Later I felt like I would have been an even bigger wimp if I didn't go when I saw little twelve or fourteen year old girls going from the high platforms. Sometimes, I think that pond was even more fun than Seven Peaks, if for no other reason, no lines. August was also when we hiked Timpanogos Caves. Ellery was too young to remember - or be afraid, I think we need to do it again this year. While we were in the cave a lady offered to take a picture of us (on her camera - because she had a really nice one) and she said she would email it to us. I gave her my email, but we never did get it.

September we went to the State Fair. I like going to the fair. Makes me feel better about myself - less white trash than most everyone else there at least. Plus, Ellery liked to see the animals. We never spent any extra money while we're there, but it is always fun to go out and do something different with the family.

October was a month we waited for for years to come. Like I said, my father-in-law is a master planner, he could plan a horse to death... whatever that means. He had been planning the family trip to Mexico (the Mayan Riviera) since before I joined the family I think. We went down and stayed at the Iberostar just outside of Playa del Carmen - actually it was about halfway between Playa and Cancun. It was an amazing trip. We went to Tulum and the beach, ate all-you-can-eat until we couldn't eat anymore (not the best food, but edible). We even planned an excursion to Chitzen Itza. The day before we were supposed to go to Chitzen Itza I got WAY sick. I told everyone to just go without me and I would stay in the hotel and rest. Millie refused to go with everyone else and stayed with me. Probably best she did that. She forced me to see the resort doctor who in turn referred me to the hospital. By the time I got there (by cab) I couldn't even stand in the ER. I was so dehydrated that I could almost feel myself leaving my body... maybe it was the drugs they gave me in my IV. I remember laying on the ER "bed" and the doctors asking me questions but I couldn't respond. I think I saw Millie's face (with Ellery in her arms) in the corner of my eye and I thought, "I can't leave her like this." But at the same time I didn't feel it was up to me, and I felt fine with it. A few IV boluses later, I got my senses back. They admitted me to the hospital for "observation" and $2500 and one day later, we headed back to the resort. Kim and Rhonda offered to pay for Millie and I to go on a Chitzen Itza excursion the next day, but I know how much it would have cost to book last minute and for just two people - so I decided it would just be incentive for Millie and I to make a trip down again someday. The next day we went snorkeling across the bay off of Cozumel. The Ferry ride over was SO choppy, pretty much everyone got sick. Ellery threw up several times - ever since then she has been very prone to motion sickness, even in the car, and she's never been that great of a traveler since either. But the trip was all worth it.

Shortly after we got back and returned to our daily routine our lives were shaken - looking back now, probably for the best. One afternoon Millie headed to work and I went to class. It was a Wednesday, back then Millie worked pretty much every Wednesday and I had class until 8pm. Millie's parents watched Ellery. This Wednesday I happened to get out of class early. I swung by the Roper's to pick up Ellery and I headed home. I pulled into the garage and got Ellery out, just a normal everyday thing. This time, however, when I went inside the house from the garage something was different. The lights were on for one, my first thought was Millie left the lights on, again. but then I heard a noise just around the wall inside the living room. I froze. Absolutely froze. I tightened my hold on Ellery preparing to bolt back into the garage to duck bullets, or blunt objects or a wild animal - who knows what, but my mind was racing as I envisioned the possibilities. Just then I noticed the homeowner's HUGE safe was not against the wall where it normally stood and I ruled out the now welcome possibility of a wild animal being in the house. Once again my imagination started to roll out the worst scenario - I could just see a couple of armed men come around the corner and put a bullet through my head, leaving me to drop limply to the tile floor I was fixed to. I could see my lifeless self as Ellery cried out not understanding what had just happened and left all alone as the men ran out of the house. Ellery would be left there, crying, next to my lifeless body in a pool of blood until Millie came home from work the next morning. I could see it all play out, all for the worst. Fortunately, the people who broke in were true cowards and they fled out the front door. As soon as I heard the door shut I felt my self unfreeze, just enough to pull my phone out of my pocket and dial 911. I went back into the garage and waited for an officer to arrive. He cleared the house and asked me to come in to help assess the damage and what was taken, if anything. I called the homeowner (who was living in Hawaii) to inform her of what just happened. She was always a frazzled person to begin with and this made dealing with her even worse - I hated giving her bad news. By this point, all of her animals, except her horse, had died. As old and decrepid as they were they had been living on borrowed time for the last five or six years, but there comes a point when all the doggy meds in the world can't keep a pet alive. I'm sure in her eyes those 18+ year old dogs were as healthy as an ox when she left and I'm sure she blamed us for killing them. Perhaps she's just a crazy old b**** who has to find someone, anyone, to blame for anything that goes wrong in her life, but whatever it was, she hopped on a flight that night and came back to UT to see for herself. When she arrived, I did everything I could to comfort her for the condition the intruders left her house - yes it was her house, but for the last two years, it was our HOME. She went through all of her belongings, all her "stuff" that she loved enough to pack in a giant safe and leave in Utah, but didn't seem to need it bad enough to take to her new home in Hawaii. That safe was full of sports memorabilia (her husband played for the Oakland Raiders) and it had guns, and jewelery, and art, and coins, and documents, and it was just packed to the gills with crap. After going through everything, piece by piece, she determined not a thing was stolen. Although the intruders had the safe partly cracked (and it only took the cops another 30 seconds to finish popping it open) they didn't even get a hand inside to take a single thing. Instead of being grateful that nothing was taken the homeowner turned on me and my family. She blamed us for the break in. She went off the handle about Ellery living in her home because she "wasn't in the contract" we signed when we moved it. It was 11pm and Mary, the homeowner, told Millie and I we had to get Ellery out of the house, that she couldn't be there anymore. I had Millie take Ellery to her parent's house and I told Mary, we'll be moved out by tomorrow. That night I spent the entire night packing and moving our stuff to Millie's parent's. The next morning her dad and our brothers-in-law came to help with the last of it. Mary didn't like how Rob, one of my brothers-in-law, looked at her and she called the cops. The psycho called the cops. I tried to keep everyone calm, to this day I have no idea why I still tried to comfort Mary, I can't believe I actually was empathetic towards her, I held her as she sobbed for her precious (dilapidated) house even as she kicked us out in the same breath... why the hell did I care what she was going through? I may never understand. But the ungrateful selfish evil woman will probably never know, and will definitely never understand, what me and my family went thought that week, it was all about her and her damn "stuff." The worst part of it was, the next week I had a meeting scheduled with my stake president to be re-baptized and get my membership back in the church. When we moved, the new stake in Provo refused to even consider looking at my records from Salt Lake and refused to "deal" with my reinstatement. So much time and effort - for lack of a better word - wasted.

I don't think I've ever expressed, especially not in writing, what I went through that week and how I felt about her. There isn't another human being on earth that is as heartless and selfish and evil as her - and the sickest part of it all, she still considers herself some sort of saint for "letting" us pay to take care of (and make improvements on) her house the previous two years. It always sickened me to think about how long the people who broke in must have been surveying the home to know the safe was there and what mine and Millie's schedule was. And some days, I can't help but wonder, what if I hadn't come home early from school that day? What if they had come while we were in Mexico just the week before? Not only would I have gotten to miss the terror of walking in on them with Ellery in my arms, but Mary would have lost all her precious crap that she holds so much more dearer than human life.

The Twenty-Eighth Year - 2007

I got into trouble for my last post by Millie for not mentioning enough about her. In my defense, it was almost 2am by the time I finished and I was absolutely exhausted mentally and physically since I started the day going for a run with her and then helping her parents do yard work the rest of the day. I've been getting these posts done so late I haven't been proofreading them before posting. I even forgot to mention my trip I took to Orlando (Disney World, Bush Gardens and the beaches) with some friends that summer. Besides, My life from this point is all about Millie and our daughters.


In June, Tyson got remarried to another girl from Peru. Millie and I went to the wedding. It was the same day as her cousin's, Jessica, wedding too.

In July, we went down to AZ to celebrate my mom's birthday by going on the Grand Canyon Railroad. It was a fun trip. I think it was the first time I had ever been on a "real" train, not a light rail commuter train or subway. We spent most of the trip (at the Grand Canyon) sitting around and talking. One day, no one really knew what they wanted to do, so Millie, Ellery and I went and sat on a swing by one of the buildings on the rim. After a while everyone else in our group came and joined us, and we spent the rest of the day there talking. I don't think it was the kind of trip Millie was exactly used to, but for my family, those have been some of our best times together; talking. On our trip back, after getting off the train (which got in late to because there were delays due to a rain storm) we ended up getting in after dark and the train station was closed in Williams, AZ. Ellery needed to be changed before hitting the road so we changed her in the trunk of our car. When we got on the road to head back to UT, it started to downpour (rain) again. So Millie called her cousin that lives in Flagstaff and we stayed with them that night, then drove back to UT the next morning.

After Millie graduated in nursing (but before she got her RN) she was offered a job with Talecris Plasma Centers. As part of the job she was to do three weeks of training in Lake Charles, Louisiana. We ended up going the end of July - first part of August, my work allowed me to as well to help out with Ellery (who was about four months old at the time). It was a great trip. Millie did her training each day while Ellery and I hung out at the hotel (all expenses paid by Talecris). I spent my time working remotely - I was a project manager for Trophy Homes at the time, working on the new database). After Millie got off work we usually went swimming in the pool, or drove around to find authentic Louisiana food. One night we went to a buffet in a casino - they had quite the spread. All the Louisiana classics: fried alligator, frog legs, crab, and plenty of unidentifiable goo (unfortunately it wasn't crayfish season).

One of the weekends there we decided to drive out to New Orleans to go to the D-Day Museum - I've always loved museums and if there's one about war history, even better. It was neat seeing all the items on display, especially the letters home from soldiers. It was also amazing to see how outnumbered our troops were. It was a great trip but I came to this conclusion - other than that museum, there's not a damn thing worth saving in New Orleans and it would have been better to be completely wiped out and abandoned after Katrina.

We spent another weekend going the other direction, to Galveston, Texas to go to Schlitterbahn water park. It was a great drive out. Ellery used to travel so well - she slept most of the time. On our way there we even road the ferry to Galveston and passed by the USS Selma - I thought it was so cool to see, but I'm kind of a geek like that. When we got to the park everyone kept staring at us - I'm pretty sure it was because we were the only ones dumb enough to bring a four month old to the park - apparently, only in Utah is it normal to 1) have babies and 2) bring them with you to a water park. I think Ellery did well and I only remember her freaking out crying a little bit, but Millie I'm sure remembers it quite differently. We took turns watching her while the other of us went on some of the more "fun" rides. But even the lazy river was pretty awesome - Ellery liked it. I think Ellery had a hard time that day just being pretty much naked and wet and hot all day, so she refused to eat until we dried her off and got her back to the car. We took a different way back to Lake Charles and I remember it being a good drive - again, I think Ellery slept most all the way back.

I was only able to stay two weeks - so at the end of that time I packed up an took Ellery back to Utah while Millie stayed to finish her last week.

Later that summer Millie got her RN (before the new Talecris center opened in Provo) and she got a job with Intermountain Health Care as a master float nurse based in the Newborn ICU unit. Although I'm sure she felt bad for the free trip to Louisiana and the wasted money on her by Talecris, the NICU was where she really wanted to work. Besides, when she went for her interview when she was first applying to Talecris her then future boss hit our then new car and they never paid for the repair - hosers.

The rest of the year consisted of school, work and family - and lots of all three. January 21, 2008 was the first blog of our new family blog. Back then it was "webbpartyof3." Millie created it just playing around with the idea of a blog - we never intended to actually use it, but shortly after the first post we had people commenting on it -- how in the world they found it, we may never know. But rather than changing it we just kept it and started to blog. Most of my life since then has been documented in our blog - so I'll refer back to old posts for the most part and just stick to highlights and flashbacks from my childhood.

By April the housing market was falling fast. I knew my job was at jeopardy - the entire company was. Sure enough, April 11 I was laid off, along with everyone else in the single family division. However, rather than morn the loss of my job, we celebrated by going on a previously planned trip to Disneyland. Yes, a few weeks before we booked a trip to Disneyland and ended up leaving the day after my layoff, it was perfect. We were able to enjoy the trip not thinking about whether or not I'd have a job when we got back. From that point on, Millie and I decided that it would be best if I loaded up on my school credits and focused on my degree so I could get moving on my career.

The Twenty-Seventh Year - 2006

I should have included this in last post, but I didn't - so here it is.

In February 2006 my friend Tyson lost his wife during the birth of their first, and only, child. If you remember, Tyson was engaged to a girl from his home town (Deweyville) by the time I came home from Texas. He couldn't wait for me to meet her and see what I thought of her. As soon as I moved up to Utah in January of 2003 I went up to meet her. Later that night, I told him, Tyson, you are not supposed to marry this girl. It as more complicated than that and we discussed it extensively. I guess he was thinking the same thing because later that week, he called to tell me he broke off the engagement. Later that summer he went to Peru with a friend of his (who served his mission in Peru) for a study abroad program. While he was down there he met the woman he would later marry, less than a year later - Jenny.

I blogged about Jenny's death on the All That is Wall blog, here's the link: All That is Wall: The Unimaginable. That blog only covers my thoughts on the events. I got the call from Tyson early in the morning. He sounded choked up and I knew something was wrong - he said baby was fine, but Jenny was "gone." I didn't know what to tell him, there was nothing I could, except that I'll be right there. Tyson never had much experience with babies - and his parents were a little rusty themselves - they had two boys twenty something years earlier with no other grandchildren. I was more than willing to help them get their feet wet again. I stayed with him at his parent's house in Deweyville a couple of days then had to check in at work before heading back up for the funeral.

At the funeral I put together a slide show on my laptop of Jenny and Hayden (their new baby) - Tyson didn't want to take the newborn out in early March, that was a good idea. the funeral went well - as well as a funeral of that nature can go - and after wards the crowds left and even I had to go back to life, leaving Tyson alone with his newborn. I called him everyday for a few weeks, just to check in on him and let him know I was there if he needed anything - even though he had moved back in with his parents, so his temporal needs were pretty much getting met. One day, maybe a couple of weeks after the funeral Tyson called me pretty upset. He was still working in Deweyville (where he was working and living before Jenny passed away) - and he was on his way home from work. He told me he just left his old apartment. He didn't mean to go there, he was just headed home from work listening to the radio not thinking about anything, and he completely spaced out. As he pulled up to his apartment he looked for Jenny's truck in the drive and wondered why it wasn't there - it was as if the the two or three previous weeks never happened - then, it ALL came back, and HARD. He said he sat in his car and sobbed for a good half hour or so before heading back to his parent's home and calling me. I didn't know what to say to him. But that night, we both decided he needed to take some time to himself and get away, so we planned a trip to San Blas - it was a location we both wanted to visit from a Spanish song by Mana, "El Muelle de San Blas." We planned to go the end of June.

In March, Chris and Marie Cool invited me to go to Rocky Point with them and their family. They used to take Shane every year, and with his death just a few months earlier, they wanted me to come in his place - it was me that introduced them and they took Shane into their family and he became closer to them than I was. I enthusiastically agreed to come. I told Brad about the trip and invited him to come - it was a road trip we both needed, and will never forget. We left early in the morning the week of spring break. It was SO cold still in Utah and we were looking forward to the warm beach. On the way down we stopped in Flagstaff to visit my friend Kelly and I took Brad to the Lowell Observatory (that I went to in my Horizons class in mid school). The tour was pretty much the same. It was a great way to kill an hour or two.

We left from the Cool's down to Mexico after doing some last minute repairs on one of their friend's trucks, who was also coming down with us. There were a few families going. We rented a big house on the beach for the week. It was perfect. We spent the week relaxing, playing games, talking about our memories of Shane and just enjoying our time together. One night we went and bought a bunch of Roman Candle fireworks and had a "war" with them. It was great; I got hit and burned my shorts. One night when we were sitting around the outdoor fire, Chris hit the top of Jesse's Corona, causing it to foam over all over him. Jesse got mad and went inside, we all laughed about it, until he surfaced on the balcony above and started shooting at us all down below with one of the Roman Candles - you'd never seen a bunch of guys scurry so fast, over walls, behind trees, wherever we could get away from his fire balls.

The ride back to AZ with Brad was great. Somewhere between Beaver and Provo, Brad and I got cabin fever from being in a car for so long that we started singing along with my ipod - I have video of us singing somewhere, maybe someday I'll post it.

I took summer classes at UVU, as usual, that summer. One of my classes was English 2010. First day of class I sat down with my laptop - it was in a room with large tables in a square pattern, so there was no "back of the class" seat, like I normally take. A moment later a girl came in and sat at the table next to mine. She was cute. I couldn't stop looking at her from the corner of my eye. I did so almost every class period. One day I forgot a pen to write with so I turned to her and asked for a pen. She let me use a pen, it was covered in glitter. When I returned it at the end of class I told her, "uh, your pen has glitter on it." I never got up the guts to talk to her again until the second to last day of class. I waited for her in the hall and asked her out. She hesitated but said yes. We ended up deciding to go out right after our in class final. I finish my final before her and told her to just call me when she got out - I even gave her the "hand to the ear gesture and mouthed 'call me'" thing was I left class. I waited and waited and she never called. The next day I waited and waited - she never called. Finally I decided to call her to see what was up, obviously I was never good at taking hints. I called her, she didn't answer - should have been a clue. I left a message anyway. A few minutes later she called back. She said she was actually really glad I called because her "phone broke" as she was leaving the English final and she had to go buy a new one and all her contacts got erased so she didn't have my number and couldn't call me. Honestly, I didn't believe her one bit; but she was still willing to go on a date with me, so we planned for me to pick her up after work on June 20th - the date, dinner at Red Robin and miniature golf at Cascade golf course. Both were fun. After wards I had to take her back to her car at her work where she left it. We sat in my car talking for a while; somehow the conversation got to Spongebob. I happened to have a few episodes on my ipod so we watched some. I couldn't stay too late because that night I was heading up to Centerville to stay with an old roommate of mine for the night because Tyson and I were leaving for San Blas early the next morning. After Spongebob got over I got out of my car and let my date out to give her a hug goodnight. The hug was okay, I didn't think I would be getting a second date from her either, but as I pulled away to get back in my car, she slid her hand down my arm and held my hand, just for a second. I gave her one more hug and something just clicked. I don't know why but in that instant I could see myself marrying her.

The next day, on our flight down to Mexico, I told Tyson all about my date the night before with - yep - Millie.

I couldn't talk too much about her on our trip though because it was supposed to be a guys trip, one to help Tyson get away and escape the reality of not having Jenny with him anymore.

The trip was great. We didn't plan anything other than we knew were were headed to San Blas. We flew into Puerto Viejo and booked a bus to San Blas. The bus didn't leave for a couple hours so we decided to grab a bit to eat - yep, street vendors, it's the best thing to eat in Mexico. We had a few tacos then made our way to the bus terminal. A LONG three hour bus ride later, we were in San Blas. We had no idea where we would stay - neither of us had ever been and we did no research on the place - that's just how we wanted our adventure to be. We walked around the town for a bit until we found a hotel we liked. It was Casa Maria, a small hotel not too far from the beach or town - and at ten bucks a night, no complaints. It was great, we spent a few days in San Blas walking around the town and eating at all the little stands. We went to the old fort and church ruins on the hill over looking the city, we visited the famous muelle and of course La Tovara (a natural spring deep in a mangrove forest). There was a rope swing at La Tovara and when Tyson went on it, he face planted into the water, I think that was his only attempt, rope swings are not his forte. But the boat ride in was cool and the views and fresh water were amazing. After a couple of days in San Blas we decided to start our way back to Puerto Viejo; we both wanted to stop and check out a place we passed on our bus ride to San Blas, a small "town" (a few building) called Playa los Cocos. We got off the bus WAY too early and ended up walking about five miles (with our packs - again, good thing I travel light) until we found a hotel. It was fifteen bucks a night and right on the beach. There was a lunch stand next door to the hotel that we ate at every meal we were there - it was the ONLY place to eat for miles. The owner of the hotel was an old guy who had his (I'm assuming) daughter visiting along with his grandchild. The owner spent all day, almost every day, in a hammock in by the beach - one day he feel asleep with his little grandson asleep on him, I took a picture I'll have to post later, it was adorable. Across the street from the hotel was a mango forest - yes, an entire forest of mango trees, I'm sure it was more of an orchard, but Tyson and I decided to go for a walk in it and pick us some mangos to eat along the way - which we did, and they were delicious! After a couple of days at Play los Cocos we had to head back to Puerto Viejo. We had one last night in Mexico and we decided to go all out and get an expensive hotel, expensive for us, it cost us like 20 bucks each for the one night, but the hotel was actually pretty nice and view was amazing, plus it even had A/C! Our last day/night/day in Puerto Tyson and I walked the shops and took pictures. Our flight back went well. We had a layover in San Fransisco and I called Millie from the airport to say hi.

A few days after I got back I took Millie to Park City to meet up with Brian and JoLynn, who were in town on vacation. When I picked up Millie at her house (her parent's house) I brought her flowers. Her dad answered the door and I handed him the flowers saying they were for him, then pulled them back and said I was just kidding, then I saw her mom and said they were actually for her - just kidding again. I know, I was a dork, especially for just meeting them in that moment. Millie came down and I gave her the flowers - Gerber daisies (her favorite) and some regular daisies. As we were leaving the house another car slowly passed us going the other direction and the people inside stared us down - I was asked Millie if she knew them and she said, "uh, no." I later found out the passenger was the boy she was dating at the time - I found out a few weeks later when he called me one morning. It was actually kind of a funny call - he told me he and Millie had been dating for the past nine months and that she is just playing me and I should dump her, I told him thanks but I wasn't really worried about it. Shortly after I got a call from Millie and she and I met up to talk, then I got the whole crazy story of how he couldn't take the hint, or direct statements, the she didn't like him and they were over. We hadn't made our relationship very official at that point so it really didn't bother me if she was dating someone else at the time. After that talk we decided to make it official.

A few weeks later I had to go down to St. George to help set up a new office for Trophy Homes, southern Utah division - I was the office manager of Trophy Homes at the time so, I was the lucky one to get to set the new site. While I was down there I had to run to Costco to get some supplies - in the parking lot, on my way out, I ran into Bethany - my old girlfriend from high school. I was shocked to see her. Over the years I had heard things about her whereabouts and what she was up to, but I never heard from her directly. The last thing I heard about her was just after I got back from Texas. Tevia told me that just before I left to Texas Bethany called her house (where I was living at the time) looking for me. She was married and going through a hard time and wanted to talk to me. Tevia told me she told Bethany that she was a married woman and to never try to contact me again. It was probably a good thing Tevs never told me that until after I got home from Texas, because otherwise, I probably would have tried to get back with her. Bethany ended up getting divorced and remarried by the time I ran into her at Costco. We said hi and hugged and basically just did the quick, "how've you been" kind of a passing - although there was SO much I wanted to say and ask her, but couldn't at the time.

Later that week I got a call from her - apparently she tracked my cell phone number down through a number of connections, I'm still not sure how come to think of it. She and I talked for hours - just like we used to back in high school, there were SEVERAL nights either she, or I, or both of us would fall asleep with our ears to the phone talking all hours of the night (again, that was before cell phones, so it was all land line conversations). But WHAT we talked about this time was different. Yes, we caught up on how we were and what's gone on over the years, but most of all she apologized. She apologized for how she treated me while we dated and for how things ended. She explained the bad situation with her ex and how it effected even her sibling's lives. We talked about everything that had been bothering me and hurting the previous six years, then we said goodbye.

It was shortly after that I found out Millie was pregnant. The day she told me, I somehow already knew. We planned a day, a Sunday afternoon, to tell her parents and let them know we were going to get married, a little sooner than expected. The day we planned for came. She showed up at Jacob and Cari Wall's house (where I was living at the time) and told me she couldn't go - she didn't want to go - and asked me to go by myself. I had still only met her parents a few times before and thought she was absolutely crazy for asking me to do that alone - but, I went. The drive over was too short. My heart was racing the entire time. I knocked on the door and Millie's mom answered and told me, "Millie's not here right now." I told her, I knew because she was at my place. I asked if I could talk to her and Kim (Millie's dad). She went and got him and we sat down in the living room. I didn't know how to begin. I sat on the couch across from them just trembling. Then, I said, I love your daughter, and I want to ask you if I can marry her. They said of course and actually seemed happy, then I had to drop the other news, I told them they have another grandchild on the way - and I did phrase it something like that. Disappointment flooded their faces - but at the same time, I could feel they loved their daughter so much and respected me (as much as a parent in their position could) for coming to them and loving their daughter too. My fear was gone - well, the fear of telling them was gone, my fear of how my life was about to change had only just begun.

Making things right with Millie's parents was only part of what lay before me. I also had the religious concerns as well. The church looks down on premarital relationships and even more so if a child is involved - compounded by the fact that I was in a ward in Provo. I went to my bishop to get things taken care of - he said it was beyond his ability to deal with and sent it to the stake. About a week later I was excommunicated from the church. I couldn't believe it. In less than a year I lost one of my best friends, another of my best friends lost his wife, I was on my way to becoming a father, and I had lost my membership in the church of my faith. With every trial over the previous year I thought, no way can things get any worse, yet they had.

Shortly after Millie and I got married. It was a simple, yet wonderful ceremony. We got married at the Alpine Art Center in Alpine, UT. Her parents were so helpful and supportive through it all. We kept it small and just invited family (including Brad, who we found out was Millie's cousin, after I realized her last name was Roper too) - and we invited a few close friends. My family came up from AZ, it was great to have them there. Right after the wedding Millie and I went to Disneyland for the weekend because we had to be back to school on Monday - getting married mid-semester was crazy.

We moved into a home owned by a lady I used to work with at Trophy Homes. She was fired the previous year, basically for clashing with the boss too many times. She had a home in Pleasant Grove with a HUGE yard, two OLD cats, two even OLDER dogs, and a horse - and she needed someone to take care of them all, and the house, while she lived in Hawaii. It seemed like a good opportunity at the time. Taking care of those nasty rotting dogs and the sickly cats was a chore. By mid winter one of the cats died. By late winter one of the dogs followed.

On April 2, 2007 Millie started to go into labor. She was in a lot of pain pretty much the entire afternoon. The contractions were pretty far apart but her pain wasn't going away between them, we didn't know that wasn't normal so we just waited til they got closer before calmly making our way to the hospital - where we preregistered earlier that day. When we checked in, the nurse there asked a few questions about the contractions and said they would monitor Millie for a bit and see if anything progresses and said, "you'll probably just end up going home, you're not that far along," and she was right, Millie was only 36 weeks at the time (four weeks early). The floor was pretty much dead and the nurses that were there slowly moseyed about whenever we asked for them - until, that is, Millie's water broke. She was in the hospital bed and had just changed into a gown. I called the nurse in to let her know the water broke. She came and looked at it and she went pale - the water was filled with blood. In that instant the quite hospital floor came alive. There were four or five nurses and a midwife in in a matter of seconds. Both Millie and the baby (in uterus) got hooked up to monitors - they told us the placenta had been tearing away from the uterus and they would have to perform an emergency C-section. Moments later the doctor arrived and they were suiting me up in OR clothes so I could be by Millie's side. I remember feeling detached from the entire situation, like, all this wasn't really happening to me or my wife - but it was. I got out our camera so I could take pictures of the new baby when it came - what an idiot, I left the battery at home in the charger. No problem, I brought our video camera - oh, crap, the battery was dead. Thankfully the hospital gave us a disposable camera to take some pictures.

The staff was great and in seconds Ellery Jane Webb was cut from her mom at about 4am on April 3, 2007. Aside from the birthing complications Ellery was healthy and strong. She could stand, with a little help by holding her arms, that same day. She was a solid and rigid baby from day one. After a couple of days in the hospital we were able to bring her home. Millie finished up classes at UVSC later the next week and graduated with her nursing degree. It was a heck of a year for me, but I was thankful for my new family and for the chance to be alive and turn twenty seven.

The Twenty-Sixth Year - 2005

Turning twenty-five was bitter sweet for me... but mostly just bitter. According to the culture I was living in at the time I had become a "menace to society." Personally, I don't think it was an accurate descriptive title - I was working full time and enrolled in school at UVSC working on my business management degree. Hardly a menace.

I think this was the summer I went to the Jack Johnson concert with G Love and Special Sauce. It was a good concert - held somewhere out in West Jordan I think. I can't remember who I even went with but our seats were pretty good. I also went to a Tim McGraw concert at that same venue. One of my co-workers used to call in to local radio stations and she seemed to always get through and win free stuff. Once she won Howie Day concert tickets; she had already bought tickets too so she gave me the ones she won. I took a friend from FoxWood. It was a great concert, Anna Nalick opened. Speaking of concerts, I think it was in 2006, I went to the Fall Out Boy concert (with All American Rejects and Hawthorne Heights) at the McKay Events Center at UVSC - NOT a good venue, in fact the WORST sound quality ever... but it was still fun to go.

The year was not all fun though. September. Shane Sirois was killed September, 2005. Back then I used to write all my blogs on the All That Is Wall blog (Bret's blog). I recorded my thoughts shortly after getting the news of Shane's death here: All That is Wall: Farewell to a friend. I just finished reading it for the first time since I wrote it. It's interesting how many of the stories I shared there are the same as I've written in these past few blogs here.

Shane was working as a stunt man for a touring show of Pirates of The Caribbean in China at the time; he came home (to Tucson) for a week or so to visit his grandparents for his birthday (September 11). On the 17th Shane and some friends put on a benefit car wash to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. After helping at the car wash he went with some friends to a gas station where one of his friends was getting a cell phone he had loaned to another friend (or something like that). While they were there a young male in a car started arguing with one of Shane's friends over who knows what. The guy in the car drove off, only to return a moment later showing a gun. Shane and his friends took off running on foot. One shot was fired hitting Shane in the back. The bullet bounced around the inside of his thoracic cavity until coming to rest lodged in his heart. One of his friends ran to him and held him - Shane knew he was gone.

Shortly after my dad called me with the news I got a call from Shane's younger brother Eric. Eric asked me to be a pole bearer at the funeral in Tucson - of course I agreed. I cried good and hard that week. Only a week or two before his death I tried to email him. He must have changed his address because it came back undeliverable. Words can't describe how much I regret procrastinating tracking down his new address - or some other means of getting in touch with him. I just wanted to catch up with him, say hi, and see how things were going for him. The last time I had seen him before the funeral was at Chris and Marie Cool's house in Show Low, the same one Shane and I helped paint. Shane was there finishing up some odd job for the Cools - it must have been a year or so earlier (2004).

I helped track down a few of Shane's childhood friends to give them the news and invite them to the funeral - including a girl he and I both dated in high school (at the same time - yes all three of us knew about it, but we didn't care). I felt a little out of place there, most (okay, all) of the people (friends from high school) I hadn't spoken to since graduation - except for Kelly, she and I actually rode down to Tucson together. The funeral was all wrong. His mom had it in an LDS church building and all the songs and even the eulogy were things Shane was probably rolling his eyes about. The guy that gave the eulogy was probably the bishop in his grandparent's ward... I'm pretty sure he never met Shane and who knows where he got his words from. The best thing said was by his mom, "if Shane were here right now, he would be wondering why we're all a bunch of 'sad sacks,' cheer up, you'd think someone died or something." His life ended far too soon, but, ironically enough, Shane did (accomplished) everything he ever set out to do.

At the graveside ceremony one of Shane's friends sparked up a joint and blew a last puff into the grave... the rest of us just shared a memory and tossed in a handful of dirt.

I spent the rest of the year listening to Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" song - over and over and over again.

The Twenty-Fifth Year - 2004

During the summer of 2004 I was offered the opportunity to earn more money by working nights as a security guard for the company I was already working for, Trophy Homes. I would drive to the various construction sites and keep an eye on things to prevent job site theft and vandalism. Even though I was working nights, I kept my day hours as well. There were a few of the nights I would bring friends along to keep me company, and sometimes I would watch movies on my laptop. It was exhausting (staying up all night and then all day) at times but I needed the money.

Looking back, I can't think WHY I needed it so bad, I didn't have a lot of expenses; if only I could go back and save some of that disposable income - rather than spend it all on dates and having fun. Okay, maybe I don't regret it all that much. I had a lot of fun, and sometimes I actually wish I had myself a little more fun.

Winter 2004 came early that year - come to think of it, it comes early every year in Utah. By early November I had already had enough of the cold, gray and gloomy weather. I got online and started searching airfare prices to pretty much anywhere south. I quickly found a cheap ($240 round trip) flight to Cancun. I had never been before so I booked and got ready to go. One of my roommates that summer, Brian Whittaker, worked a summer on Cozumel (selling Del Sol T-shirts) and he suggested a small hotel for me to stay at in Playa del Carmen - La Maya Bric. I didn't want this to be too planned out, so I decided to just go down and play everything by ear. My flight left the Monday before Thanksgiving - just about a week after I booked it. I remember getting off the plane in Cancun and just breathing in the moment. The air was warm and humid with that slight acrid smell of mildew - common for many parts of Mexico. It's a comfort smell to me, that reminds me of my childhood trips to the homeland.

It was already getting late when I landed, about 8pm, so I didn't waste much time finding a bus to Playa del Carmen - about an hour drive south. When I arrived in Playa the town was hopping. The bus terminal is right on 5th ave., which is the main street for shops, tourists and restaurants (for the tourists). I walked pretty much the entire street (with my bag - which wasn't bad because I travel so light). After looking over my options I decided to go with La Maya Bric. It was a hole in the wall hotel, literally, the entrance to the courtyard is a hole in a wall on the street. Since it was the week of Thanksgiving I was able to get a room for $10 bucks a night - a steal, since the room was really pretty nice. No roaches at least... well, not that I ever saw, and it was less than 50 yards to the beach and it had a pool.

There were only a few things I knew I wanted to do while there. 1) Go to Tulum, 2) Go to Chitzen Itza, 3) Eat street vendor food, 4) Relax and enjoy the experience. I did all but one of those things - I didn't get to go to Chitzen Itza due to time and money constraints. However, Tulum was amazing - I remember thinking over and over again, the entire time I was there, that I could not believe I was actually there. It was a place I had only seen in pictures and dreamed of going. The stairway down the side of the cliff that lead to the beach was closed, so I found another way down the side of the cliff. I had the beach all to myself. It was great.

My flight home was Thanksgiving eve, so I wasn't there very long. However, every morning I woke up and ate street vendor food, usually a torta and a coke - the breakfast of champions. Since 5th ave. is so touristy it was hard finding much else in the way of street vendor food. So one day I hopped on an inner city (colectivo) bus and started to ride. I had NO idea where I was going to end up or what I would do. The bus wound through many of the poorer parts of town - it reminded me a lot of the areas I lived and worked in Ecuador. The bus went past a dirt field with some guys playing soccer - so I told the driver to stop and I got off. I joined their game of soccer and played until it was almost dark - probably not way smart since I had NO clue where I was in the city or how to get back to my hotel, but I really didn't worry about it much - I could speak Spanish and that was good enough for me. The buses had stopped running already so I asked the guys I was playing soccer with how to get back to my hotel. They gave me directions and I started to walk. It was a good, but long, walk. On the way I found a few vendors that I was more than happy to exchange money for their food - tacos!

The next morning I woke up, packed my bag and got my breakfast torta and coke. I headed down to the beach for one last relaxing moment (since I didn't think I'd get a chance back in Cancun). I sat on a beach chair under an umbrella and called my dad to tell him where I was calling from and wish him an early happy Turkey Day. Then I headed to the bus terminal and rode back to Cancun. It was still a few hours before my flight was going to leave - planned that so I could check out the city - and that's just what I did. I had NO clue where to go or what the city offered so, again, I got on a city bus and started to ride. I saw a street market so I got off and walked around. I ended up buying a Puma's soccer jersey. Then I decided to head out to, and walk, the beach. I took a bus out to the end of the strip of big resort hotels and walked the entire strip, on the beach, back to the main land. On my way I realized I never used a waterproof camera I bought for the trip, so I gave it to a newlywed couple that was there on their honeymoon. It was a nice way to end the trip.

I got back to the airport and checked in. The flight was delayed, and delayed, and delayed. Apparently the plane that was supposed to pick us up and take us to Houston was coming out of Houston and it was raining pretty hard there so I couldn't leave. A few hours later, it finally came. We boarded and the flight went without incident. However, when we landed in Houston, the plane was so late, I had missed my connection to Phoenix (I was flying to Phoenix to spend Turkey Day with Bret and Tevs). I went to the airline counter and they looked up my flight information. They were able to get me on a new flight to Phoenix the next morning, Thanksgiving Day, and they put me up in the airport Marriott with a free room service dinner. To this day, I don't know what made me think it would be good - since I really don't like pizza that much - but I ended up ordering a pizza. I couldn't have been more disappointed when the pizza that arrived was a Pizza Hut pizza... quite possibly the world's NASTIEST excuse for pizza EVER! But, I was hungry so I ate it... some of it. I got about half way done when I couldn't eat any more (and it was a small, individual size, pizza). About halfway through the night, the pizza came back up - a few times. I didn't sleep much the rest of the night and the flight to AZ was pretty miserable. Thanksgiving wasn't that fun either because I couldn't eat much - but it was great to be spending it with family at least.

Later that year, for New Year's, I ended up going with a few of my new friends (I moved into Parkway Crossing that fall for school at UVSC) up to Salt Lake for "First Night," the SLC New Year's party. That night I met Brad Roper. He was one of the guys - come to think of it, the only other guy there besides me - that we met up with when we got to Salt Lake. He was eating at ThaiFoon with a few other friends. I don't know why, but we decided to head out to the festivities together in his car with a few of the girls. We got there before them and I remember he and I complained about how slow everyone else was being - it's funny, but our cynical attitudes sealed a pretty solid friendship that night. I later found out he even lived just down the hall from me at Parkway Crossing.

It was nice having Brad around since my roommates were absolute (insert your own expletive here). Brad and I ended up spending a lot of time together, usually complaining about girl problems and playing basketball. One of my favorite things we used to do was play Mafia in the church building late at night with a huge group of friends. Those were some pretty good times.

The Twenty-Fourth Year - 2003

During the summer of 2003 Matt and I had a great time working together. There were several weekends he and I would cut out of work on Fridays and head out to California to surf in Carlsbad. Matt had a few friends that were working selling pest control there so we had a free place to stay when we went down. Matt had just gotten a new Honda Civic too, so gas was pretty cheap. I never got super good at surfing, but the trips were great. My first time out it was FREEZING. I remember shivering so hard in my wet suit that I couldn't even hold on to my surf board. The next few trips were much better. On one trip my younger brother Brandt came with us. On the way back, I was driving, only going maybe 95mph (with the flow of traffic that day). Unfortunately, the road up ahead was lined with state patrol cars pulling over speeders right and left - it was by far the most expensive ticket I have ever gotten... I think that was that last surfing trip I took - couldn't afford it after that.

Later that summer I started the hunt for a car. I searched every listing, in print and on line, for weeks. I knew I wanted a Honda - best car maker ever. I found a '93 Accord that I went to test drive. I didn't LOVE it, but it seemed like it would be an okay car - but I wanted to sleep on it. The next day, I found a '97 Civic. The ad was posted just moments before I found it. The seller lived just down the street. I contacted her and JoLynn drove me over to test drive. I fell in LOVE the first time I got in. She was perfect - she was "precious to me" (Gullom). The seller said she had just gotten a job out east and was not taking the car with her. It had 133,000 miles on it - most of which were open highway miles from going between AZ and Cali. She was the car's second owner and was asking $5,500. I told her I have $5k, I'll take it right now. She accepted and I drove Precious home.

At the end of the summer I headed back up to BYU. Everything I owned fit in that car - in fact, up until I got married everything I owned still could fit in that car.

Back at BYU, I got a new apartment with the same roommates I had the previous semester - Will and Buddy. They also brought with them another Canadian, Jason Low. the four of us lived in FoxWood Apartments, unit number four. I loved living with those three Canucks. We spent almost every night watching Sports Center on ESPN. We also played BYU intramural basketball together. It was always fun playing with Will, he was tall, but lazy, and refused to jump because it was "a waste of energy." Buddy's laugh was infectious. He used to get a kick out of mine and Will's long toes - sometimes when Will and I were laying on the floor watching TV Buddy used to try and get Will and I to "hold toes." Lord of The Rings, The Two Towers came out in 2002. The four of us loved the movie (Buddy and I used to talk like Smeagal and Gullom to each other). The movie had finally gone to dollar theaters and we went to see it - at the WORST dollar theater in the world. I think it was in American Fork (the only dollar theater showing it at the time). Half the chairs were missing from the theater and it was flooded (hopefully just with water) down by the screen and the chairs had NO padding... literally. Despite all that, we stayed the entire three plus hours to see the movie.

I think 2003 was the year I spent Christmas alone. I had just started a new job (quit my remote job with PracticeMax) in October. I started working as a receptionist for Trophy Homes. I didn't really have time off, or the money, to make a trip down to AZ to be with family. So I stayed in Utah and just spent the holiday alone. It was interesting being the ONLY person in the entire two buildings at FoxWood for almost two weeks. I went three days straight without leaving my apartment or seeing another human being. I basically spent the time watching Finding Nemo (my parents sent it to me for Christmas) and all my other Disney animated movies. As sad of a Christmas as it could have been, I actually liked the experience, but I would never want to do it again.

During the winter semester of 2004 (January - April) I started looking more into the idea of going into occupational therapy for a career; even did some job shadowing. The University of Utah was one of few schools that still offered OT as a bachelor's degree so I decided to transfer to the U to try and get in the program. Of course, physical therapy was actually my preferred choice, but I really didn't want to sacrifice the time to get a four year degree in something else in order to try to get into a master's program for PT. So I decided to settle and make the move. After winter semester ended I started my applications to go to the U.

The Twenty-Third Year - 2002

After Tyson left my next companion was Hyrum Hibbert. He came straight out of the MTC - yes, I was a trainer. I was pretty sure that President Tanner (the mission president) was never going to have me train, but there I was.

Hyrum was a good kid. He had good intentions and desires, but I think he was the most difficult for me to get along with. I sometimes think the situation wasn't much different than with me and my first trainer in Ecuador. I think Hyrum had a certain idea of how things would, or should, be in the mission - so learning the reality of things was probably a difficult adjustment. I'm pretty sure Hyrum struggled with a bit of a learning disability or a social disorder as well, so all things considered, he really was a good kid and a good missionary.

He and I were together for a couple of months and he was transferred. My next companion was also new to the mission, yes, I trained again; Ian Bates. Ian was so much fun. He and I decided to ditch the car (as much as possible) and bought bikes. What ever happened to my bike?... I think I might have sold it or given it away when I left... I think. We also bought Camelback backpacks - anyone who has ridden a bike (all day) in Texas, in the summer, would understand why they were necessary. Most of our area covered low income neighborhoods, predominantly Black and Hispanic populations. The Black kids would always stop us in on our bikes and ask us what were were selling, if we were "pakin heat", and "why you got that hose comin outta you bag, you not gettin enuf air to breef or sumfin?" They would get a kick out of the fact that there was water in that hose, not air, and they would all line up to get a drink out of it - of course we wouldn't let them put their mouth on it, we just held up the pack and let the water flow out.

After a month with Ian, we got another missionary added to our companionship. He was supposed to be headed to South America but had visa problems and was sent to Texas to wait it out. The three of us had a lot of fun together, even though we couldn't do bikes much after that.

When my time had come for me to go home, December 5th 2002, I ended up spending ten and a half of my twelve and a half months in the same area in a small branch in Arlington. I really grew to love that branch and all the families I worked so much with. The branch (church group) that I worked with was composed of Hispanics from all over the world, from Acuna, Mexico (just across the boarder from Del Rio, TX - to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru, Chile and all over Mexico. It was great to learn about so many different cultures, accents and vocabulary uses - not to mention how fun it was to listen to the Chileans talk about how "everyone from Peru is a drug addict" and the Peruvians would claim, "all Chileans are drunks." Yes, the rivalries among the Latins is great - especially around the World Cup.

I miss everyone I got to know and love during my service as a missionary. But when it was my time to be done, I was ready.

I came home and needed a place to stay for a month (the month of December) while I waited for the winter semester to start at BYU (I had applied and been accepted during the last couple months of my mission in Texas). Tyson (and my mission president) convinced me to apply and go there. Tyson was all set to attend and we were planning on being roommates. He arranged housing and everything. When it came time for the semester to start, Tyson bailed. He ended up getting engaged to a girl from his hometown. Now, not only was I going to be attending BYU, but I wouldn't know a single person up there - and I still needed a place to live for a month.

Brian and JoLynn Hutchinson was an older couple who lived in my Scottsdale ward before I left to Texas. I never really knew them before I left, but they offered their home to me for that month of December 2002. The month with them was great. I learned JoLynn a lot about both of them including the fact that she is Jeanie Day's aunt (my middle school music teacher). Another great thing about my coming home to Scottsdale was I got my old job back at PracticeMax. In fact, when it came time for me to head up to Utah for school, my boss let me take my work with me and work remotely correcting billing errors.

The housing Tyson had secured for me was - not the fanciest place in Provo, but I was poor so, I didn't care, it was a place to live. It was an apartment for four guys, but since Tyson bailed, there were only three of us - me, and two Canadians: Buddy Beazer and Will Petersen. The three of us got along great and became great friends. Halfway through the semester we came home to a new roommate. Matt Mendenhall. Imagine Kramer from Seinfeld, then give him a Macbook computer and a guitar - that was Matt. He was a character. The four of us melded well as roommates. We went to more social events that semester than I think I ever have, Matt had that influence on people - to just get out and have fun. Before the end of the semester, just as he came, Matt left. He was from Scottsdale, AZ and I was able to get him a job with PracticeMax back in AZ. After the semester ended, I too moved back to AZ, back in with Brian and JoLynn. I still had no car so I bought a pair of rollerblades and would rollerblade to work - thank goodness the office was only a few (3) miles away. Yes, I used to rollerblade to work in Scottsdale in the summer - so what?




Like I mentioned before, when I went into the MTC in October 1999, that was really only the third time I had ever even been to Utah. The first time I went with my family when I was much younger - maybe eleven-ish. We made the trip to visit some of my mom's family and to visit temple square and a few church history sites. The trip up took two days... somehow. We took it slow stopping at sites here and there - in the old copper van. The stop I remember the most was at a KOA where we stayed the night - somewhere in Utah. There was a small store that sold some random crap and candy. In all my trips to and from Utah since then I've tried to find that KOA, but I never have, I think we must have gone a different way, or it's just not there anymore.

In Utah we visited my aunt Dona (my mom's sister) and my uncle David (my mom's brother). David was married to Sherri at the time, an older woman who had a son about Nephi's age from a previous marriage. Chad had rollerblades, I had never seen them before and I was jealous he and Nephi got to use them, my feet were too small at the time. David and Sherri also had some black chow dogs - pure chows, with purple tongues. I thought they were the coolest dogs ever - probably just because I knew they were expensive.

At temple square we toured the tabernacle and some of the other buildings around. We also went to the beehive house and I remember I bought a copper post card with a picture of temple square on it. I kept that for years - in fact, it may still be in my box of stuff at my parents house, unless they threw that box away.

The other trip up to Utah was when we dropped Nephi off at the MTC. Pretty much the only thing I remember about that (if it was the same trip) was we visited Bret and Tevia in their tiny basement (bottom floor) apartment, and Tevia was still learning how to cook. She made spaghetti, I think, and I remember the mountains looking SO tall and close from their place. It looked like the mountains would fall right on top of me. I also remember Nephi wanting to eat at [Up] Chuck-O-Rama for his last meal before going into the MTC. I actually thought that place was good back then.