Back in the Sky

Once again, I'm back in the sky on my way to California. This time, I'm headed for the Oracle RFQ review that should take most of the day. Unfortunately, we are running about 2 hours behind today thanks to United! Actually, I should blame the weather - it was -17F at home this morning and the cold weather actually froze the pipes on the plane and they needed time to de-ice. Crazy! We are not sure whether or not they will delay the RFQ review and just start without us. We're going to get there ASAP and we'll see how things turn out.

It's been a few days since I last wrote and I can blame most of that on a whirlwind trip to Utah. After landing in Colorado last week on my return trip from London, we decided to wait until the morning before driving to Utah. We ended up getting 8 inches of snow on Thursday night and I think we made the right choice to delay our departure. We weren't able to go skiing in Utah, but I think that was fine - the kids had a real blast hanging out with their cousins and playing!! It was fun to watch them. Here are some of the fun things that we did this past weekend:

• After arriving at around 5pm on Friday night, we enjoyed a nice spaghetti dinner with the Holt family and we let the cousins play. Steve and Alisha came over, so Mitchell and Payson had a blast playing with Jantzen and Aubrey while we enjoyed holding little baby Penny. She is already 8 weeks old and she is adorable!
• First thing in the morning, Amy and I got up very early and we made the 7:15am temple session in Bountiful. It was fantastic! We really enjoyed the new movie at the temple. They now have 2 new movies that they show during the endowment sessions and they are both fantastic. They are actually pretty different and they portray different things. I really enjoyed them both. It was an AWESOME experience and I felt very good when we finished. In fact, I think it was one of the better trips to the temple that I've experienced in recent years. Here's a fun photo of us as we exited the temple:

• Upon our return to the Holt homestead, the Bountiful Holt's had arrived and we enjoyed an incredible brunch (pancakes, eggs & sausage). It was great to spend time with the family and relax. The Bountiful Holt's stuck around for most of the day and we enjoyed spending time with them. We just talked and played with kids, passing around the babies and really enjoying things. It was fantastic!
• For dinner on Saturday night, we tried the new "Pizza Pie Cafe" in Clinton, UT. It is a full pizza, pasta, salad buffet. It was pretty good and it was VERY crowded. It was fun, but probably not worth the price!
• Sunday was a great day. We woke up early and got to church on-time for the 9am sacrament meeting. Little baby Penny was blessed and Steve did a really great job with the blessing. He's turned into a really great dad! He's a good guy with a really great heart and I'm very proud of him. He's also in great shape and runs a bunch. He did 25 miles on Saturday morning by himself. Wow!! I would love to be able to do that, but I know my body could not make it.
• Here's a great little photo of Alyssa holding baby Penny in her blessing dress after Sacrament meeting. I was able to help Steve teach his Primary class on Sunday, which was really fun. He taught Ashtyn's class and Alyssa joined for fun. I must say that teach primary is pretty awesome!! That would be a great calling!

• After spending a few hours at the Shepherds, we returned to the Holt's and relaxed for the evening. It was Super Bowl Sunday and the Denver Broncos were playing the Seattle Seahawks. I think everyone was expecting a great game, but it was a horrible game. The Seahawks destroyed the Broncos 43-8. Even if you are a Seahawks fan, that game wasn't much fun to watch. The Broncos just made too many mistakes and they could recover. Everytime you thought they got a little momentum, they would turn the ball over or do something else stupid! It was truly a "comedy of errors". Looking back, I'm pretty shameful that I even watched the Super Bowl. From now on, I will record it and watch it the next day. I would rather just spend time with the family and play games. Big life lesson learned!!!
• I have definitley gained too much weight and I really need to shed some pounds. I'm up at 225lbs now and I gained 5 lbs on the trip to London. All of this traveling has really pushed my weight up. Too much high-calorie food and not enough exercise. I've been too injured for too long and my body just HURTS!! While I'm on the topic of my body, yesterday morning, I went to see the Nurse Practioner at the Rheumatoid Arthritis place. Her name is Angela Burns and she's from Arkansas. I was VERY impressed with her and I'm excited about my future treatment plans. I have officially been diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondilitys (sp?). This is a disease with no cure that I inherited through my wonderful gene pool! :) I will have back pain the rest of my life and all I can do is stay active, do some yoga, and stay on anti-inflammatory drugs. Sounds crappy, and it is, but I was just excited to finally have a diagnosis to explain my pain and some options for ways to reduce the pain! Yeah! Plus, Dr. Burns has AS as well, so she knows what I'm going through and she'll do a really great job helping me through the pain!
• I was a pretty busy guy yesterday with regards to doctors stuff! After my appointment with Dr. Burns, I got my allergy shots (I was kind of late getting these). Then in the afternoon, I hustled over to get a bone scan done to look into any potential bone density issues. Hopefully everything comes back positive so that I can move forward with my dental implants!!
• Finally, yesterday, we were supposed to have New Beginnings for the Young Women at the Stake Center and the YM were supposed to cook dinner for them. Unfortunately, we had to postpone the event due to weather - it was VERY icy and snow yesterday and the temperature was dropping fast. I think we made the right call and it was really nice to go home and have dinner with the family. I really love my cute little family!! I love being home with them and I wish I wasn't traveling so much!! Once we have our little baby in April, it will force the issue a bit and we should have some more time at home with the family. That will be awesome!

Okay, time to close so that I can get some work done on this flight. I will try to get back into the nightly habit of writing again as I really do enjoy getting these topics off my chest! I can't believe I'm going to be 38 years old in just 2 days! I will admit that I'm looking forward to my "birthday weekend"!

 

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