EVERYDAY vs SOMETIMES

Sometimes I think I have it all figured out and then it all falls apart and I have to start over again at the beginning. I hate beginnings! Sometimes I am convinced that I will never get it right so why even try starting over when I'm just going to end up falling short in the long run...there I'll be, regretting that I ever started in the first place. Sometimes I try too hard to make things too right setting me up for certain disaster and then sometimes... I could just care less .

When I really think about it, I mean REALLY think about it, it's the "sometimes" that make the difference. "Everyday" I need to think I have it figured out, that I have it right. Everyday I need to try, to care and to not fear the failures...I will fail, I am going to have set backs, and I most definitely will be disappointed. I learn many a harsh lesson from such insight but, lessons are learned and with that I gain strength in myself. I can figure it out, I can get it right, there is a place where there are no regrets and it is not that far away from "EVERYDAY" instead of "SOMETIMES".

MY BABY'S BIRTHDAY + HER BABY'S BIRTHDAY

Stephanie came down for the weekend to celebrate her birthday with us. We had such fun! She gets to share her birthday with her son Gage so we went to "Build a Bear" with Ali and little cousin Abby and built some of the cutest little animals you ever did see complete with little outfits and names! Then it was off to Soldiers Hollow for a night of tubing with all my adventurous work associates. What scary fun that was! Skyler, Cambria and Ali could not get enough but Stephanie after doing a flip over the fence decided that going too fast down an ice slide with no control or way to stop or even slow down was not an extremely fun way to spend the night. She was a great sport however and kept going even when she really didn't want to. We ended the evening with hot chocolate and donuts in the lodge and then headed home with some very tired youngins! What a great weekend! Thanks everyone.

Thanks Clark and Cami for spending time with us on Saturday. We know that you have had lots on your minds this weekend. Our thoughts and prayers are with you always! We LOVE you!






We stuffed and fluffed and dressed. Then we filled out the birth certificates and put them in boxes made just for them and brought them home!
It was so fun for all of us big and
small...

SPRINGTIME SKIING! AKA RACOON EYES!

Well I have to admit, I have a new favorite ski resort and it is DEER VALLEY! I have basically refused to ski there for all these years because it is just too much money and my heck why would you pay that much when snow is snow and you can ski on it other places for so much less. My friends are instructors at Deer Valley and today they invited me to ski with them there. I now know why they like it so much . It will be hard to go back to the little mountain with the slow chair lifts. It was such a beautiful day. The sky was clear and the air warm. I didn't want to come home because I knew that this was going to be one of the last ski days of the year for me. Usually by about this time each year I am ready to hang up my skies and put on my gardening gloves but if I could have more days like today I think I could ski right through the Forth of July! Thank you to my great girlfriends who make great days possible. You are all as usual more than awesome.

Winter Blues

You may think that I was going to write about how tired I am of the snow and how excited I am for spring but I have to tell you. I LOVE THE WINTER and I miss it when it's over. The title to this post "Winter Blues" simply refers to the hues in the photo. How beautiful! I know that most people prefer the vivid fall colors or the warm greens of summer but me, I will take the quiet winter whites any day. A walk up the canyon after a storm when the trees are bent and heavy with snow making tunnels to walk through or the sparkle as the sun glitters off the frozen ground. A trek on snow shoes or cross country skies in the back country surpasses a sticky hot summer afternoon in my book any day. It's March and winter is almost at an end. I will miss it until it returns again with those first flakes falling from the pale gray sky. In the meantime, I will enjoy spring.

WELCOME HOME!

At least the storm waited until we had landed and made our way safely home. I just have to look at it in this way... In less than a week I will have played in the warm crystal clear waters of Hawaii and skied the beautiful white powder of Utah and I think to myself what a wonderful world...

HAWAII 2009

How much fun can you pack into one week? Well, if you put this group of friends together the possibilities are endless. We all agreed that if the work week went by as fast we would have nothing in our lives to complain about! We became "beach bums" for a week and loved every minute of it. We played on boogie boards, snorkeled, (or as we like to say it snarkeled), sat in the sun and watched whales. We explored all the nukes and crannies on each new beach. We ate fresh guacamole, pineapples, mango's, and Rambo fruit everyday. What a life! Some say that you would get tied of it if you live there all of the time but seriously, I question whether or not that is true. I would have a hard time getting tired of the sound of the waves, the colors or the sweet smell of the air and the FOOD! Of coarse, I would have to have my ENTIRE family move to the islands because I could not survive without them close by. Thank you Mike and Ann once again for sharing your condo with us!

"Freddie"

For many years I have been coming to Kona. It is a beautiful almost magical place that holds a lot of wonderful memories of past and present adventures for me. I can see myself pulling up roots and making my way across that not so small puddle of water someday and becoming one with the island and its people. I find myself stepping outside of my comfort zone more here. I am more aware of people. Maybe because there are so many who have so little. One man has intrigued me from the day I first set foot on this island. He is alone, homeless, and from what I can gather happy. I used to call him "Bark Man" because the first time I saw him all he was wearing was the bark from some tree the grows over here. Somehow he had managed to make clothing out of it! In the years since he has been able to find a swim suit now and then tossed aside by a wealthy tourist and a jacket of sorts when it gets cooler at night. He mostly goes without shoes but for some reason this year he has been wearing shoes...flip flops. He is older, has lived on the streets and beaches of Kona for who knows how long. His skin is weathered and his hair hangs in long dreads...I am sure that it has not seen a bottle of shampoo in decades. He doesn't cut his nails so they just grow long and get thick and brown. I am not sure if this is more for protection or just that he has nothing to cut them with. Hard to say. All this time I have been a little intimidated to approach him but at the same time drawn to him. He has the most piercing blue eyes, sort of sad yet, intelligent and beautiful. This week I have gotten to know Freddie... a little. He is kind, gentle and polite. He has a story in there and I would love to hear it. His feet are very bad right now. He told me that he found some flip flops and he thinks he developed an allergy of some sort to them...I think that he tried to put a cream ( found who knows where and who knows what) on his feet that was not meant for human skin. He told me that it was some sort of silicone stuff that he had found. He thought it would help the flip flops slide across the tops of his feet and not irritate the sores so much! Now he can't seem to get if off of his feet and it just keeps irritating the sores. Anyway, I am trying to help him nurse his feet back to health and perhaps he will open up a little bit more as the days go by. He is a very interesting character. Just a note, you should see the looks I get from passers by as I sit and visit with him and help him with his feet. Ann and Shelly think that I am a little "out there" too but I am starting to bring them around a little too they are as interested in him as I am, they would just rather hear about him through me...Ann and I bought him a new pair of flip flops last night that have a much softer strap across the top and through the toe. Hopefully they will help his feet heal and last through the summer for him. I worry about the sores on the tops of his feet they really are bad and he picks at them. (I told you about his nails). One of the owners of Lava Java told me that the rumor is that he is actually Fred McMurrays son...whether that is true or not we will most likely never know.

I wanted to get a picture of Freddie but decided not to because I felt like he deserves his privacy. I talked with him again just before we left and asked him if he was going to use the ointments and band aids that I had given him for his feet. He looked at me with those intelligent yet empty blue eyes and explained that all he really needed was the air and time (10 days) and with those two things all would be well. He then told me that the body was a remarkable creation which was capable of healing itself. He also told me that there were many "others" who were much worse off than he. That he was one of the fortunate ones and for that he was very grateful. He did take the shoes that we got for him and said that he would wear them. I asked him if he would be there next year when I came back and he promised me he would. I hope that he is.

I know that the Lord watches over the "Freddie's" of this world but, it is up to us to reach out and help where we can. I hope that we never pass up that person on the street that is asking for help by judging why he or she is doing so. Simply help. It really doesn't take very much of our time or money and the the feeling that you have knowing that you have done something good for someone else is so worth the effort no matter how small.