"I am never skiing again!"-Brandon

Well as you can tell by the title of this post, something bad must've happened to Brandon when we went skiing a few weeks ago. For our one month anniversary I came home and found a pretty vase with flowers in it along with a lovely card and two lift passes to the Canyons ski resort. My thoughtful Brandon knows that I enjoy skiing and believed it would be a great gift and a fun activity for us to do together. If only he knew what was in store!

I took a day off from school and we rented some skis and headed up Parley's Canyon. It was a gorgeous day. Absolutely beautiful! Sunny and new snow. Perfect for a day on the slopes! After a few small delays we finally started our first run of the morning. We both were trying to feel out our ski legs and had routed out some ideas for runs and then were headed off. Not 5 minutes, probably more like 3 minutes into our first run, was when "it" happened.

Right next to a huge orange sign draped across the middle of the run was the words "SLOW DOWN" with a ski patrol guy standing next to it. So we slowed down but then suddenly Brandon's left ski comes loose and he's shot forward and lands sort of on his side with his left arm extended, head pointing downhill. His other ski breaks loose and he tumble slides to a stop dropping his poles too. I'm behind him and can't believe my eyes!

I get to him almost as fast as the Ski Patrol guy. I grab his gear so that it doesn't go sliding down hill and check what happened. Brandon feels like he may have dislocated and then popped his shoulder back in, and it hurts really bad to the point that he feels sick to his stomach.

The Ski Patrol calls for a sled to be brought down so they can take him to the clinic that is luckily right on-site at the Canyons with a full medical facility.

A little lady shows up with the sled in tow and the two ski patrollers proceed to help move Brandon into it. As they are tucking him into the sled I hear Brandon say, "I am never skiing again!" Just before they wisk him away at top speeds down the rest of the run blowing a whistle to clear the way. I follow behind much slower.

We get to the clinic where they have a nurse, a doctor, and even an X-ray machine. Here's a picture of Brandon waiting to see the results of his X-ray!
You can tell is thrilled to be there! He actually was being a great sport and kept joking with the nurse. Here are the X-rays:
You can't see much from this, but as the Doctor explained to us, Brandon ended up with a Greater Tuberosity Fracture. Sounds fancy huh? It is basically on the top of his humerus bone and he actually has two small fractures on the round part on the top. If you know about shoulders and arms, you know that there are lot of ligaments and muscles that attach to this bone and hold it in place.

The verdict was that Brandon would be in a lot of pain for the first week or so and that it would take 6 weeks to heal! This bummed him out. He was looking forward to getting out on his road bike and training for the Cactus Hugger in St. George in April. Definitely can't ride his bike with this problem! Sad.

I had to ride the gondola down solo to get the truck and come and pick Brandon up at the clinic. We did get another lift pass for the both of us and a refund on our skis that we think weren't set right, not that Brandon is going to go with me.

The good news is that Brandon is on the mend and can now ride his bike for short rides. I also got a road bike, so we can enjoy getting outdoors together! But just not skiing anymore.

President Day Weekend Catch-Up!

This post is a continuation off of what Brandon wrote about Valentine's Day! We checked out of our hotel with "character" as Brandon called it. I thought it was a cute place, a little outdated on somethings, but hey I had a lovely bubble bath in the jetted tub and it was great!
We weren't ready to head back to reality, so we decided to take a drive out over to Strawberry Reservoir because Brandon had never really been in that area before.
It was my job to plan Valentine's this year and I had really wanted to spend an afternoon snowmobiling out by Strawberry with Brandon; but we decided not to because of the fact that neither of us are really very familiar with the sleds, only having done it once or twice. So when Brandon saw all the snowmobilers out there having a great time on that beautiful sunny day, he really regretted that decision.
After driving towards the end of the reservoir we decided we probably ought to turn around. So we pulled off the road that followed this stream. It was a real pretty spot, we didn't have anywhere we had to be, so we decided to do a little exploring in our new truck.
We drove past some homes and cabins and ended up in this place called "Camelot" it was a campground type place that you can do like family reunions etc..there were some cabins and also areas to pitch tents, pavilions, etc...there was a road that ran alongside it that headed into what appeared to be another canyon. So we decided "why not?" and started to follow the snow covered dirt road. There were another set of tire tracks and snowmobile tracks that were fairly fresh so we knew people had driven on it too.


Here's Brandon checking out the best way to get across the washed out road. The first time we crossed it, he totally gunned it through because he thought we would get stuck in the mud out in the middle of nowhere. Only he didn't tell me he was going to do that and I was very surprised as we went flying through it.






We hopped out for a quick photo on our exploring trip into the unknown. We traveled along our road for nearly an hour without passing a single person. We weren't sure how much further the road went, we kept thinking it would come out eventually but we had no idea and it just kept going and going. It was really pretty scenery and we were having fun. Good thing I had thought to bring some beef jerky and treats on our trip because we did get hungry! We finally decided we better turn around or else end up completely getting lost. On the way back we did see an eagle eating what looked like it could have once been a rabbit. Gross, but kinda cool in a National Geographic sort of way.

We stopped at the Daniel's Summit Gift shop on the way back into Heber. If you like cowboys and western type stuff, you'll love this place!

All in all it was a really fun and memorable trip.

Will you be my Valentine!

We decided this year that Anne would be in charge of Valentines day. Anne planned a whole weekend worth of getaways and activities. I must admit she really showed me up from last year! What a great woman!

Here is a picture of Anne's Valentines flowers. I stayed up late to get these arranged and in the vase so they would be a surprise for her Valentines morning. In the morning it took her about ten minutes after she came into the kitchen to realize there were flowers on the table! Well- she loved them!












It all started off with Anne booking us a room at a little bed and breakfast in Midway called Inn on the Creek. It was a cute little place with lots of character. Of course Anne came prepared with some candy treats and drinks for us to enjoy throughout our stay.






Anne had also scheduled us for a romantic Valentines dinner at the Blue Boar Inn. This particular restaurant is known for their culinary expertise. It is the type of restaurant that has a one page four course menu, a spoon and fork for each course and a professional chef that makes food into art! Needless to say our meals were delicious and unique. My favorite part was when the bill arrived. Anne's eyes just about popped out of here head! It was double the price she had expected. When she made the reservations no one mentioned to her that the Valentines special price was per person! It was pretty funny. The thing is, Anne and I were able to share that time together in a unique setting and build some fantastic memories, that is worth more to me than we could have ever paid.


We ended the evening looking at the stars while being pulled along in a slay. It was a great time with lots of fun memories and gassy horses!













Stay tuned for more to come...