Back on my feet

Shortly after helping out in Houston last year, I noticed some pain in my left foot. It was just uncomfortable in the morning, but by the time I was finishing my afternoon class it really hurt quite a bit and I didn't want to put any weight on it at all. It was definitely getting worse, so late October/early November I finally betook myself to a podiatrist.

Diagnosis: Tendonitis. I had strained the tendon that goes down your leg and wraps around your ankle on its way to the middle of the foot. It's one of the tendons that lets you point your foot. Near as we can figure, I must have strained it one of those days hauling debris on the uneven, mushy mud.

How we make decisions: The Alamo

Yesterday's trip to the Alamo was fun, enjoyable, peaceful, and a perfect example of how Joy and I make biggish decisions.

Last August I told Joy that I really wanted us to go see the Alamo. With the Dallas temple closing in October, I wanted to plan a couple days for us to drive down to San Antonio, see the Alamo, do some temple work at the San Antonio temple, and maybe see a few other things. We planned and we discussed for MONTHS and just couldn't make it work. It didn't fit and we were too busy and it was a mess. So we didn't go.

Fast forward to February. Last week I had planned to go to the Dallas temple on Tuesday, but I was behind on 4-5 different projects at school and wasn't feeling well and I just couldn't see my way clear. So we planned that Joy would drive me up Saturday with the kids. Then we had a rather large snow storm that canceled classes. I got to spend 3 days lying flat in bed getting caught up on those projects.

When Friday night came, we talked for a while, prayed about it, and confirmed the plan that we would all drive up to Dallas the next day despite the prediction of more rain and flooding.

Saturday morning at 5am while we're up and getting ready to go, Joy says, "The thing I keep feeling from the Spirit after our prayer is that we ought to bring a day bag just in case we get stuck in Dallas overnight." While we prepared a bag of clothes and pull out our 72 hour kit to take with us, she wondered out of the blue what the weather was like in San Antonio.

Slight rain and otherwise sunny. ... 90 minutes later, we had the kids awake and in the car and were on our way to San Antonio.

So that's how we get things done. We talk, we counsel, we plan and nothing happens until suddenly we just make a decision and git'er done. It's how we went to South Africa and Italy; it's how we bought our house and car; and now we're talking about how we're going to rearrange all the furniture in the house once my leg is better.....


The kids had a great time and kept talking about how they felt the Spirit at the temple and what they liked about the Alamo. Good times.

JT visits the Alamos

JT crosses the line

I had this odd, fun conversation with John-Thomas while we were at the Alamo yesterday. We were wandering through the chapel, looking at the engraved names of the men who died there when JT said:

"When are we going to see Elmo?" [here is emo Elmo at the Alamo]

I explained the difference between the letters E and A and that we were at the Alamo. I explained it 2-3 times because he was quite insistent that we were going to see the Alamo, and he wanted to meet Mr. Alamo.

Mr. Alamo?

The Alamos at home

It was Joy who finally decoded the mystery. Typically when we take a long drive, it is to see a family: the Petersons, the Watsons, the Lazenbys ... the Alamo. Makes sense. Where is Alamo and when can we see him?

I was then able to help him figure out that the Alamo is like the Temple - we don't go to the temple to see Mr. Temple, right? Right. Okay. Then he was cool with it, if a bit disappointed. The people we go to see are a lot more fun than the buildings we go to see.