Jayden took this picture of himself

At the Instacare

Jayden's banged up face

Jayden Head first into a cement wall

Saturday, December 27, 2008 Today started out as a ho hum nothing sort of a day. Judy went shopping with Niki and her kids. They needed to buy a gift for Wendy Rhodes wedding shower and then they went to the shower. I dinked around the house doing nothing. Later, Corey, Jayden and Bailey came over to borrow Niki’s snowboard and set up the bindings to fit Jayden. He is quite the athlete and has been using a kid’s wakeboard as a snowboard. This real one was hoped to be better. I decided to go to the amphitheater in Eagle Mountain and watch them use the hill, especially Jayden on the “new” board. A couple of days ago, before yesterday’s icy cold front with it’s new snow came through, Judy and I watched them slide down the same hill. It wasn’t too slick and almost everyone came to a stop well before the bottom of the hill and especially without hitting the cement wall at the bottom. Today was different. The snow was packed solid and was icy slick. Jayden decided to use the old wakeboard first to get used to the hill. He did fine and walked back up to top of the hill. Bailey talked Corey into going down tandem with her using their two round; one blue and one green dish shaped sleds. Corey sat on one with his feet on the other. Bailey sat on the one Corey’s feet were on and down they went. They hit into the cement wall but Corey was able to control everything so that they were fine. When Corey and Bailey got back to the top of the hill, Jayden jumped on one of the dish shaped sleds and down he tore. He slammed right into the cement wall face first. Corey and I watched it happen in what seemed to be slow motion. There was nothing we could do about it. Corey went to the bottom of the hill as fast as he could while still keeping his balance. To me it seemed to take forever. By the time he got there, there were a couple of other parents hovering over Jayden. He was up and walking but his face was bloody and he had a doosy of a goose egg on his forehead right between his eyes. He had hit his forehead, his nose and mouth. He was bleeding from his nose but that soon stopped. He cut the inside of his upper lip but not too badly. The two adults who got there first asked him his name when his birthday was and other questions, trying to determine if he had gotten a concussion. He responded positively. As luck would have it, a dentist, someone Corey knew and had just signed up for credit card processing was in the parking lot at the top of the hill when we reached it. He looked Jayden over and thought he would be ok, but at my encouragement we decided to take him to the Instacare facility by Café El Lago in Saratoga Springs. Corey dropped me off at home first so I could get my wallet, then we drove separately to the Instacare. About half way there I found myself crying. I have really gotten to be a softy in recent years; i.e. more so than I used to be. I guess I always have been somewhat of one. By the time he got in to see the doctor the knot on Jayden’s head had gone way down and by the time we were eating at Café El Lago later it was hardly noticeable though you could still see the scrapes and abrasions up and down his face and he was able to laugh about himself and all that had transpires. As a side note, while we were waiting for his turn to see the doctor, a lady came flying through the door carrying a child who was or had been unconscious. They of course took him right in and a few minutes later carried him out and headed for the emergency room. As it turned out, he did the same thing Jayden did and on the same hill. Corey knows someone at city hall and is going to get hold of him and see if they can put some stray or hay bails or something else in front of the cement wall to protect other sliders.

My son Corey's family sleding and Jayden boarding

The Light in the Piazza

Monday, December 08, 2008 Last night, Judy and I and a couple in our ward, Len and Judy Pavia went to dinner at the Market Street Broiler by the University of Utah and then to Pioneer Memorial Theater at the University to see the musical, The Light in the Piazza. A good time was had by all. Eating at a table near us was Jerrold and JoAnn Otley. Jerrold is a former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As they were leaving, I asked him if he brought along his baton. He said, “No, I’m letting it rest.” The play was about a mother and a somewhat retarded twenty-six year old daughter who went to Italy. While in Florence, the daughter fell in love with a twenty-two year old Italian boy named Fabrizio. At first the mother tried to steer her daughter away from the relationship but while in Rome she had a change of heart and took her daughter Clara back to Florence and eventually after many complications the two were wed. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Cozumel - Belize Cruise

Sunday, December 07, 2008 Well, Judy and I got back from our cruise last night. Last Saturday morning we flew from Salt Lake, made a connection in Atlanta and flew on to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The cruise left on Monday but the flights didn’t look that good on Sunday and we needed to get there too early on Monday to leave home on that day. We spent two nights at the Ramada Inn a mile and a half from the port. It wasn’t the fanciest hotel in the world, but the price was right and it did have a certain charm including a charming poolside bar which served food. The food was quite good and there was a wide variety of excellent courses. I especially liked the restaurant. Monday around noon the hotel shuttle took us to the ship. For the first time we had a mini suite. It was really nice. It even had a walk-in closet and more shelves and room to hang up clothes than we could possibly ever use; maybe if we were on a month long cruise and didn’t want to wear the same things twice. The Navigator of the Seas was the second in this series of ships for the Royal Caribbean International Cruise Line that we have been on. It had a promenade. At 8:30 PM we went to the Nutcracker dining room where we dined with Ron and Sharon, Mike and Judy and Paul and Mary Ellen; an eclectic group of nice and fun people. We were probably closest to Ron and Sharon and sat with them several times at different affairs. They weren’t Marty and Kathy, a couple we met several cruise ago and with whom we have corresponded with and even flew to Houston to visit, but they were enjoyable. The first day of the cruise was spent a sea and we mostly sat around the pool in the solarium. The next day we were docked at Cozumel, Mexico, an island off the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. We went ashore but only looked around the shops dockside. The second day we tendered at Belize City, Belize, C.A. I assume the C. A. stands for Central America. I quite enjoyed Belize. There was a lot more to see in the immediate area of where we disembarked the tender and we took a bus tour of the city with an airboat tour in the middle. This was on an airboat like those used in the Everglades. They made it a point to give us some high speed sharp turns and took us down some narrow passageways to open lagoons where we saw many different kinds of birds and even several alligator noses sticking up out of the water. Judy and I got the two front seats on the airboat. I would like to do that again. To me that was the highlight of the trip. Anyway here we are at home safe and sound.