Dreaming big

Cruisiing!

2012-02-04T18:20:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know Laura and I went on a cruise recently. It was a lot of fun. If you have any questions about whether or not you should try one out feel free to call us. Here is a little picture journey through our 4 day trip.


The ship!

Laura on the water slides! She loves this picture of herself.

Moments later

My turn

There were two slides like this one, a larger tunnel slide (that we didn't get a picture of), and a little kids playzone.

The Food!

The food did not disappoint. Sadly these are the only two pictures I got of it. All you can eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, mid-morning snack, mid afternoon ice cream, and late night hot chocolate, totally awesome! Now I will say that some of the food's presentation out did the actual taste. For the most part, however, the food was awesome and certainly one of the highlights. We had lobster tail, prime rib, barbeque pork ribs, honey glazed chicken, mahi-mahi, strawberry bisque (super good), pumpkin soup, artichoke dip, etc.., plus never ending desserts. We both thought they invest the most money in making sure there are good desserts because they are pretty stinking good.

Mexico!!A Mexican in his element!

El Luchador!!!

We bought these masks for Jane and a friend! Turns out Jane doesn't like scary masks.
Other Entertainment!

Hot Tubbing! They weren't always this crowded. There were 4 hot tubs and Laura and I got in twice with no one else.

Lounging!

This is the main deck! Where the party is! That is the only pool on the boat and we never saw anybody in it!

JeROME! He was a comedian that was actually very funny! He does a family friendly show and then a R-rated show. We went to the family friendly. There are two comedians on the boat. The other guys wasn't as funny.


People watching! There are two guys break dancing in the middle as entertainment.

The Views!!!!!!!!

Beautiful sunset with a beautiful woman!

This is the kid playzone with a sunset behind it!

Nothing but water all around during the day.

This was the sunrise in the LA port the morning we were getting off of the ship.


Same sunrise a little bit later with Laura pouring water on the railing to add interest.

The LOVE!!!!

A magical moment on a magical vacation with a magical woman! It really was a fun time and a great way to relax. We highly recommend that everyone try it.

Reality Check

2011-04-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

I would like to type up my thoughts on the resurrection. However, I would like to start out with a little movie critique.

Most movies I watch I do not like. They are either far too cheesy, vulgar, stupid, poorly done, or just down right a waste of my time. Laura and I have watched a lot of movies recently and one that I really liked for some strange reason was The Next Three Days. I expected it, as did Laura, to be your typical prisonbreak action flick full of high-tech gadgets, etc and in the end it would be unable to pull it all together and would end up closing with a stupid scene that you could have predicted coming 10 minutes into the movie. It might very well have had several of those things however the movie was not about a husband breaking his wife out of prison. The underlying story is the power of one's self created reality.

(Don't read this paragraph if you don't want to know what happens in the movie) Russel Crowe's wife is put in jail for murder and sentenced to life in prison. Russel Crowe is convinced that she is innocent. It is important to note that he has no proof of her innocence just his gut feeling that she couldn't have killed someone and then have come home and had a create night out with him. His Lawyer tells him that she is guilty because of all of the evidence and he should move on. His parents say the same thing. Then finally days before his attempt to break her out his wife tells him that she is guilty. He doesn't believe her and ends up killing, stealing, lying, and doing things he never would have dreamed of himself doing, all because he was convinced that she was innocent. He had no proof of it he just believed it. I kind of wish they wouldn't have ended the movie the way they did, but it still was a very good movie that I really enjoyed watching and even more so thinking about afterwards.

Reality. What is it? Is it the way things really are or is it the way we choose to perceive the things around us? I think as you ponder and reflect on that question you will gain a better understanding of how two people can look at the same facts and come to very different conclusions. This is very evident in the world of politics, religion, medicine, science, etc.

So the next question to ask yourself is what is my reality? and do you get to choose it or not? Why do you behave the way you do? Why do you like the things you enjoy doing? Why do you believe what you believe? Do you have proof?

That's the thing. It seems the whole world, and I would expect probably more now than two or three hundred years ago, is convinced that we need proof or a reason to truly believe in something. Without proof you are abandoning the scientific process and embarking into a world full of fluff and bias. However, as you think about the previous questions I asked also consider which is a more powerful influence in your life: proof or your reality?

The resurrection is just this way for me. I have no idea how it works. I have zero proof of Christ's personal resurrection and if possible I have even less proof that resurrection is in my future. The only thing I have is scriptures written thousands of years ago by prophets I have never met (also prophets that I have very little if any proof of actually existing); the thoughts, feelings and testimonies of thousands of like minded people; and most importantly my own personal thoughts, feelings and experiences.

When I look at the complexity of life and death I find peace and solace in the resurrection. There are terrible ways to die and often the worst part isn't the death in and of itself but the lives of the loved ones left behind. It breaks my heart thinking about it. How can it be fair? The resurrection. Why should I give my whole life to Christ? and more specifically why should I be the best husband and father that I can be? Why should I be a good person? The resurrection. It is the answer. The doctrine fills me with peace, hope and confidence in the future. It is how I can move forward with assurance that in the end everything will work out.

Proof? Who needs it. I have my own personal happy reality.

This is one of my favorite mormon messages

2011-02-20T13:46:00.001-08:00

2011-01-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

My message to the world!!!

2010-05-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

I was going to post this on mother's day but then I forgot and now it is too late to actually be for mother's day but I decided to post it anyway. I didn't get around to finishing it but here is what I had. I have a wonderful wife.

...on a platform I'm gonna stand and say That I'm nothing on my own...

These are the words of Chris Martin from the song "A Message" off Coldplay's 3rd album X&Y. As I was thinking about what I wanted to write in my blog about my wife on mother's day, these are the words that came to mind. So here is a list of things that I want to stand on a platform and tell everyone about.

Things everyone should know about Laura

1.Laura puts up with a lot and doesn't expect much out of me in return. (just that I do the dishes every now and again)

2.She is the smartest, funniest, cutest person I know.

3. Everyone talks about how amazing it is to watch babies grow up and learn, which is very true, but you don't hear people talk about an equally amazing event; mothers learning to be mothers. Jane did not come with instructions or rules, but somehow Laura has become a mothering machine (and I am not talking about being pregnant again within a few months after giving birth). She is a wonderful mother and I enjoy watching her be a mother.

4. Laura is a very good cook. She loves experimenting and I get to be the beneficiary of these experiments. We have had everything from Turkish, Russian, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Greek, etc.

2010-04-25T15:55:00.000-07:00

Laura needed glasses and while we were at the store we decided to try a few on Jane.
LL

We tried on some of the kid glasses and they fit a little better but I don't think they are quite as cute.

Here is a video I just put together of Jane's first easter. Again you will be amazed at her overall cuteness!!

Grandma Knights Birthday Video

2010-03-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

Laughing Jane

2010-03-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

We think Jane is really cute!!!!

More Jane!!!

2010-02-11T10:47:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted pictures of Jane in a while so here are a few cute ones with a really long video that only Grandma Maggie will probably enjoy.

Random cute picturesJane sitting in the sun

This is Jane watching the Superbowl with Dad

We tried feeding Jane meat for the first time the other day. For anyone who doesn't know what baby food meat is like just think of putting a piece of chicken in the blender and blending it until it is like a fine paste. That is what it looks like. Here are some pictures from that experienceThis is Jane after a bite of a vegetable variety that she really likes. The next bite was the chicken

Then Laura took another shot as fast as she could and the look put an end to our trying to feed her. I think she thought we were trying to kill her.

Pure Horror!

We love our little baby! She just keeps getting more and more fun to have around. Except for the screaming in the middle of the night, but we are hopeful that she will grow out of that one day.

This is a 5 minute long video for people who want to see action shots of Jane. They actually are really boring but we love them.

2009-12-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

Laura and I went and saw Avatar this weekend. Neither of us really wanted to at first but then when we started asking people about it everyone was telling us how good it was. And to make it even better everyone said that you had to see it in 3D which made each ticket for us almost $13. Finally, Dad convinced us while he was in town to go and see it and he would take care of Jane while we did. I have to admit that Laura and I both were pleasantly surprised. This could be because we went in with lower expectations than usual. (I have found that this is the only way for me to enjoy most movies). We had seen the previews and both told ourselves that it looked like it was going to have a lame plot about these cheesy aliens that lived on some precious material that the evil people would be willing to do anything to get. However, somehow we both liked it. Here is my critique:

First what I didn't like. I thought the overall plot was a little cliche and predictable. For the life of me I can't figure out why these big blockbuster movies that have a budget of millions and millions of dollars can't spend a little more time to figure out a way to end the movie without a mano a mano showdown between the good guy and the bad guy. Don't get me wrong I don't think it was a bad plot and overall it didn't take away from the ultimate movie experience but I am just saying that there was nothing special about the story.

What I liked. Anyone who sees the movie will be very impressed with the overall visual experience. Not only is it 3D but the whole movie is full of huge sweeping scenes that are mind blowing to think about how they filmed them. I have no idea what was real and what was fake throughout the entire movie. The Na'vi (aliens) at times looked so real I am sure that they used actors. The thing that I liked most about it was that it a great job of creating this world of aliens where everything felt foreign (the way they looked, talked, body language, religion, etc) but at the same time it didn't feel ridiculous, over done, or cheesy.

Overall I thought it was a movie worth seeing. (I am not sure if it was worth $26 or not) Now if they could just figure out how to end the movie without the general dude leaping from a flaming plane in a robot thing only to be killed by the hero's girl at the very moment you think the hero is going to die.

Jane!!!!

2009-12-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

I figured we should let the secret out that we have the cutest baby in the world. These are just a few random videos we have taken over the last few weeks. We really think, in our unbiased opinion, that Jane is cuter than any other baby ever! Enjoy the video.

Getting back to it

2009-08-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Before I write about what I was planning on writing I just want to say that Laura and I have been blessed with the cutest, sweetest, happiest little girl in the world. It has been great being home with Jane. She finally has some routine and is doing absolutely wonderful. We love her.

Laura and I have been thinking a lot about a few different things. First, Laura and I really want to try and keep ourselves in good shape. It is easy as a medical student and as a stay at home mom to get caught up in the busyness of life and for exercise and activity to go down the drain. We also really want to do a better job of reading our scriptures regularly. Lastly, we have been trying for a long time to eat more healthy and to increase our arsenal of delicious meals. In order to do this we really want to cut back on the amount of eating out that we do. (Mainly fast food eating out. We probably were eating out once or twice ever two weeks, but it still was more than we wanted to do)

We have created a plan that will help us to accomplish our desires. The main reason I am writing this blog is to write out our thoughts so that we then have to stick to it.

The Plan
We bought a dry/erase calendar that hangs on our refrigerator. We keep track of the meals that we are eating on this board and we keep track of the amount of days we study our scriptures and exercise. Laura has her color of marker and I have mine. On the days we read we mark it down and on the days we exercise we mark it down.

Now, the key to the plan is what we do with this information. If we read all 7 days and we exercised 4 days then we get put $7.50 into our "date" fund. We get 1 mess up activity. meaning that if we only read six days and exercised 4 days then we still get our $7.50 but if we only read 6 days and exercised 3 days, no money. If we go all out and exercise 5 or 6 days of the week we get $10, but we have to read all 7 days. If we only read 6 days then we only get $7.50. This money is what we get to use for dates and eating out. It carries over from week to week. If there is something a little more expensive than we usually would spend on a date we have to go without, or just go on really cheap dates for a few weeks and then we will have enough.

We are not sure if this plan is going to work but we are going to try and pull it off this semester and then we might have to make changes to it.

I really think this is a genius plan and we are both excited to implement it into our daily routines.

Due to popular demand

2009-06-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

Dana sent me an email and kindly asked me to post more pictures of her. I decided to try and be creative and made a short little video of some of the pictures we have. Enjoy.

Jane Ivy Foster

2009-06-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Here are a few preliminary photos of baby Jane. I know everybody reading this thinks they have the cutest baby in the world but I am sorry to inform you that is no longer the case. Jane takes the cake.

Jane's first picture. About 15 minutes after she was born.

Mother and Baby

Look at those eyes!!!!

She was born on June 22, 2009 at 12:58pm. She weighed 8lbs 5.6oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She is doing great. Laura is also feeling very good considering what she just went through. She handled the whole experience with a toughness and a ever present sweetness that just amazed me. She is wonderful.

2009-06-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

I have nothing in particular to blog about. So I am just going to start typing and we will see what comes of it.

Right now Laura and I have a lot of time on our hands. (Laura quite work and I only work about 20 hrs a week in the anatomy lab) We decided to check out the first season of LOST and watch in all this week. 24 episodes later I feel like I wasted quite a bit of time, but we both enjoyed it a lot. Some of the characters have changed a lot and some of the main characters, that they take a lot of time to develop, aren't even a consideration in the fifth season,(Charlie, Shannon) However, I realized that I really enjoy the show, not just trying to figure it out, but I think I feel like the characters are in some strange way like myself. I have never murdered anyone, taken drugs, been paralyzed, slept with my sister-in-law, run from the law, etc, but I can relate to many of the emotions the characters are struggling on a more basic level.

One of the main themes that runs through the entire first season (mainly through the characters of Locke and Jack) is "Don't tell me what I can't do." Locke's attempts to deal with his "condition" and trying to follow his faith in the island. Then there is Jack who is trying to keep everyone safe from the island and themselves. Do remember the scene where he is going to cut off Boone's leg in a desperate attempt to save him, and Sun tries to tell him that it is pointless. "Don't tell me what I can't do." I don't know what Jack role (or Locke's for that matter) is going to be in the finale but I think that it will be in line with how he is portrayed in the first season. Also, I don't think Locke's role is done either. He is too important to just have been used by the evil dude in black. Enough about LOST.

My wife is going to have a baby anytime this week. We are busy trying to get the apartment ready for the baby. We pretty much have everything we need, even an exersaucer, but there is still a little bit of organization that needs to take place. Laura looks really cute as a 39 week pregnant lady. Everyone thinks that she looks small for being as pregnant as she is but I disagree. She looks huge!!! I think it is because with the shirts that Laura is wearing it gives a false impression of where her stomach begins. If she were to wear a skin tight shirt you would see that she practically has a portable t.v. tray attached to her stomach. To say the least she is very cute and very ready to have a baby. We went to see the doctor yesterday and everything is looking good. She was 1 cm dilated and everything else is in place for labor to begin. We are excited. She did get a cold yesterday and has had a runny nose and has been sneezing all day so hopefully the baby can wait until she gets a little better. Laura is a trooper.

I thought I was going to be a great anatomy TA. I knew my stuff very well when I took the class and I enjoy it a ton. I learned yesterday that enjoying a subject doesn't qualify you to be a good teacher. I have forgotten 75% of what I learned in anatomy. I can't remember names of muscles and I especially can't remember the names of any of the arteries, veins, and ligments that I am suppose to know. It actually was very frustrating to finally realize how little I have retained from the hours and hours of studying I did to get it into my brain in the first place. Luckily for me it comes back much faster and clearer the second time through so I am going to try and do some of my own personal studying before I go to class.

Well, I am out of time and things to say. See you later.

ps- I don't feel like proofreading so if the following paragraphs have a lot of mistakes or if they just don't make sense I am sorry. Call me and I will try to explain it to you.

Here She Is- Mother and Daughter

2009-05-24T16:06:00.000-07:00

May 24, 2009
Laura and I were talking about bowling today. Laura told me to imagine having a bowling ball surgical placed inside of my stomach. That is how she feels. But she looks super cute.

Nerd, Geek, Dork or Dweeb?

2009-05-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Ranks these four discriptive words from best to worst. In other words which would you like most to be called? form most to least. Laura and I have an argument to settle about this. I know we have probably asked you a similar question in the past but dweeb is a new addition.

If you would like you can give us some commentary on why you choose what you did.

April 29, 2009

2009-04-29T19:08:00.001-07:00

Doesn't she look cute! Mother and Daughter! (and tree!) The tree has started sprouting buds and leaves. Sadly, it doesn't know what is coming it's way in a few months. 120 degrees

Baby!!!!!!!

2009-03-29T13:07:00.001-07:00

Mid to Late January

Late February, maybe early March

March 29, 2009 (She looks bigger than this picture shows)

Just this last week Laura had someone ask her about being pregnant form someone that she hadn't told she was pregnant. We take this to mean that she officially looks very pregnant. Several people have mentioned how small Laura is for being less than 3 months away from the due date. I think Laura feels plenty big. The baby is doing great and is kicking a lot. We have had several belly rumblers as we were both watching.

We are in the middle of a debate on what we should name her. The top choices are as follows
1. Jane Ivy Foster
2. Lilia (Margaret or Helen) Foster - Maybe Lilya
3. Lucy Ann Foster
4. Ashley Naomi Foster

It is really between the top two but 3 and 4 are names we were discussing earlier on. Any input?

The Greatest Comeback I have ever seen

2009-01-25T13:22:00.001-08:00

Dad, Mom, Laura and I all went down to Tuscon yesterday to go to an Arizona basketball game with Carson. Little did we know (and apparently Carson didn't know either) we had tickets on the floor. We're talking about the sideline was 2 ft in front of us. Whenever the players passed the ball in we were staring into their backside. (of their knees!) It wasn't actually that great of a game until the last 4 or 5 minutes and even then not that great until the last 52 seconds. They were losing by 10 or so for the entire second half and then they began pressing Houston. Houston went cold and we started hitting some threes, but we still found ourselves down by 9 with 52 seconds left. Half of the the crowd got up and left during the time out. I will try and recount what happened next.

I just tried to do it but I have no idea how it happened. It doesn't seem possible. I know that there were at least 3 missed free throws from Houston and turnover on an inbound pass and 3 threes and a turn around jumper by Jordan Hill for Arizona. The point is with about 15 seconds left Arizona was losing by 3 and Lewis (Houston's best player) was shooting two. He missed both and Nic Wise for Arizona came down and hit a three. Literally 15 ft from where we were sitting. That just sent the game into overtime and Arizona ended up winning by 6. It was a great game and probably the most fun I have had at a game for a very long time. Thank you Carson and Warren!

Here is a link to a youtube video that runs through the highlights. You can see us sitting on the sidelines during one part of the game. In the second half Houston's second leading scorer was kicked out of the game for stepping on Chase Budingers head. (I don't know if he did it on purpose but I can't figure out how he couldn't have known he was there. Watch the video and you'll see) click on the link and then fast forward (or watch) to 5:28 seconds into the video. If you look at the first red blob that you can see sitting on the floor seats, that is Dad. (and me :)) I stand up right after the guy steps on Budinger's head. Just click on the title of the blog and it will take you to the link.
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IT'S A GIRL!

2009-01-22T06:52:00.001-08:00

Laura and I went to the Doctor this week and found out that our little baby is going to be a girl. Not only that but Laura is pretty sure that she has been feeling our little girl kicking the last couple of days. We are really excited and are loving life.

There is some amazing new technology that a computer can take several different ultrasounds and combine them to give you a very real looking picture of your baby. Even better they can give you a fairly accurate picture of what your baby will look like. We decided to do it and these are the pictures we got.

Isn't she cute? Hey, it's not her fault she has my genes.

Microwave-safe Bowel

2008-12-10T21:16:00.000-08:00

Laura was looking up a recipe the other day on allrecipes.com and this is a copy of one of the reviews that she found for peanut brittle that you can make in the microwave.

Everyone loved it and asked for the recipe. My only tip is DO NOT USE A PLASTIC BOWEL to make it with in hte micorwave, not even a micorwave safe bowel. USE A GLASS micorwave safe bowel. I made that mistake and it got so hot it melted a hole in the bottom of the bowel.

So, make sure you never but a plastic bowel in your micorwave!

Christmas and Babies

2008-12-02T19:18:00.000-08:00

Laura and I decided that last night's FHE would be get the apartment ready for Christmas night. It turns out that I felt sick as a dog and Laura ended up doing most of the decorating and we are reaping the blessings of Laura's Christmas greatness and cheer. Check out our Christmas tree and our random decorations. (it turns out we don't have a whole lot of room to decorate with so we just had to randomly put things up)

Better than Christmas decorations Laura and I were able to go see our OB/GYN today and had a wonderful experience. We really like him, Dr. Mckernan, and were impressed at his memory of Mark and Liz and of Jeff and Angie. (He delivered Joy and Cal) Without us saying anything to him he walked into the room and looked at me and said are you a student at Midwestern? I said yes. Then he said are you one of the Fosters? Jeff and Mark? I said yes they were my brothers. Isn't Mark in Colorado now? Yes, and Jeff is in his residency. Anyway, after talking a little bit more we realized he didn't have all of the details right but we were still impressed by him.

By far the best experience of the visit was the ultrasound. I had heard about and seen a lot of ultrasounds before and honestly I had thought that they were kind of lame. You could barely see what was going on. It just looked like a blob. But when it was your wife's stomach and your baby that they are looking at it becomes a totally different experience. Not only that but the baby moves! I didn't know that. My wife has a moving baby inside of her stomach and we got to see it today! In fact she/he couldn't stop moving. Not only does he/she move, but has a heartbeat. It was moving so much the technician was having a hard time getting the heartbeat. Neither Laura and I really said anything while we were watching the baby move and listening to the heartbeat but I can honestly say that I was blown away. It was the first time I really felt like a Dad. (It actually feels weird to type those letters with them referring to me) I am going to be a Dad!!!

Here is the first picture of our baby!
According to the ultrasound the baby is 11 weeks and 4 days old which is about a week ahead of what we thought. The due date has been changed to June 19. We still think that our original due date is correct but it doesn't really matter. Laura is officially pregnant.
Even though I am not feeling very good and school has just started, we both feel that life is good, real good!

Rights and Tolerance

2008-10-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

This is going to have to be shorter than I would like it to be but Laura and I have been thinking and talking about this a lot lately and I thought I would share a few of our thoughts and a good article that will make you think about it. As I am sure most of you know California, Florida, and Arizona all have propositions to constitutionalize marriage as being between a man and a woman. The church is strongly supporting these propositions and has laid out their reasoning clearly on lds.org.

One of the many issues that has been brought up is that defining marriage more liberally as between any two people will clash with the freedoms of churches and parents. That is what the article I have linked to this blog is talking about. (Click on the Title and you will go to the article) It's really a very interesting topic that forces one to re-evaluate freedom and what it means.

Laura and I watched a little clip of an interview with Elder Bednar where he talked about the issue. One of the main points he made was that tolerance has to be a two way street and it seems often times people want it to be a one way street. The Gay-rights movement is fighting very hard to have equal rights, but they seem to look past the fact that their fight for rights is tromping on the rights of religions to believe and practice as they would like. But that is the big question whose rights should be protected?

I am sure that after reading the article some of you thought that the Catholic church having to pull their adoption services out of Massachuset because they wouldn't place babies with homosexual couples, or a woman being sued because she wasn't willing to photograph a gay-couples wedding, sounds pretty ridiculous. Now think about similar issues but now imagine them being about race, or gender (women's rights). What if a woman today chose not to photograph a black couples wedding, or if the Catholic church refused to place children in African-American homes? I think our first reaction would be to say "but that's different," and I think that they are but the issues are similar. When should a church have the right to prevent someone from joining, or when should a photographer be able to chose who they photograph? The line is not black and white and I am afraid we are going to just keeping moving closer and closer to everyone and everything having legal rights to anything that they want. "I was treated unfairly, I should be able to sue, or the government should force them to let me do what I want" will become the way we think as Americans. I don't know what the solution is, but I what I do know is that not everyone can be satisfied. It seems to me that we should protect the rights of the largest amount of people that we can. In this case, those of us who believe that marriage is between a man and woman and cannot be anything else. This is why America is so great, in a few days there will be a vote and the majority will have their way!

Our Story

2008-10-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

Enjoy the story of our life so far. The apartment at the beginning is the apartment we lived in in Provo, not our apartment in Glendale.

Way up in the Gore Mountain Range Part 2

2008-08-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

If you had not had a chance to read my previous post go ahead and do that before you read this one. If you don't have time to read the last one and this one I will sum up the first day of our trip in one sentence. We hiked through some beautiful meadows, passed some awesome waterfalls, and found a nice place to camp.

DAY 2

I woke up at 7:00 am knowing that unless I got a fire going Laura would not want to get up. So I got up and with one match was able to get a blazing fire going by the time Laura got up at 7:45. Our thermometer said that it was 49 degrees when Laura got up and I thought that it was significantly warmer than when I got up so I am thinking we were in the 30 degrees over the night. Regardless we both stayed fairly warm and got a decent nights rest. This is what it looked like in the morning.
This is just east of where we slept
We had a delicious mug of oatmeal to start the day and then we were off hiking by 9:00am. We knew we had about 3 miles to the top of the pass but we were not ready for how beautiful of a hike it was going to be.This view was constantly to our left as we rounded around this valley. It was huge. I think it was probably a mile to a mile and half wide.

We crossed about 20 other streams just like this one that were running down into the valley. It was all run off from the melting snow. We had a couple of close calls but we didn't take any spills into the creeks.

After we went through about a mile and half of going through trees and little breaks into beautiful mountain meadows we started breaking out of the trees above tree line. We are at about 11,500 ft here.
You can see Eccles pass in the upper left hand corner of the
picture. It was spectacular when we got above the tree line.

We ran into two crystal clear mountain lakes. Behind the lake on the left you can see Red Buffalo Pass. That trails runs down into Vail. Behind the lake on the right you can see Eccles pass. This trails runs down into Frisco.

This is what it looked like from the top of the pass. This is the path we took to get to the pass. This was the most spectacular part of the hike.

This is looking down the other side of the pass. We could hear a waterfall but we couldn't see it very well until we got down a little further but then we saw...
This picture doesn't do it justice. We were probably a mile away from this on the other side of the valley and it looked gorgeous.
We walked through this meadow for a mile or two. It was hot but it was pretty awesome.

This is where our pictures start thinning out a little bit. We were getting tired but we also wanted to get as far as possible before stopping for the night. We ended up going for another 4 or 5 miles and decided to stop at a less than ideal location, but it had a nice rock to sit on and enjoy the afternoon.
We sat out on this rock for almost two hours. We pumped water (tried to), whittled our sticks, boiled water, talked about life, and enjoyed the day.

By four o'clock Laura got up to go to the bathroom and while she was gone I found a tick crawling up my leg. Laura came back and said that she had also found two ticks on her. We were already dreading all of the mosquitoes that night and the next morning. (There already were a lot and it was the middle of the day) We decided to pack up camp and hike about a mile to the a lake that would provide a better place to camp.

They didn't call it Lily Pad lake for nothing. We decided that we didn't want to drink this water, so we moved decided to hike another mile to the next creek up the trail. By this time it is about 5:00 pm and we are getting real tired of hiking.

We don't have many more pictures of the day because we weren't in the picture taking mood. We got to where we thought the next creek should be and couldn't find a good place to stay. Laura mentioned that she thought there was a campground at the end of the trail which was probably another mile or so up. I looked at the map and sure enough there was a triangle at the end of the trail. So we decided to hike there.

Laura started talking to me about Turkish food and how great it was and somehow we got onto the wrong trail. We quickly realized that the trail had changed and that we were going up hill when we should be going down. We only got about 1/4 or 1/3 of a mile off track but that seem like a really long time when you are getting as tired as we were. We got back on the trail and headed to the campground. By this time our feet and legs were numb and so it didn't hurt too bad to hike.

We got to the end of the trail and started looking for the campground but we couldn't find it. I looked again at the map and the little triangle didn't mean campground it meant trailhead. It is about 6:30 by this time and we are both really tired of hiking. I am thinking that we have done about 9 or 10 miles to this point. Now we are surrounded by cabins and roads and we have no campground to stay at and our car is still 2 and half miles away. I was very impressed with Laura and her composure at this point. I was getting frustrated but she remain calm and just said "well, let's hike to the car." She also had the idea of leaving our packs up in the trees and then driving back to get them with the car. I thought this was a great idea so we hike up into the trees and hid our packs. I found the keys to the car in my pack and was getting ready to go when I realized that it was probably going to rain before we got back and so I decided to cover our packs with some garbage backs that we brought.This is the last picture we took as I was putting the garbage bags on the packs. You can't see it here but I put the keys down on the ground as I put the bags on.

Laura and I were feeling light on our feet as we got on the road and started walking towards our car. We asked a few people how to get back to the trailhead where our car was. (We even talked to a bus driver that was very disgruntled and told us that the trailhead had been shut down and they weren't letting anyone up there since midnight last night. We still don't know what he was talking about) The last quarter of a mile before the car Laura got very light on her feet and was happier than I had seen her the whole trip. We were both talking about going to Pizza Hut and drinking lots of water and eating a ton of pizza. The car was a glorious sight. Lonny had never looked so good. We get to the car and I reach down into my pocket to get the keys and I didn't't feel anything. I reach into the next pocket and didn't feel anything there also. Laura noticed what I was doing and had sudden break down of emotion. I couldn't tell if she was laughing, crying or cursing. On cue the rain clouds opened up and it began raining. This was a terrible feeling.

We decided that we were going hitch hike back up to our packs and try and hitch hike back down. Luckily, we had passed two women on a walk earlier and we re-passed them as we were walking back. They were very kind gave us a ride back to the packs and then back to our car.

We went to Wendy's had a junior bacon cheeseburger and a frosty and then we headed home. We were a little disappointed that we didn't camp out the second night. (but not that disappointed) Overall, it was very fun.

Way up in the Gore Mountain Range

2008-08-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

Drew, Kristin, Laura, and I have been planning to go on a backpacking trip since the beginning of the summer. We were meant to go last week the 23-25 but due to Kristin's bad cough and to the fact that Laura and I both got a temp job for those two days we decided to postpone until this week to go, but without Drew and Kristin. :(

We decide to hike a loop that would go up and over Eccles Pass. It is the mountain that is directly north of Frisco, CO. We were planning on hiking 5-6 miles each day and go for 2 nights and 3 days. It didn't quite work out that way.

Day 1

This is Laura's first backpacking trip. Doesn't she look great like a true mountain woman!

The trail started out nice and flat through a forest with a ton of trees that were dead, dying, or fallen over.

We crossed this creek or other smaller creeks about 30 times and only a few of them had bridges. There were a couple of close calls for both of us but we ended up getting through the whole trip dry!

We hiked through some gorgeous mountain meadows with beautiful flowers of all shapes and colors. The picture of the flowers does not do justice to how beautiful they were.

We had heard that there were going to be some waterfalls along the trail but we had no idea that they were going to be as cool as they were. We could hear them from the trail so we trekked about 50 yards off to the side and we found...
Can you find Laura in the above picture?
There were several other waterfalls that we didn't get very good pictures of. They were awesome. Much bigger and loader than these pictures make them look.

We continued on for another 2 miles or so and found a nice camping spot. We were only 100 feet or so from the creek and there was a ton of firewood all around. It was a really nice place to stay.

This is taking longer than I thought so return tomorrow for the even more exciting Day 2 of our backpacking trip...

Random thoughts blog

2008-04-04T13:45:00.001-07:00

I have a few minutes so I am going to post a few random thoughts that I have been having.

1. I only have a few more weeks left in Provo. My missionaries were moved to a different room in the MTC last week. We are on the 5th floor and from the windows you can see all around the city of Provo. It is a beautiful place! I am going to miss it.

2.I am really excited for General Conference. I have felt a lack of direction for what I want to focus on for the next couple of months. It feels like I am sitting around waiting for Med-School to start. Which I guess is exactly what I am doing. I am excited to hear what we need to focus on as church and as individuals.

3. The economy of our country amazes me. I am taking Econ 110 this semester and I learning a lot. I am not sure how good I am going to do on the final but I didn't take it for the grade. I just wanted to learn basic economics. If there is one thing I have learned while taking it, it is this, no one really knows what is going on. There are trends and statistical likelihoods, but no real facts. We seem to blame people a lot for what is going on in our economy. We blame people for controlling to much or we blame people for not controlling enough. From what I now understand, which is admittedly very little, our economy is so huge, well over 13 or 14 trillion dollars, no one really knows what is going on. To me its kind of like a puppy growing into a dog. Sure, when you first get it he was cute and fun to play with, but then he gets bigger and bigger until you can't control him any more you can try and fence your garden, or train him to go in your yard, or not rip off your windows, or not tear apart you porch but really he is going to do what he wants when he wants. That was the first analogy that came to mind. Sorry.

4. I am married to a beautiful woman that is smarter than me, funnier than me, more spiritual than me, a better cook than me, etc... I am a happy man and life is good!

Machu Stinking Picchu

2008-03-07T07:11:00.001-08:00

Laura and I are going there this summer. It's going to be awesome. More details to come!!!!!

THE BIG DAY

2008-02-12T16:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a few mean comments on how I have not posted anything in a long time I have decided to post something about the wedding day. Thanks Kristen!!

This is how I felt all day! It was great because we didn't have to do anything except smile a lot and talk to people. Thank you to all that helped!

This is us coming out of the temple. I don't think anyone saw this but about 15 seconds before this picture was taken something really funny happened. Laura and I had just started to confidently and joyfully walk out of temple because we were just married. As the inner doors of the temple were opening and we were getting ready to face the many people waiting for us, Laura tripped on her dress and almost did a face plant in the foyer of the temple. We thought everyone saw but no one said anything so we assumed no one knew.

This is us taking pictures behind the temple and I thought I looked pretty cool!!

This is my favorite picture from the reception. Joy is so good at getting down and getting jiggy! I love the concentration that is on her face. This is a woman that knows how to groove!

This is my beautiful wife. I thought she was beautiful on our wedding day but amazingly she continues to become more and more beautiful to me. I have no idea why she said yes, but now she is stuck and cannot go back. I love her!

Laura is up and running

2007-11-16T07:40:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, Laura has a new post up!!!!! Checked it out. You might have a few good belly laughs!!!! Just click on the title of this post and you will be connected.

Me in a Nutshell

2007-11-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

8 jobs I have had
1. My first job was for the YMCA. I was 15 and I was field manager. I sat at the baseball field for four hours and made sure I gave necessary notes to the different coaches. I slept most of the time. This job didn't last long. I forgot to tell my boss that I went on a trip and so I missed a few shifts. Once I found out that I had missed shifts I never went back. I am not proud of it but that is what happened.

2. Juice man at Jamba juice. I have worked here on three different occasions. Once before my Junior year of High School. The second time was when I was living in Provo right after my mission. The third time was the following summer.

3. Daycare supervisor. I loved this job. I played with kids all day. We went on field trips to the pool, the zoo, and other fun places. However, I was always really tired after I was done. I don't know how Mom does it.

4. Mail opener. I received, opened and sorted lots of mail for the Dish Network. The most memorable part of this job was working with a really weird guy named Kevin. He had quite the history and if 1/4 of it was true he would have lived quite the life. ex-he owned over a million dollars worth of toys that he kept in his basement.

5. I was the official cantaloupe cutter at the Cannon center. The only cool thing about this job was the machine that was designed to cut the rind off. I hurt my knee after working here for about a month and I couldn't work anymore.

6. I worked at the Malt Shoppe at the same time as I worked at Jamba Juice after getting home from my mission. I hated it. I swore that I would never work in the food industry again. Although I became the face of the Malt Shoppe because I always worked the register.

7. After my second surgery, while I was recovering, I worked at the same plastic factory as Drew and Kristen. Very boring!!! This was only for a few weeks.

8. I have been working at the MTC teaching Japanese for almost 3 years now. I love the missionaries and the daily dosage of the spirit that comes along with the job.

Places I have lived
1. Jefferson City, MO (birth-6 years)
2. Littleton, CO (6years-19years)
3. Provo, UT (19, and 21-25years)
4. In and around Hiroshima Japan (19-21years)

Favorite foods
1. Barbeque Pork steaks with fried Potatoes
2. Little Bread Things
3. Mom's meatballs (Come to my wedding reception because we will have plenty)
4. Poullet de Normandy
5. Okonomiyaki (This can only be found in Japan. A cabbage pancake)

Top Five movies
1. Life is Beautiful
2. Contact
3. Miracle
4. Hoosiers
5. Karate Kid

Top Five shows
1. Lost
2. 24
3. Seinfield
4. March Madness
5. College Football national championship (USC vs. TEXAS)

Four weird things about me
1. I randomly start choking while I am eating. I have yet to find a pattern to this phenomenon. However, I can now recgonize when it is coming on so I just stop eating until it passes. For the longest time I have thought this was due to scar tissue built up in my esophagus because of a previous injury (abrazed esophogus). I do not believe this anymore. Drew is a witness to this.

2. I have been in one official fight and I lost. This was in first grade and I have never fought again.

3. I hate wearing sandals. This is a big difference between me and Laura. The woman will wear flip-flops in below freezing weather. I don't know why but my feet need to feel protected.

4. I like to feel in charge. If I am in a situation and no one else takes charge I automatically feel like I am the one in charge. Very strange!!

Toughest Foster
1. All Foster women that have given birth
2. Tyler Foster
3. Matt Foster
4. Drew Foster ?- this one is up for grabs. I picked Drew because he runs a lot and experiences more pain than most of us.

I think I choose Ty because I have seen him in action more than Matt. However, when I try to picture Ty and Matt in a cage fight I have a hard time imagining a winner.

Humbled

2007-10-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

I have tried on 3 or 4 different occasions to figure out how to get Laura's blog linked to mine. I have failed on all 3 attempts. Why make it so hard? I can't read the stupid HTML stuff. Anyway, the link is www.sunflowerpuppy.blogspot.com. I have failed my future wife on my first attempt to provide. Someone else do it for me. Later

What is my Part?

2007-09-07T23:43:00.001-07:00

It is late, or early, and I am getting ready to go to bed but I just felt like writing a blog. Today at about 5 oclock my roomate and myself decided to go help search for Camille Cleverly. We went to a neighborhood just south of Seven Peaks and knocked on some doors and asked the residents if they had seen any strange behavior from their neighbors and if they would search their property for anything out of the ordinary. Most people were very willing and sympathetic to the situation. What a terrible situation? It is getting to the point that one can only start to assume the worst. As I was knocking on doors my mind and heart turned to Camille's mother and what she must be feeling right now. I can not imagine. It got to the point where I felt like we must do anything and everything we can to help her.
However, after about 2 hours of knocking on doors and searching through a suspicious field I found myself battling inside of my head. One part of me felt like "I have done my part, I want to get back to what I was doing." The other half of my brain was asking the deep and profound question, "what exactly is my part here?" Am I done when I am satisfied? Is this over when she is found? Or when the abductor is found and punished? When is my part done? Obviously, there is a limit to what I can add in aiding Camille. Can I or should I ever be satisfied with what I've done? Especially when the problem continues to exist.
When does someone else's problem become mine? There is obviously not a right answer to that question. When is my part done? Or should it ever be done? I don't know. There are so many problems and people that are needy. No one person could possibly take responsibility for all of it. The main issue for most of us would be time and awareness. Often, more than we think, those who need something that we could provide are standing right in front of us and we don't even know it.
I want to solve the world's problems. I want to take suffering away. I want people to laugh instead of cry, I want there to be educated and self motivated individuals in place of demoralized poverty stricken homeless men and women. I wish I could take it all away. What is my part?
I stand in awe of Jesus Christ. He did suffer all the bad and pain the world can dish out. He understands the feelings that of mother with a daughter that is missing. He know the thoughts of the seemingly thoughtless homeless man. He feels the pain of the lonely widow, the devistated mother, the angry man. All of this weighed and continues to weigh on his heart and mind. Why doesn't he stop it? Why not just heal the wounded heart? There must be some kind of purpose behind the suffering. There must be a reason for the crying. I simply just can't understand what it is. But perhaps that is my part. Faith in Jesus Christ. Trust in the His atonement and His teachings. There is a path to freedom from sin. There is an oasis of peace right in the middle of the desert of pain, sin, and heartache. I believe in the promises of Jesus Christ. I believe in the resurrection. I believe in the covenants I have made with him and I believe that He can deliver fully the blessing He has promised. I suppose that is my part, faith in every footstep. What else is there to do?

BYU FOOTBALL

2007-08-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

I am getting pumped up for the football season!!!!! I believe that BYU is going to have a great season. I have talked to several people that have told me that we lost to many key players from last year to be really good this year, but I disagree. We are going to have a very tough defense and we have some great returners on offensive. We have got Manase Tonga and Fui Vakapuna in the backfield. We've got Michael Reed, Ausin Collie, and Matt Allen at the receiver postition. I have been reading some really good stuff about Max Hall. He has had a while to get to know our system and I think he can be very productive. Lastly, we've got Bronco Mendenhall running the show as the coach. I have become a huge Bronco fan. Not only because we have been winning but he has done a great job of restoring peoples faith in the football program. (faith that was lost under Crowton) BYU Football is back and we are going to have a fun season. If nothing else I think they are going to be a fun team to watch.

Miss Laura Ann Knight

2007-08-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

I know everyone would like to see a picture Laura and I found this one on our ward website. She is great!!!!!!! It is amazing that she would even talk to me with my hair looking like that. She's very forgiving. :)

No, we are not getting married.

A busy few weeks

2007-07-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

It is midnight on a Wednesday night and I can't sleep. So I thought would write a blog about a few of the things that I have been up to the last couple of weeks since Iron Springs.

Perhaps the biggest most exicting thing I did was this last weekend. Me and a few friends went hiking down in Moab. What a place!!!!! i have to say that I was very impressed the beauty that can be found in a burning hot desert with very few trees.

We were able to hike up to delicate arch and walk around it. Most of the National Parks I have been to you can only look at the cool things that they have there but at arches you can hike up to them and climb all over them. We actually hiked there in the middle of the night and it was hard to see the surroundings but it was still very impressive.

DELICATE ARCH

My favorite arch out of the few that we saw was definitely double arch. We were there right as the sun was setting and the light was shining through one of the arches and made it quite a spectacular view.

Double arch

In the middle of the afternoon we were all burning up so we decided to go swimming in the river and we found this really cool spot to go cliff jumping. It was a lot of fun and felt very good to cool off a little bit.

All in all it was a very fun trip. Moab was awesome and it was fun to go with some of the people from my ward and have a good time. I can't believe that I have lived in Utah for almost 4 years and I have never taken a trip to Moab before now. I hope I can go back before I am out of here. i also want to try and make it down to Zions. I have heard that it is equally impressive.

Manrichment

I was asked to be in charge of manrichment again this summer and we had a good time. This time around we went for the manliness man competition. There were events like the car pull (power), Shakespeare quotes (the cultured man), wall sit (endurance), the tie tie (finger dexterity), Book of Mormon game (spiritual man), a burping comptetion (I'm not sure what this was testing but it was fun). We had about 15 men show up and I am sad to say that I failed miserably. There were about 8 or 9 men in front of me. Very sad.

This is me trying to hold up a couple of cars for as long as I can. We had a some elder's arms pop right off, but it was all worth the entertainment.

Marriage

I have been surrounded by marriage for the last month and a half. Not only am I living in Provo in a singles ward that has been very successful in cranking out marriages in the last year )I think there have been well over 20 couples get married this year), but three of my four roommates are engaged and in various stages of engagement bliss. In the next 4 weeks I know of 5 couples getting married and they are all good friends of mine. It is a lot of fun but also slightly annoying. I have heard quite a bit of lovy dovy words, I have witness a lot of staring into each others eyes, I have heard a lot of love songs.

All my roommates are good men and have found themselves good women. I wish the best of luck to them.

Missionaries

I have been rehired at the MTC and I love working with missionaries. They can be very frustrating at times, but there is no other place on the earth like the MTC. You have a bunch of 19-21 year old men and women racking their brains to learn dozens of different languages, while trying to learn how to teach the gospel, and all the while becoming very aware of their own personal flaws and weaknesses. And they do it voluntarily. I love them for their faith, sacrifice, and courage. there is no better feeling than watching a 19 year old kid realize that he has it in himself to be blessing in other's lives, to catch on to the fact that he (and usually his family) has something that the rest of the world needs and to watch his attitude morph into the idea that "I will give my whole self to this cause because THEY need it, because Christ wants it." I love the missionaries.

i hope you enjoyed a look into my past couple of weeks. Keep smiling everybody. Life is good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The MICK

2007-06-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

To the man that gave me life
And married himself a wonderful wife,

It is always nice to know
that when I need money there is somewhere to go

It is always nice to see
A man willing to give and me willing to receive

It is always nice to say
"I am a Foster" all the way

It is always nice to have
A father to call and share a good laugh

It is always good to feel
A father's love and know it is real

What makes your father so great? they regulary inquire
My father is honest, true, faithful and the bass leader in the choir

To the man who put meaning into my name
A name I carry with no regrets or shame

I say thanks for your life, your friendship, and money
and thanks for marrying the woman you call honey

Yes, I am proud to be on the roster
Of the team captained by Mickey Foster

A funny joke

2007-06-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

I have no idea why I thought this was funny, but I am pretty sure mom will appreciate my joke.

What is bright yellow and weighs 500 pounds?

two 250 lb canaries.

2007-05-21T07:42:00.001-07:00

Thank you for your many comments about the picture that I posted. I must say that I take offense to being called disproportionate and "porky." Although the argument can certainly be made that I am, in the words of Dad, "all jacked up," this is in reference mainly to my extremeties. When it comes to sheer looks I am clearly the best looking out of all of us. (and don't ask your wives if they think you are better looking than me because that don't mean a thing to me. They're your wives for Pete's sake)

Anyway, Drew was correct in noticing the height discrepancy between himself and myself. I am about two or three inches shorter than him in the picture. Jeff towers over me by a good 6 inches. Mark, who in real life isn't more than an inch taller than me, appears to be able to look down on me from his lofty heights of six foot nothing. For some reason I appear to be very short in the picture. At first I thought it was because you couldn't see my legs and I was standing spread eagle or something like that. This isn't the case because at a close examination my legs are clearly visible. I really can't explain why I appear so short in the picture. Perhaps it is the camera lens or maybe it is my bad posture, I don't know, but what I do know is that I am most cerainly taller than Drew. Shrimp!!!!

2007-05-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with this picture?

This is a picture that was taking at Matt and Wendi's wedding. I apologize for the poor quality. It is the best I could do with taking a picture of a picture. I was looking at it the other day and something just didn't seem right to me. Try and guess what it is.

2007-05-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

The Goose is Loose

This is Guzy running his heart out. He broke his PR with a 1:52.37. When you throw altitude into the equation it is equal to a 1:51.9. Not too shabby. He is only going to get faster from here. Go Guzy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-04-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

My theory about my knee
To save some time I first need to explain a little bit about the anatomy of the knee. My theory is mainly about the ACL and the hamstrings. It is important to realize that these two structure have a close and very important relationship. The ACL serves the purpose of keeping your tibia in place. More specifically it limits anterior (forward) movement of the tibia in relation to the femur.
You have three muscles in your hammies, the biceps femoris(red), the semimembranosus(orange), and the semitendinosus(purple). They all originate on the ischial tuberosity (fanny bone). However, all three insert (distal attachment) at a different spot. The biceps femoris attaches on the head of the fibula, the semimebranosus attaches to the back side of the medial epicondyle (back inside of your knee), the semitendinosus wraps around the front of your knee and attaches on the anterior (front) medial (inside) aspect of your tibia. These origins and insertions are critical to knowing and understanding the different movements caused by the muscles. All three muscle cause flexion of the knee. However, our knee can also rotate internally and externally. Bend your knee to 90 degrees and turn your toes inward (internal rotation) and then outward (external rotation). The biceps femoris is primarily responsible for external rotation. The semimembranosus and semitendinosus are responsible for internal rotation. I know there is a good chance that some might have any idea what I am talking about, Dad, but it is important to understand the mechanics of the knee to understand my theory.
One more important role of the hammies. Because the biceps femoris and semitendinosus wrap around the knee, they play an important role in preventing anterior gliding of the tibia on the femur. Also, the ACL is must susceptible to tear when the knee is in a rotated position. For instance if I am cutting to the basket and plant my leg in a position that is forcing external rotation, then my semitendinosus will contract to hold my knee in place and keep the bones from moving to much in the wrong direction.
Next important thing for you to understand in order understand my theory. When I tore my ACL for the first time Dr. M decided to use a hamstring graph. This requires a cool instrument that runs along the tendon of the semitendonosus and shaves off a chunk large enough to serve as your ACL. The doctors then drill some holes and screw this graph into place. The semitendonosus tendon is left to hypertrophy and grow back to normal size. I did not know this until recently. I had also thought that they had just taken the entire tendon and had somehow tied my semitendonosus into my semimembranosus.
I specifically remember a moment during my first recovery when I thought for a short time I had retorn my ACL. It was my freshman year and all of my friends and roomates were playing snow football. I had decided to sit and watch (I was still in my brace). As I was getting up to leaving I felt a pull and what I thought was a snap in the back of my leg. I think I probably hyperextended it slightly. I thought I had retorn my ACL, I went and laid in my bed terrofied at what I had just done. I woke in the morning my knee felt okay, I had a check up in a week and my ACL was still there when the doctor checked. So I just forgot about it. You all know the rest of the story, I have continued to hurt and retear my ACL and other knee structures over and over again.
My theory is this: that day when I thought I had torn my ACL I acually tore the tendon of my semitendinosus. This makes sense, mainly because it is easy to feel that my right knee has a tendon where the semitendonosus should be when my left knee does not. The semitendonosus causes internal rotation and will help control excessive external rotation. the third time I tore my ACL occured when I was driving the lane and jumped of my left leg to the right. this action must of caused excessive external rotation and the semitendonousus is meant to restrict that. However, I did not have a semitendonosus and therefore my knee twisted to much and my ACL popped. I remember feeling that external twisting of my knee as I felt the ligament tear. I haven't run this theory by Dr. Noonan yet but I plan on doing so and seeing what he thinks. If I am incorrect I am curious to know why I am missing that tendon.
What does this mean? absolutely nothing. Except that now I think that I know what is wrong and that gives me some peace of mind. Thank you for reading this.

2007-04-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

The Beginning of a Wonderful Career
I can now say that I have been a model two times in my life. Once it was because of my beautiful hair. This time because of my class and dashing good looks. These are a few the pictures of me modeling a tuxedo. I don't know if you can tell but I am wearing a chocolate colored tux. I guess they are in style now. To anyone who might stumble upon these pictures, please feel free to forward them to any of your single friends.

These are all of the volunteers that helped out. Sorry you can't really see

I am glad I didn't have a white tux or a girly purple or pink vest.

2007-03-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

Adam's CD cover
This baby is going to rock

The Playlist
1. The Roads We Walk
2. Dreamgirl
3.Off the Ground
4. Awake My Soul
5. Brad's Song

I think it is going to be entitled RISE and not Arise but I need to talk to my roomate about changing that. A guy in my ward took the picture, and my roomate Doug added the lettering. There is going to be a release party sometime before the end of the semester. Rock on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

2007-02-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

Why I love my Mom!!!

-She is the kindest person I know.
-She knows me better than anyone and is willing to give me advice.
-She will support me in any decision I make. (except to play tackle football)
-She loves me
-She has taken care of me innumerable times when I couldn't do it myself.
-She is a great cook
-She did my laundry for 19 years. (I had no idea how annoying laundry was until I started doing it)
-She is funny
-She cares for everyone around her. She is very unselfish
-She has raised a great family

Happy Valentines Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could write more but I have to go to class.
I love you Mom!!!!

2007-01-29T12:50:00.000-08:00

WELCOME TO LIFE!!!!!!!!!!

I took a break from studying today and was looking at despair.com. DESPAIR is my favorite one. DREAMS also gets a laugh everytime.

2007-01-24T16:11:00.000-08:00

The Human Heart

It is amazing what one can feel all at the same time. I have this constant feeling that I need to be working harder at getting into Med school. The main task I am faced with right now is the MCAT. I want to study a lot for it so that I will do well. However, this would jeopardize the time I feel like I need to spent on school in order to keep my GPA high. I have three different labs this semester all of which take 3x to much time. I asked a girl out last night for tomorrow night and I am pretty excited about it. There is another girl I want to ask out for Saturday, but I am not sure if she will be able to or even want to. There are several people in the ward that I am aware of that need some special attention. i want to help the hometeachers get more involved. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. Frustration. Jack Bauer is interogating his little brother, who just happens to be one of the most evil men in the world. I am always wanting to work out or do something athletic, but can't find any time or my knee is sore so I feel like I shouldn't. There is always frustration and annoyance in my heart towards money and laundry. I have a test in Functional anatomy tomorrow morning that is going be very hard. We just held the third "manrichment" last night and it was a total success even though went out in the first round of the arm wrestling tournamnent (I was wrestling in the Heavy weight class), etc, etc. I think if everyone sat down and thought about it you could think of just as much stuff that is on your mind on any day. There is good, there is bad, and then there is probably stuff that is neither. I am sitting at computer eating macaroni and cheese with a polish sausage cut up into little pieces and am in awe of the human heart and mind.
What a blessing the ability to feel is!!!!

2006-11-24T22:02:00.000-08:00

It Makes No Sense

I have a question that I am hoping someone can answer. I recently watch
Episode III and I don't understand a few things at the end of the movie. Why did Yoda and Obi-wan go into hiding? Neither one killed the Sith they went out to kill and they both decided to hide instead of lead the rebellion against the empire. It seems to me that with two of the most powerful jedi that the rebellion would have stood a chance and been able to mount of fight, instead of having to wait 20 years or so until Luke was able to fight. What good did Yoda do anyone on the planet that he went to. He didn't do one thing, in fact it seems that he probably went crazy. Secondly, when Obi-wan took Luke to Tatuin why did he never speak to Luke, and why did the uncle refer to Obi-wan as some lonely hermit? I don't understand why Obi-wan wouldn't have trained Luke from a young age. I hope someone can answer these question because my finite brain can't comprehend them.

2006-11-17T15:22:00.000-08:00

If you want to see Lebron at his finest go to ESPN.com and click on the advertisement at the top of the home page. After a seperate screen pops up click on the image that says view commercials. There are three of them and they are all very funny.

2006-10-31T19:28:00.000-08:00

Help for the Helpless

I am going to write a post declaring my dating strageties. In the last 48 hours I have been told by my Stake President and the Prophet of God that marriage needs to be a priority for me. I have been in a hole, a rut, deep despair as of late and I am not sure why. I have been on probably 6 or 7 first dates in the last month and I am feeling further from finding anyone I am really intrested than I have in a long time. I have been told by some to be more aggressive and ask out random girls. Another has suggested that I give up all hope. While another has told me that I have to be more persistent with one girl. I was talking to Jay Kelleher today and he told me to lower my standards, I quote "if she can breath and she's got legs, go for her!!" To say the least I really am sick and tired of thinking about and it seems that the more I think the less motivated I am. On top of all that I have come to the realization that money does not grow on trees and taking girls out costs money. I have decided that I will date based on these three principles.

1. I plan on focusing much more energy in other aspects of my life. School, rehabing my knee, church calling, community service of some kind, etc.

2. When I do date I will be date with courage. This means when I want to ask a girl out I will do it. Even if the situation seems a little strange. In short, it's time for me to be a MAN!!!!!!!!!

3. I am tired of first dates and will keep them to a minimum. I plan on asking out the same girl more than once, even though I am not sure how interested I am.

I think these are solid principles that will serve me well. It is time to stop worrying and to find a little patience. The Lord smiles on a patient and righteous heart and I hope I have a little bit of both in me.

2006-10-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

What is green and red and goes 60 miles an hour?

2006-09-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

I have a thought I would like to share. It is undeveloped, like most of the thoughts I have, but I have found that after I write something out I can usually then begin to organize it in my head. We had a fun activity last night with the Elder's Quorum, we named it Manrichment, instead of enrichment for the Relief Society. The purpose of manrichment is to build unity and also to allow us to foster our manly skills, but mainly to build unity. We started out by playing football, it was total chaos. There was probably 10 to 12 guys on each team and no order to what they did. I was all time quarterback(it was illegal to rush me because I can't run, don't worry mom I am not that stupid). It was impossible to tell who was who and usually I would hear someone yell my name and I would throw the ball in there general direction and hope they caught it. I threw 7 touchdown passes, 1 was a hail mary, and had 3 interceptions. We then returned to the pavilion and we all ate some meat. It was mainly hamburgers and polish sausage. To end the night, we had a member of the quorum that is really good at fighting, teach us how to take someone down from all different directions. It was a lot of fun and the activity accomplished its purpose.
This brings me to my thought, unity. I haven't put a ton of thought into it, but in almost anything we do unity will increase our ability to perform well. Why is that? In the whole scheme of things what eternal benefits come from us being united. As I learn more about life and the gospel, I continually feel that it is a personal thing. Life is not something we can dump off on someone else, we must live it and we must make the choices that make us who we are. So then why is me being united with my family, my friends, my team, my God, and any other relationship I have so important. I am not sure except for the idea that we are all in this together. I think of a talk that Elder Holland gave a while back entitled "the prodgial son" he mentions that life was never meant to be a race to the finish, but more of a team effort. I need to do a better job of being unified in all aspects of my life. I would love to have any of my readers give some of their insights and comments on unity.

2006-08-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

I saw Nacho Libre this last weekend and I have to say I was not impressed that much by it. It just isn't that funny. There were a couple of pretty funny parts but even those weren' all that funny. Jack Black was trying to hard to be a weird funny wrestling monk. I give it a C at best. The picture that I put on here was one of my favorite moves that they had in the movie. So much pain.

2006-08-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

It is a Sunday night and I am getting ready to go to bed. It has been a busy day. I had church, then interviews, presidency meeting, hometeaching, and some serious flirting.(I actually made some peach milkshake to help them see that I am not just good looks and wit :) I am grateful for the oppurtunities that are constantly being thrown my way. Oppurtunities to serve, to help, to learn, to laugh, to think, to cry, to improve, etc... Life is good!!!!!!!

2006-07-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my last post. I have nothing funny to say but I thought I would just catch everyone up on what's going on in Provo. I was recently called as the elder's quorum president which is keeping me busy. Getting everyone to hometeach is an annoying task, but important. It is a big help to those getting home taught, but it is even more important for the elder's to recongize what it means to hold the priesthood and to take the responsibilty that comes with it. I am not in school for the summer semester. I need to make some money so I can pay for school, with a little help from the old man and the little woman of course. Although I like not being in school, in a strange unexplainable way I miss it. Being busy at work and being busy at school are two different things. I am much more tired after a long day at work, but when you get home it is a relief because you have nothing to do, but with school I am not as tired but I am always thinking about the next test and the homework that is due. They both have there ups and downs.
I am still at the MTC teaching japanese. I love missionaries and the dedication they have to what they are doing. I was thinking this last week as I was trying to remember what I felt like right before I came home. I remember thinking and feeling that I was giving up spirituality for the rest of my life. I didn't really think this but it felt that way. I was going to come home and not be able to have spiritual experiences and that was a hard thing for me to deal with. Then I got home and realized that I could but it was not as readily at your finger tips like on your mission. I soon realized that there were plenty of things to do and experiences to have. The hardest part for me was that I had spent two years finding myself spiritually and obtaining some serious confidence in myself and my skills and then came home and felt like I was a baby again because I had no idea what I needed to do with the rest of my life. Not having those things was like a hole in my soul that took me a long time to fill. (Not to worry I am now a mountain of confidence and skill. Hahahaha) I say this because I think Drew will have the same experience. It wasn't the culture shock that was hardest, that lasted a few weeks and I was fine(granted I was in Japan, a pretty nice place) It was trying to find myself again that was difficult. We need to be patient with the Goose.
This was a very random blog. I had some time and just started typing.

2006-06-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

I just finished my last practical exam for my Bio 241 lab and I will try to describe how I feel like a true Utahan would describe it"oh, my heck! it kicked my freakin trash!!!" I don't know how I did, but it is not going to be pretty. The best thing I can do now is tighten up the hatches, board up the windows, gather the valuables, kid the gets in the cellar and prepare for the worst. I am praying that by worst I mean B or B+, so I quess it isn't that bad.

AD

2006-06-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

I just got done taking a practical exam for my molecular biology lab. Let me explain it to you. There are 21 stations and you have 3 minutes per station. They ask different questions that test you on the different procedures we have been doing in class. One of the station required you to mix some enzymes with substrates and then you had to measure the product produced in a special machine called a spectrophotometer. However, the solution you have made must be diluted to the correct amount so that the machine can read it. (this is the hard step) So I have got 3 minutes to mix, react, and dilute this solution. The bell went off and I started to pipette my substrate into the cuvette(test tube), but I quickly realized my hands were shaking out of control (so intense). I have to use my other hand to stop the shaking. Somehow I manage to get the substrate and enzyme all into the the tube. I then grab another pipette to dilute the solution. the TA calls out"30 seconds" it is at this moment that I realize that I don't know to what factor I am suppose to dilute. Total panic sets in and I started diluting like there was no tomorrow. As I am doing this I am hoping for a miracle that maybe what I am doing is correct. The buzzer beeps and I go on to the next station to measure my product in the machine. I put the cuvette into the proper slot and ,y number comes out on the screen. I look at the number and........... Not even close to being right. I screwed up somewhere in my diluting process. Luckily this was just one part of the test. I think I did good on the rest. Very intense.

2006-05-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

I have no thoughts. The other day I was talking to Laura and I told her that I would speak my thoughts out loud. There was a moment of silence that lasted probably 20 seconds because I was trying to think of something to say. That moment ended when Laura started laughing at me. I have never been very good at saying what I feel. I am no philosopher and certainly not a poet. I think most of what goes on inside of my head is pretty much worthless. Actually I probably shouldn't say worthless because they are my thoughts and that is what makes me who I am, but let's say that they would have very little worth (except maybe for humor) to anyone besides myself. However, I think I like that about myself. I very rarely dwell on how bad things are. Not because things are going great, but more of because my mind is occupied by other thoughts. I see people who are so caught up in what is wrong with their life that they seem to be worried when they don't have anything to think about so they find more things to complain about. They either go and find trouble or analyze something until it doesn't make sense anymore and find problems when it is really nothing at all. I do that sometimes, but the majority of my time is spent thinking about nothing. (Which me and Laura decided is not actually possible, we experimented) The more busy I get and the more responsibilities that I have, the more I miss my times of nothingness. I really feel that it is important to have such times, where nothing is really being decided, nothing is being analyzed, the future is not in the balance, all it is is your thoughts about whatever you want to think about. What do you think about? Music, sports, adventure, do you try to understand nature( this is when you are in nature most likely), family, and whatever else there is. I think these times of nothingnes are important because often times this is how we see ourselves no matter how far from the truth it might be. Our thoughts are full of what we would like to be. At least that is what my thoughts are full of. Not necessarliy what I actually am becoming but more of the ideal Adam. A wise prophet that lived in America around 100 B.C said "Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience." I think what Alma is saying here is that if we want to be good, if that is really that desire of our hearts, ultimately our lives will be good. That does not necessarliy mean from a moment to moment basis, but more of from a macroscopic view of things. The opposite is also true, if we want evil(a better way to say that would probably be if we desire evil things) ultimately our life will be full of evil. I quess what I am trying to say is this. In our own personal thoughts, the ones that only you can know that you are thinking, if we see ourselves being good, happy, honest, kind people, ultimately that is what we will become, but if we see ourselves in a different light we will eventually become whatever we see ourselves being. So let us see ourselves in a divine light, and let us be thinkers of good thoughts.

2006-05-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

This was a really fun date that my roomate put together. It was a treasure hunt that led us up through this canyon and then on top of the cliffs. I am the guy in the blue and Laura is the girl walking next to me. These very impressive cliffs. Comparable to the cliffs of despair.

This is a picture of me and Laura standing in front of the sunset. Adam is looking so studly and Laura is looking so good.

2006-05-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I a had a very strange memory pop into my head. It was more of an image than a entire memory, but it made me laugh. It was an image of Jeff sprawled out in our entry-way at the bottom of the stairs. He is wearing a small and very tight t-shirt along with a tight pair of shorts. He is acting out an emotional scene from one of our movies. I don't remember the details of why Jeff was doing this, but it had something to do with Drew not cutting it in the emotional scene, so we brought Jeff in as the acting double.(meaning that Jeff put on Drew's clothes and acted out the scene instead of Drew) As the image went away I thought to myself "Why can't I be a kid again?" Throughout the rest of the day memories from my childhood continued to come to mind. Drew doesn't believe me on this one, but they use to call me "the untouchable" during recess because I could go for weeks without being touched in touch football. I remember playing games like guns and hide and seek out in our col-de-sac with a bunch of other kids. I have a very specific memory of watching Drew play basketball at the Hancocks in nothing but his shoes and speedo. One of the highlights of my week was always sunday afternoon playing games like smear the queer and Hotbox. I think about all the many walks home from Shaffer, moments like almost getting beat up by David Bock, or going on adventures through "nam." I loved it, it was so good being a kid. Now what do I do? I go to work, I study, I do things for church(I was just called as the Elder's Quorum President) and I try to have somekind of social life. It is a rare moment that I get to do something truly spontaneous anymore, and I miss it. Although I enjoy the responsiblities and growth that comes from life I just wish for moment I could be an eight year old again. Sadly, I think that might have been my peak age and it has been all down hill from there.:-)

2006-05-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a very touching, well thought blog and I lost it. I don't have time to re-write and so it will have to wait for another day.

2006-05-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking. My life is ruled by one thing and one thing only. My stomach. I wake up in the morning he tells me to eat and I happilly satisfy his demands. I go to school and study, but when my stomach tells me it is time to go home and eat, I do it. I have tried to suppress his demands and aches, but to no avail. Somehow he finds a way to get deep into my pysche and convince me to do what he says. This is a very frustrating thing. But at the same time it doesn't bug that much because I really like to eat.

2006-04-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

I am here thinking about starting to study for my last final of the semester(Organic Chemistry) and I thought to myself,"This information I am studying really as very little, if any at all, application to my life." However, as I think these words, there are most likely thousands of people( nerdy people) using the same info to create a medicine or find a cure of somekind that could help thousands maybe even millions of people. I find that amusing. Almost any bit of information that I can acquire I could use to benefit the world. (Maybe not me, but someone could) I think that is an empowering thought, the more information I can get in me the more effective I can be at using to help people. Kind of like Macgyver(not the dog), the man knows everything and can use and apply it to any situation. With that I have decided to follow the same professional path as Macgyver. You have friends like Pete Thorton and Jack Dalton, and you get to help people. I like it.

2006-04-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

I hope you enjoy your trip through my blog. I could think of only two titles for it. Pain or Dreaming Big. Pain becaue it strikes fear in to the mind of anyone who decides to visit my sight and Dreaming Big because it is inspiring. I decided to go with the more inspiring title. Enjoy.