Transplants: 2012-07-08

Our good friends Emily and Benjamin Thevenin have been going through the process of adoption for a couple years. Emily was unable to have children, due to health problems, and so they joined the foster system where they got there sweet baby Damon (at 3 months). They went through terrible trials with Damon, trying to keep him instead of sending him back to his birth mother, finally after two years the Thevenin's were blessed to be able to adopt Damon into their growing family (half way through this process with Damon, Emily got pregnant and they have a beautiful baby named Cade).

This May the Thevenin's met at the Denver temple with their family and friends to seal Damon to their family for time and all eternity. It was an amazing experience to be able to see their beautiful growing family sealed together. It made the struggles and frustrations of the adoption process seem to melt away knowing that he was going to be their son forever. I am so happy for the Thevenin family and so grateful for the blessings of eternal families.

Scout Spaghetti Dinner

The different camps for the scouts in our ward this year were going to cost a lot more than our ward had to spend. So the scouts decided to have a spaghetti dinner and auction. Members of the ward donated items/services for the auction (both silent and live) and it was fun to see what everyone had. Our Bishop donated a free three night stay in his cabin in Breckenridge and Ben (and a bunch of our guy friends) jumped at that. There was one Brother that donated the opportunity to cut his hair/beard there at the event however the person wanted. A young man won this and the result was...comically sad.

It was fun and the ward was able to raise enough to send all our boys to camp.

Dinosaur Hike

I told Ben that I wanted to do some 'touristy' Colorado things this year. Because we both grew up here there are a lot of things that we have never done (why be a tourist when you live here?) but we have decided to do some of those things this summer. One of these is a cool hike called the Dinosaur Ridge Trail. Only about an hour from our house is an entire ridge that has hundreds of dinosaur tracks, a quarry of dinosaur bones, and interesting geologic features. The National Park Service has designated the area a National Natural Landmark, the state of Colorado has made it a Colorado Natural Area, and the Colorado Geological Survey recommends it as an official Point of Geologic Interest. So...we decided to go.

We went with some friends, the Forsyth's, because Jaime loves dinosaurs. We were a little disappointed and confused when we got there. The 'trail' by the fossils is a paved road and there were families (in flip flops) looking around, we definitely looked out of place in our hiking cloths. But the further we went up we found some other paths that took us out of the 'touristy' part of the area and took us on a pretty hike. The landscape was really dry and rocky, so it was a different hike than I usually go on but it was still beautiful. It was fun to go and see something new that we have never seen in Colorado.

B Thev's Birthday/the Avengers

One of our good friends, Benjamin Thevenin, had a birthday so we all went out to eat to celebrate. We have such an amazing group of friends and we always have so much fun together. Here is a video of Benjamin's birthday song- we are seriously amazing singers.

After dinner we all headed over to the movie theater and watched The Avengers. It was awesome. I love seeing the super hero's that I grew up reading about (in comics) come to life on the big screen.

This is a funny picture of the 'minons' dressed as the Avengers.

Memorial Day Weekend/Boulder Bolder

This year we had an exciting jam packed Memorial Day Weekend. Saturday was Tre Turner's baptism. It was very cool (I had to work but Ben went and said it was great). It was so special because Tre's cousin's and other family got to come (Uncle Ed, Sandy, Ally and her two kids, Michelle, Jonathan, Grandma Stones and Melanie).

Monday morning was the Bolder Boulder, the annual 10K held in Boulder every Memorial Day. Ben decided to run this year and so I dropped him off early and then made my way to the stadium to watch him come in. He finished in 1:01:38.91 with an average of a 09:55 minute mile. I am so proud of him. He is not a regular runner so when he decides to go and do a race I am always skeptical but he always does fantastic.

Monday afternoon everyone trekked over to Mom and Dad's house for a BBQ. It was fun to see everyone. Tim, Claudia and Luiza even came down. We got to play at the park with the kids, go crawdad fishing, play games, eat good food and enjoy everyone's company. It was really fun to see everyone.

Climbing with Phil

At REI they say, "If you aren't a climber, give it a couple months and you will be." I had worked at REI for about 6 months and still hadn't climbed so one of my co-workers, Phil, decided to take me and some other climbing 'newbies' out. Phil was working on a climbing instructor certification and had to log hours that he had worked on a mountain with inexperienced climbers.

I borrowed gear from my neighbor's (yay they had gear that fit me) and our big group went up Boulder Canyon to our destination. The first thing I noticed about climbing is that the gear is HEAVY and you have to hike it in, I don't know why but this never occurred to me. The half a mile hike up the side of a mountain carrying the gear about killed me, I was sure I was done in for. Once we reached our climb, Phil and some other more experienced climbers went and set up a top rope for us, giving us a chance to catch our breath while practicing knots (yes, they made us do our own knots, so if we fell and died, it was our fault).

They quickly taught us how to belay and sent us up. Belaying is when you stand at the bottom, holding the rope attached to the climber (the rope goes from the climber to the top of the mountain to you). Your job is to take out the slack as the climber goes, so that if/when the climber falls you are responsible for catching them. Belaying was probably the scariest thing I did all day, having someone else's life in my hands- yikes.

Then we got to climb an easier climb (ranked a 5). I felt very awkward at first, everyone is at the bottom looking up at your rear end, and nervous that I wasn't strong enough but I did it and it was great. They had us do some top belaying (which means you start at the top of the mountain hook into a rope and lower yourself, no one else is touching the rope as a backup. This was also really fun. I quickly learned that the heights part of climbing didn't bother me (it was nerve racking for some of the other climbers) and that I felt pretty safe on the rope.

At the end they set up a harder route (a 7.5) that had a table top (a ledge you had to climb over). It was pretty hard and none of the newer climbers could do it. But I REALLY wanted to get over this ledge and I am pretty stubborn. So I started the climb and when I got up there I realized I was about 6 inches from a grip I wanted so I yelled down to my belayer that I was going to jump for it... and I did. I figured, "I am attached to a rope, what can go wrong?"

The feeling of falling (after I jumped and didn't catch the other side) was different than I thought. You only fall a couple inches before getting caught by the belay but then you swing (to the sides) until the rope pulls tight, or until you hit a rock hard enough to stop you- so it was less of a fall and more of a swing. I ended up jumping and falling about 8 times trying to get over the ledge, each time pulling myself back to the rock and trying again, and finally I was exhausted and I knew that even if I got the right grip, there was no way I had the strength to do it. So I came down.

My coworkers thought I was insane. They said they had never seen such a gutsy first time climber, that made me feel pretty good (especially since I was bummed I didn't make it to the top). My body, however, disagreed with how cool my gutsiness was and was just bruised and sore. Every day for a week I found new bruises and scrapes- ouch.