January 2024

We had a New Year's Party with my side of the family.  We love seeing Carol and Jeff and Amanda.  We were happy Brian made it too.

Winter.  I know it sucks.  But really, there is a lot of beauty too.  And I swear we would not appreciate the warmth of summer without the bitter cold of winter.

Sadie and some friends met up with some boys to go sledding.  It was weird because the wind had blown the snow off the sand hill.  So I told them to hop in and I would take them to the Country Club for an hour.

We had a lot of snow!  And also wind.  I'm not actually sure if there was that many inches put down, or if the wind just caused it all to drift onto this road but the wall of shoveled snow was more impressive than I've ever seen.

Snow means snowboarding!  And it's only fun with friends.  Really though, I've considered coming up by myself but I just don't think it would be very much fun alone.

That being said, these two got super worn out!  Julie had some weird ear pressure happening and Sherri's muscles were giving out so they sat out the last run and I went with Averi (who rode up with us with the intention of meeting her friends but never ended up meeting her friends so we just hung out).

The inversion this day was unreal.  Visibility was next to nothing in the middle of the mountain but up top we were above it all and it was beautiful!

Any day you can see the Tetons is a good day.

I went boarding a couple times in January.  Once with friends and once with Kaden (where he had a lesson and I basically hung out with Brynlee because Jen stayed with Porter).  Kaden had a long lesson but the instructor still did not take him up the lift, even up Shoshone.  At the end he was excited to show me how he was doing so he started down the bunny hill and promptly face planted hard.  I think his legs were tired and he was making it hard.  He was not up for any more after that little run.  I tried to show him but he was just too tired.  We were able to get a refund on his lift ticket because he never actually used it, so I just paid for the lesson.  I will get him up again for another lesson, and then I will take him on the mountain.  I'm determined for him to be my buddy now that Kylee is leaving me.  Actually Sadie loves it too, and I think she could've done well this year if not for all her knee and foot problems.

Speaking of Sadie's knee problems.  We went to the ortho doctor and he examined her.  His diagnosis was that it wasn't torn, but that she had plica.  This is something that is not that uncommon, I think they maybe said 30-40% of people have it.  But it doesn't always cause problems.  In this case, it had thickened and was getting in the way of regular movement.  I hate that it was not something straightforward that for sure needed surgery.  It seemed obvious to me that something needed to be done.  Especially because she hadn't really done any activity in 6-8 weeks and it was not getting any better at all.  She couldn't even kick her leg while swimming.  The doctor recommended surgery, but if you ask Ryan he will say of course the surgeon wants to operate.  We got an MRI and it really didn't show anything.  We had to go back to the doctor but we saw a PA instead and he was not the knee expert and couldn't see anything on the MRI.  But they say plica is diagnosed more by symptoms than MRI.  You just have to do the MRI to make sure there's nothing else going on, and to get insurance to cover the surgery or whatever.  Part of me wanted to let her finish up dance season but I also wanted to get her done and recovering so she had a chance at playing Spring soccer.  So we scheduled the surgery for two days before her last dance comp.  It was the only date they had, or we had to wait a few more weeks.

Much less serious, but of note.  I kicked some guy's shoe at coach soccer and I swear the shoe was made of metal.  I jammed my toe so hard I could barely walk.  That was a Friday and on Sunday I put on church shoes (wedge heels) and about died.  But really any shoe hurt.  It was rough.  I ended up taping it to give some extra support for soccer after that for awhile.  It doesn't look that bad but it was purple all around my toe and felt like it should've looked much worse.

Senior Night for dance was at the Hillcrest vs Skyline basketball game.  We have enjoyed watching some games this year, so it's fun when Kylee ends up dancing too.  Kehau's son plays for Skyline so I got to chat with her for a bit.

Since Ryan was out of town in Arizona, Kaden came out and walked her out with me.  So cute.  We also had other family come and support too!  And catch a little Hillcrest basketball.  Our team is good.  They have been for a couple years now.  It will be interesting to see how the next years go without all our stars that just graduated.