Return of the Prodigal Kitty

Hallie and the kids spent the last half of the week in Utah while Mike went out to California for work and to bring our prodigal kitty to his new home.

We spent a low key day at home on Labor Day Monday. Landon had gymnastics practice in the morning (this is his life now) and ended up injuring his knee. While watching the boys at the end of practice Coach Isaac and Hallie both saw Landon land and didn’t notice anything different. Isaac went and checked on him and helped him off the floor. We iced the knee when we got home and gave him pain reliever hoping whatever happened would not turn into something serious. We opted to stay home for the rest of the day.

Tuesday marked the official start of fall semester the university with the attendant flood of people and their vehicles to campus. Mike, who in each of his last two times living near the university did not generally use a car to get to campus, found the new commuter situation to be a bit annoying. He found parking way out in a lot west of the Richards Building, about a 10-minute walk from his office. He’s not complaining too much though. The combined drive and walk are still shorter than other commutes he’s had. Now for the smoky haze to clear so he can enjoy his stroll (and stair climb—huff, puff!) to his office.

While Mike worked and the kids attended school, Hallie got her nails done at a new place called Lacquered Loft that she really likes compared to the first place she went that was not so good. With much excitement Hallie had lunch with her former mission companion, Amanda. The two have no known each other for 21 years. Wow! The one hour that they had to spend together went so fast. Now that we live closer together there will be lots of opportunities to see each other.

Both kids had gymnastics in the evening.

On Wednesday Mike had some meetings on campus to get oriented to his work there. Originally he thought today would be his first day of fall semester classes, but no. He will teach off campus on Mondays this fall with a cohort housed at Mountain View High School in Orem. That will be interesting and a new experience for him.

Gavin, a boy who attends Landon and Eliza’s school also is on Landon’s gymnastics team at Airtime, so Hallie made an arrangement with Gavin’s dad to trade off driving duties. As Eliza goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, this meant that today Hallie only had to worry about picking Landon up from the gym. Hallie has really come to find out that if she doesn’t put herself out there and notice what is happening in her surroundings then she will just keep sitting in a corner not meeting people and will continue to feel alone in a familiar place. This is a good insight for us all!

While Landon worked out, the girls went to SOS Drug Co. down on Main Street. It's a throwback to those old timey soda fountains of yore. The local Fox affiliate did a story on them a few years back. Someone at gymnastics recommended it, and the ladies were not disappointed. 

Mike flew out to California on Thursday. He arrived in Salt Lake in good time and had A-list numbers for his two flight legs. But the fates had other plans in the form of a flock of birds that crashed into and dented the nose of the plane as it flew into SLC from Denver. Soooo his flight to Phoenix got canceled, and he and all the other people on his flight had to scramble to get new reservations. Fortunately, he only got into Burbank an hour or so later than planned.

Grandma, Grandpa, and Alie were there to pick him up. On the way from the airport, the van started losing power, so they had to pull over on the freeway and then get towed to an auto shop. Fortunately everything worked out, and Alie was a trooper through it all.

After stopping by the Owens (and seeing an owl in the tree in the back yard!), he went over and spent the night at the Maygrens housesitting.

Meanwhile at home, Hallie and the kids had a remarkably low-key start to their morning. After school, both kids had gymnastics and Hallie babysat Max. Max was feeling ill, and his dad picked him up a little early today. This turned out to be a blessing because Hallie was able to run to Costa Vida to grab dinner then back to pick up Landon. Late night babysitting is not ideal for this little family with early bed times.

Mike spent the day Friday working remotely. After visiting with the Owens in the afternoon, in the evening, he had dinner with Carly, Shad, and their kids at their new house. Cozy! Lots of nice architectural touches, plus they have a pool! Mike enjoyed his time with the California branches of the family and is glad to have an excuse to come back out.

Hallie and Eliza ran all kinds of errands while Landon was at gymnastics. It is fun to get to know our new-to-us town.

When picking up Landon Isaac said Landon’s knee was still bothering him during practice and it would be good to take him to the doctor the next day. OK. After practice we went to the Food Truck Roundup at the Springville Library. With an impending storm there were only two trucks, so we chose from The Next Step Up (an Italian truck), and the food was quite good.

On Saturday Hallie took Landon to the local urgent care to check on his knee. Fortunately it appears that the injury is minor; however, the painful area is near the growth plate, so he’ll need to keep from playing too hard for the next week or so. Landon made a favorable impression on the x-ray technician when he offered her a piece of taffy. The tech said in her 26 years of doing this job this is the first person to have ever offered her a treat. Good job, dude!!!

We ate ice cream with tons of sprinkles for lunch. Why not?! Hallie tried getting the kids to clean their room without a lot of success, but we keep trying. Later the kids went outside and played for a long time with all kinds of kids from the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Mike taught his data analysis course to his CLU doctoral cohort and then spent some more time visiting with his family and having a birthday dinner of sorts for Grandpa at Red's.

He also watched a hard-fought but ultimately futile attempt by BYU to overcome the U of U in the Holy War Game. 

Sunday morning Mike visited a bit with Shad and then spent some more time with his folks before flying home with Fergus. That was a prolonged ordeal he and the cat are happy to have behind them. Fergus seemed quite happy to be out of his carrier after five hours by car, plane, bus, and car again.

Hallie and the kids attended a regional conference satellite broadcast at church and then went up to the Healing Field in Sandy that commemorates the fallen on 9/11. It is interesting and challenging to try to explain to the kids about 9/11.

In the afternoon Hallie was glued to the coverage of Hurricane Irma. We have friends who live in the path of the storm. We keep all of Texas and Florida in our prayers.