One year later...

The 28th marked one year since my shoulder surgery!!  It has been a hard year for a lot of reasons but I am so happy to be one year out.  Everyone told me to plan on one year for full recovery and that was one reason why I put surgery off for so long.  And then I thought surely I'll be back to normal before that.  Well, it definitely took a year, and actually I hope I can still get it to loosen up a little bit more.  It is still pretty tight.  I was able to kick up into a handstand.  I was a little surprised I could do it and I was also surprised how hard it was for my shoulder still.  Maybe I'll hold off on repeating them!  You can see how bent my right elbow is still.  I have no idea if I'll be able to correct that anymore than I have.  It's all my external rotation muscles that have just really struggled to function normally again. It's all so weird!  But I can get dressed, clean things, lift things up on shelves, etc without my shoulder popping out anymore so that's really good!  And I can ride my bike and run and I'll even be able to snowboard again this winter.  So I am happy for all that and grateful for the surgery to be over and all the PT to be done.  It was so stressful this time last year and it has been as much of a mental battle as physical battle to recover, but I'm feeling really good with where things are now!

Desert play time

We also spent more time riding bikes, sitting in the hot tubs and trail running.

Kate really wanted to ride the Zen trail.  This is not a trail for me to ride so I ran while her and Jerry rode.  We had a fun morning together!

No one was really excited to come back home, but at least we had a few more days of fall break before we had to go back to school!

 

Zion NPS

Over the next few days we spent some time hiking in Zion.  We hiked some places we hadn't been before and some places that we hadn't been to in a while.

Watchman Tower over look was a new place.

And Emerald Pools was an old hike on a new day.

I really love the desert!

 

Pioneer Park

We were all excited to have some more days to play after the race.  After all the wind some rain and colder weather came in so we spent the next day just staying in St. George.  We went to church and it happened to be the Primary Program in that ward which was awesome.  And then we just hiked around Pioneer Park and played in the little slot canyon and slick rock.

Only Kate, Abby and I went up the slot and we had fun.

Abby loves playing on rocks like this.  She loves it when it's not an organized hike but just play time instead.

We tried for an Instagram pose.  Probably a good thing none of us have dreams of being an influencer!

 

Kate's final high school race!!

Oh man I have been dreading this race.  I have loved watching my kids race mountain bikes.  It has been such a good sport for them to be involved in and Kate has gained so much confidence from riding bikes.  So I am definitely sad to be moving on from the high school mountain bike scene.  For the record, I am so happy that Sara has started playing lacrosse and it really fits her so I'm not disappointed that she stopped racing bikes, but I will miss being involved with these races.

Kate was nervous before her start.  She has only been starting with 12 riders in all her other races this season and when you add in 70 more riders, it is a little more tricky!  There was a wreck right at her start.  She said that everyone in her row except her wrecked into each other and she managed to narrowly avoid it because she was on the side.

So she was by herself for a hot second at the start which isn't common, but it was a good thing because it gave her a chance to avoid the 2nd wreck that happened right in front her!  Oh boy.  The starts are always so stressful!

She had a great first lap and was finding her groove.

She often starts a little slower than her competitors on the first lap and then catches up on the second or third lap.  She seemed to be heading for that same strategy.

We anxiously waited for what we thought was too long for her to come up on the second lap.  Finally we saw her and as she rode past she let us know that her shifting had stopped working and she was stuck in her second easiest gear.  She doesn't spend much time in that gear at all so she just couldn't ride fast and there was nothing she could do.  When we saw her she was still riding and staying positive, but I know it was a little disappointing.

She was all smiles at the end and gave us all high fives as she passed, but she had to stop because she almost wrecked because she was going so slow she almost tipped over.  

Sara has been so supportive of Kate.  It is really awesome to see.

Sport always makes me cry and it is no exception when it is my own daughter.  I am super grateful for her experiences and these girls that she has become such good friends with!  It was insanely windy the day of her race.  Like 50 mph gusts which meant there was dust and sand everywhere.  Everywhere.  You can see it on their orange faces!  It was so strong that the team tent next to us got picked up like 15 feet into the air and all of the poles holding it up were bent and twisted.  It was crazy.  So after Kate's race and during the boys varsity race we were all scrambling to take the team tents down.  It was a crazy day and I'm proud of Kate for riding through the challenges.  I'm really sad that she's going to be going to college and I'll be losing my best riding friend! I have loved riding with her so much this summer.  At least we have one more together!

What an awesome group of girls!

 

St. Geezy always pleases

We were all ready for a nice fall break.  It was time to enjoy some fall mountain biking weather in some new places and of course to support Kate in her state mountain bike race.  We of course planned a few extra days down there before and after the race.  The first morning, Jerry and I got up early and rode wire mesa.  It was fun and a beautiful morning.

The next morning we chose to ride from the condo we were staying in.  That was fun because we got to ride longer instead of spending some of the time driving.  We rode a super fun 18 miles and worked in a little loop of Rim Reeper which was super fun.

After the ride, Kate and Sara wanted to go watch some of the races that day so we dropped them off and then took Abby hiking to the petroglyphs in Snow Canyon.  It takes some navigating and one blog writer called it the best well-known unknown hike in Snow Canyon because everyone has heard about it, but no one really knows how to get there.  We'd been there before and were able to find them without too much trouble.  It's pretty cool because they are in this little slot canyon which is also fun.

We decided to head up another little slot canyon to see Newspaper Rock.  It took Abby out of her comfort zone a little bit which is always fun!  This canyon involved some climbing and we spent a lot of time talking about how much better my shoulder is since I was coming up on one year since surgery.  I wouldn't have been able to climb up this last year because that would have definitely resulted in a shoulder dislocation so it was fun to experience the progress I've made!

Rocky Mouth Falls- October edition

We made it up to Rocky Mouth for October.  Two more months to go!  I will be sad when this little project is over.  I've loved checking it out each month.  October had a little more water than September dripping down the rock, but not yet back to waterfall status.  We went in the evening to check it out then too.  It was another good evening. 

When PE goes wrong

 So I've been teaching PE at the elementary school again this year.  It has so far been a much better experience than the last time.  So that's great.  But just when I get some confidence and feel like I'm doing a good job, I have a day like Wednesday.  Haha! I had basically a disaster of a day!  We couldn't use the gym because they were taking pictures in there so I decided I would take the classes outside.  The other PE teacher had some words of caution but she was totally supportive of me doing it.  I had a small class and I thought I would be able to handle it...well...it was just awful.  There were classes out at lunch recess and all of those kids were trying to use the equipment I had out there and then things just went downhill fast.  I mean all I could do was laugh.  It was just awful.  So the next classes I just went into the classroom and played some games in there.  Usually 1st grade is pretty easy to handle, but let's just say that we had some kids sword fighting with their chairs while I was trying to play heads up seven up.  Again, I just had to laugh.  It was so bad.  At least my second grade class went well and saved the day.  And then I had an extra day off so I was able to finally spend some time in the mountains with the changing fall colors.  And that made up for it all.

I texted my friend Cass to see if she wanted to go on a bike ride on Friday.  She suggested Lake Blanche instead which I was so happy with.  It is one of my favorite places in the whole Wasatch.

Then on Saturday Jerry and I were able to go on a bike ride in Park City and it was again so gorgeous.  

That evening we took Abby and Tulo up to the Alien Tower for a fun evening hike.  Abby had a ton of fun hiking with Tulo. It's fun when we have a place where we can let him off his leash.  He's a good little doggy!