Hit the Dirt

Two days ago I was at the UHSAA State Track and Field Meet at BYU with my Unified Track Team from Cedar High School. Two years prior was our first visit to this track meet with our two original athletes. One of those has since graduated and is serving an LDS Service Mission in the St George Utah Mission. The other original member of that track team is in his Junior year. That team is bigger today. We had 16 team members made up of 9 special needs students, 6 partner athletes, and one special guest athlete, my former student that is a service missionary who was there to support his younger sister. One of our partners didn’t make it and they allowed me to have this former student and current service missionary fill in as a member of a relay team. It was awesome. 

2 years ago these two students threw a shot put as far as they could at that BYU meet.  At the track there the shot put circle is 20 feet away from the dirt. They both came up well short of the dirt, landing in the grass. We left that track meet and set the goal to hit the dirt. Last year we went again and though they got closer, neither hit the dirt. 

On Friday, things were rushed. They ran things different up there this year and my athletes were hopping. They had multiple events happening at the same time and really rushed things. As a result I was not at the shot put pit. Only later did I learn that dirt was hit. The throw was a personal record of 21’10”. The practice and preparation over the last two years paid off and the goal was achieved. It was awesome to celebrate that victory with that student.  It was awesome to celebrate hard work and achievement with all of our athletes. It was awesome to watch Elder Harker the service missionary put in some special service that day. 

This year I coached Unified Soccer, Unified Basketball, and Unified Track. I watch in amazement at the impact this program has on these students. I have seen so much growth as confidence has increased dramatically. It has been a lot, it is hard to find the time. At the end of the day, when that student hits the dirt, it is all worth it. 

New Life

 It has been a minute, or several. There is much that has changed over the last 5 years. Where to even begin?

First and foremost- I am a married man. There is more of a story with that but suffice to say on March 20, 2021 April Holbrook and I were sealed in the Cedar City Utah temple for time and all eternity. She is my best friend and I love her so very much. 

Together we have 7 children. In order we have Eris (my oldest Natalie who now goes by Eris), Isaac, Logan, Jack, Olivia, Andy, and Kailey. What a crew. Isaac is getting married in November to Hailee and together they have a beautiful baby boy and our first grandchild, Kylen. He just started walking this week. Eris is also engaged and will be getting married in October of 2025. They are engaged to Tanner. We have had 4 straight years of High School graduations starting with Logan, then Jack, Livy, and Andy just graduated. We have Kailey starting her senior year and will be our 5th straight. We are blessed with some amazing kids. They are all good people who we love so much. 

Other big news, my dad passed away August 31, 2023. I was at school about to start class when I got a call from mom. He had been in the hospital for a few days. He was battling cancer and had several other health issues. It was a sad day and we miss him. We actually just had a family reunion this week in Eagle Mountain. He would have loved it. Mom is living with Laura and her family in Eagle Mountain and is getting used to the area still. 

I have taught school for the last 5 years and am preparing to start my 6th. I teach special education at Cedar High School. I love it. The special needs students I work with are the best. I learn so much from them. I thought I would work with mild moderate special education students but when I was hired it was for severe special needs. I was nervous about that at first but don’t know that I would ever change what I do. As part of that I am also coaching Unified Sports where we partner our special needs students with peer athletes. We have done track for the last two years and are adding in soccer and maybe basketball this year as well.  

There is still much to update but I will just say that life is good. There is much to be grateful for. The Lord has truly blessed my life. Certainly it isn’t without trials and challenges but that is all part of the journey. 

A Decade is Done

The last ten years have been full, busy, challenging, and filled with blessings. In a few short months from now I will have been divorced for a decade. I never expected that to be the story of a decade for me but it has been. Before my own experience with I thought I knew so much. I quickly learned that I knew nothing. I had no idea of the pain and anguish that would come through that experience. I didn’t know of the sadness, loneliness, and depression I would have to endure. There were some difficult moments associated with this time in my life but I pressed forward, trusting in Heavenly Father, and doing all I could do to be true and faithful to what I knew to be right. I fell short often and continue to do so, but I keep trying. I don’t know what that is worth but I will just keep doing the beat I can. I will show the Lord my willing heart even when I stumble and fall. I think those have been lessons that have served to strengthen me over the last ten years. It has been a whirlwind. It has involved sacrifice and going without in an effort to better our situation. It has required long hours and lots of work. As the decade began winding down I graduated from college with a teaching degree. I am a semester in to my first year as a teacher and I love what I do. My kids are good people who try hard and though they have their own struggles and challenges, they keep moving forward. At the end of a decade I am still single. Dating was not a priority. I went on many dates in the last ten years but never got involved in a serious relationship or anything beyond just being friends. Perhaps as I move into this next decade it is time to shift gears and look towards the future and meaningful companionship.  We will see what the next ten years will bring. I am sure there will be much to learn.

New Things

This week has been filled with new things. After a short two week stint serving in the young men’s I was called to the Stake High Council. I was sustained last week as a high priest and a member off the high council. It was kind of a special experience as my name was presented to the members of the 8th ward. I felt their love and support as they raised their hands. It was a cool experience. I spoke for the first time in that capacity today in the 8th ward and it was a good experience. They didn’t throw tomatoes at me so that was good. 

On Wednesday evening I was ordained a high priest by dad. That was a peaceful and powerful experience. In that ordination and blessing it was made clear that experiences I have had in my life have prepared me for what I am asked to do now. President Heap then set me apart as a high counselor and echoed some of those same things. It was a special evening. 

School started on Tuesday. Things went pretty well for my first week. I think there is much for me to learn and it is going to take a lot of work this year. I love the kids and enjoy my time with them. There is an exceeding plenty of communication and I am going to have to get used to a plethora of emails every day. I am not used to the amount of email communication that is hitting me and it can be a bit overwhelming. I had two days where things went pretty well. The third day was a bit rough and I found that I wasn’t happy with my level of preparation so I made some adjustments on Thursday evening and went in to Friday with a much better plan. It was a great day.  I am geared up for Monday and have a better feel for what needs to be accomplished each day. I guess like Hannibal from the A-team, I also love it when a plan comes together. 

I was reminded of a few different experiences this week as I prepared to speak. The topic was Elder Renlunds talk from April conference titled Abound with Blessings. In the talk he uses the analogy of a large amount of wood with kindling, tinder, and fuel wood that are ready to catch fire. A match is required to light the fire before it can provide heat. This he compares to the blessings the Lord has ready to bestow upon us. We have to strike the match and light the fire which Elder Renlund refers to as activation energy. It is through acting in faith that we obtain blessings from God. We do not earn the blessing because the small amount of activation energy or faith we expend pales in comparison to the blessing received.  I was reminded of a letter I received from Jim some 27 years ago. He was serving as a missionary. I was of missionary age but had not done anything towards that effort. The letter was spirit filled and was exactly what I needed at that time. Jim loved to include scriptural verses at the end of his letters. That was cool but I didn’t really look them up because that would require effort to find my scriptures, figure out which book it was in and then navigate through chapters and verses to find the right one. Most times I struggled to understand it anyway. Well, true to form Jim included The reference in my letter. It was Alma 7:23-24. This time I acted, I found my scriptures, I opened up to Alma 7 and read the verses. This activation effort was like putting the match to the wood pile. I started reading the Book of Mormon and felt the power of it. It was always there but I would not activate the energy required to receive the blessing. I will ever be grateful for that letter and for choosing to act. It has been a great blessing in my life as I continue to sup from its pages and activate the energy required to receive it. 

Well, that about covers it. Grateful for new things this week and grateful for reminders of old things that have blessed my life. 

Perhaps An Update Is In Order

It has been a bit since I last wrote a little something here. A lot has transpired in the last 9 months. I will do my best to summarize the events of life. 

In December I completed my student teaching and graduated from WGU with a bachelors degree in special education. That felt good. Still does. The actual ceremony is on August 3rd in Salt Lake and I decided I would go ahead and walk. I don’t know that this is that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things but it was a challenging journey in my life and feels good to have accomplished that goal. 

I took a job in January as a wellness coach at South Elementary. I loved it. Loved being around the students and working with them. The staff at south is wonderful and it was a pleasure to work with and learn from them. 

In March I interviewed for a position at Canyon View Middle School and was hired for next school year. I was thrilled with this but my goal had been to work at Cedar High. There were no openings in Sped at CHS at the time I took the job. Roughly an hour after accepting the position I got a call from the principal at CHS and he told me a position would open up and he wanted me. It took a couple of months for everything to come together but it did and I will be starting at CHS on August 8. I am very excited to get started and maybe a little nervous as well. There is much to do. I will be with the severe students that I loved when I was student teaching there and though it will be challenging, it will be a lot of fun as well. 

Since the end of January I have been focusing on my calorie intake every day. I set some goals relative to weight loss and have worked diligently to meet those goals. This has not been a quick weight loss program and has required steady and consistent effort in both diet and exercise. I have lost 53 pounds so far and have exceeded my goal. I have a new goal to reach my return missionary weight. Pretty excited about it and feel really good. The best part is that it is way easy to pay attention to what I am eating and there is no restriction on what I eat. I simply track the calories and then maintain a certain number of calories per day. The magic bullet of weight loss for me is not the quick and simple or the body trickery. Those work for folks and I have had some limited success with them. More and more it came down to simple math that made sense to me. Calories in and calories burned. If those burned out number those taken in then you will lose weight. Obviously starvation is not what I am advocating. I used an app, entered my current weight, entered my goal weight, looked at my lifestyle and the app provided me with a calorie goal for each day. In addition, I was determined to have some form of daily exercise as part of my routine. That has included elliptical, walking, hiking, other sports and yodeling. Only kidding about the yodeling. Anyway, feels good. 

I am currently working on the house. Came to an agreement with Jay and Sara on a purchase and qualified for a loan. Everything is in process at the moment and we should close on it in August. It is very exciting. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be a homeowner again. I have been busy on little projects that have needed to be done. I am about to finish putting a new floor in Jacks room. I took out his existing closet, put up a new wall making the closet about half the size it was and added 10 sq ft to the room. That isn’t much but it makes a huge difference in the space. 

The kids are all well. Jack came home from Alaska early. Picked him up 2 days ago. His allergies are really bad up there and he has been miserable. Happy to have him home. Missing Mr Andy and look forward to having him home in a month. Natty is living in her own place across the street in Amy and Dans basement apartment. I think she likes having her space and likes the convenience of being across the street as well. That has been since last November and it has been good for her. 

Ok, that pretty much brings everything up to speed. I will try to get back in the habit of being a regular record keeper again. 

Great News

For the last week I have been working hard to complete my Teacher Work Sample. It is a requirement for my degree from WGU. I have to admit, I didn't want to do this  as it seemed like it was just hoops to jump through and busy work while I was trying to get through direct teaching. I kept seeing that I should wait until my second placement in the elementary setting rather than trying to do it in my SPED setting. After talking to Dan about his experience doing it and having him tell me to just do it now, I decided to make it happen.  I knew several weeks ago that we were going to be moving into a 3 week unit in remedial math roughly 5 weeks ago.  I approached my Host Teacher about making it happen and he was fully on board.  It is supposed to be a two week deal but because we are on an A day B day schedule I made it a three week plan.  The nice thing is that I have now been teaching the class on my own for almost 6 weeks.  I love it.  We have a lot of fun.  Anyway, long story short, this morning I went up to a district meeting and while there received a message that my final task for the TWS had been evaluated and I had passed.  That is exciting stuff.  I am quite relieved to have it done as I prepare to move into my second placement.  Nothing looming over my head.  Wonderful.  Well, I am super tired tonight.  It has been a full week.  Grateful to have made it though the TWS and look forward to having everything else done early in December.  Lots to do still.  

Making Progress

Just wanted to get on and give a quick update.  I am making some progress.  After tomorrow I have one week left in my SPED placement at Cedar High School.  I have loved every minute of this experience.  I have been teaching the remedial math class on my own for the last four weeks.  I love those kids.  7 of them are severe students and the severe students are my favorite.  I don't have them all in my class but I do make it a point everyday to go in and visit with them at some point.  I am in their room in the morning welcoming them to school, visiting with them, bumping knuckles, giving hugs or whatever else. If I don't see them there I stop by their table in the lunch room on my way home for lunch.  I walk down the table and say hello to each one of them, we bump some knuckles, laugh and have fun together.  Highlight of my day.  I told my clinical supervisor the other day how much I am going to miss that when it ends next week.  I suppose I am looking forward to the second week of December when I will be done with everything.  I will come back over to the high school and visit with my friends. I had an aid today tell me that she hopes a certain teacher retires so I can take that spot. Made me feel good.  I would love to have a spot there but have no problem with the current teacher. She does a good job. One of the teachers mentioned that her position may come open as her husband has opened an office in St. George and they don't know how they feel about commuting.  I would love that too. We will see how things progress and hope for the best. 

Things are busy.  We have had some crazy things happen at the Brick House and fortunately have been able to navigate through it.  It certainly isn't without its challenges but I have been able to stick to my busy schedule with students teaching and trying to get through everything else I have to do right now.  Good times.

So, there it is.  Sorry for the absence on the blog.  Just one of those things.  Hopefully I can keep up a little better.