4k Graduation

Amos is starting kindergarten soon, but a few months ago he had a graduation ceremony for his 4k class at Wheatland Center School in southeast Wisconsin. We were worried about him socializing and being able to calm his wild child nature in school, but his teachers put us at ease a number of times as they spoke of his progress and demeanor throughout the year. Amos absolutely loved all his teachers and made a lot of friends as well. It was a mix of emotions for his mother and I, but it was a day we had waited on for a long time. There were times we talked about how we would be a mess at all of these kinds of milestones, and we were. However, it was a really great day and his excitement made it easier to stay on the brighter side of the day. Additionally, it was so adorable that it was impossible not to smile and giggle at all these kids doing their thing singing songs and receiving their diplomas. He blossomed in school and learned a lot. Of course, I was taking video throughout the whole thing and I put together this little edit to commemorate the event.

Ski Resort Day!

Amos is four years old now, and he just had his first ski day at the local resort, Snowbasin. Amos and I have been playing with skis, ski boots, goggles, and all his gear at our house and on cross-country trails for a while by now, but he had not been to the ski area for a real ski day with a chair lift and all. My father, the greatest ski teacher I ever had, was in town and really wanted to take Amos up for his first day. My wife and I thought Grandpa would be a great teacher for Amos and the weather cooperated with our plans.

^Getting ready with his mom. Amos has a pair of vintage Micky Mouse K2 skis. These are the same skis that I learned on as a kid. Modern skis have more shape and camber. I figured if he can learn on these, then he will be that much better off when he gets a modern ski. 

^Showing off for his little brother, Walt. Amos was pretty excited for his ski day. He woke me up in the morning by whispering in my ear, "Dad... It's ski day." Kind of a big deal at our house. 

^Walt all bundled up to watch his brother get on the chairlift. He is a pretty stoic kid, but I think he was just as excited as the rest of us. Deep down.

^Amos' first ride on the chairlift with Grandpa and his Mom. 

^Walt watching Amos come down his first run from the window inside the lodge. Amos is a really good big brother. He gets a bit rough with Walt from time to time, but every big brother does. Amos just wants to play with him so bad that he can't stand it. Walt is the same way. The way to looks up to Amos is adorable, and I am so excited to see them grow up together. 

^Amos between his Mom's legs.

^Chairlift riding.

^Under Grandpa's tutelage. 

^Stoked on a chicken tenders and french fries lunch.

^By the end of the day Amos was skiing under his own power and as the smile on his face in this picture above displays, he loved it. I often get a lot of people that tell me how he will be some big shot skier like his daddy, but I really don't care if he wants that life or not. I really just want to him to enjoy skiing so we can take family trips and the like. I would love to ski tour in the backcountry with him some day, but I really don't harbor a deep desire for him to be nearly as dedicated to a skier's lifestyle as I am. Just to see him smiling on skis is enough for me. This day might even have been a bigger deal for me then for him, but the enthusiasm he had for the day and this smile warmed up my heart with the ignited fire of dreams of a future of family ski trips and a childhood outside. The same kind of dreams that we put aside during his cancer battle, but also the same ones we have been working on trying to live again ever since the day he came home from the hospital.   

More of Those "Happy Firsts"

Our family has been living in Wisconsin for the past couple months while I prepare a piece of property that we bought years ago for an eventual little country house. While my work still takes me all over the world to winter mountain ranges, we have decided that our boys need to have more time in both my wife and I's hometown in southeastern rural Wisconsin. Also, you read that correctly, I said, boys... plural. I have talked about "happy firsts" here before, and this post highlights a few more that have come for Amos, including becoming a big brother! The future is always uncertain, for all of us, not just Amos, but memories like these are forever.

^Amos became a big brother. Needless to say, Walt, has a lot to look forward to with a big brother like Amos. Amos is a total wild child, and he loves his little brother... aggressively... if you will. I just keep telling Walt that he will have to toughen up quick because Amos only knows a full-throttle kind of outlook thus far in his young life, and it seems all that Walt wants in life is to hang with his big brother.

^Before we left Utah, our good friend, Jenni, and her sister, Heidi, treated us to a day with them at a local amusement park, Lagoon, near our home in Ogden, Utah. Jenni works for Overstock.com, and the company rented out the park. Jenni treated Amos, and us, to his first day at an amusement park. Lagoon was the perfect place for his "happy first", and a low-traffic setting due to the generosity of Overstock.com was a wonderful way to enjoy Lagoon with a small crowd and short lines.

^Oops, Amos didn't expect that bump in the ride, and wasn't paying attention. I am happy to report that despite piling his head into the steering wheel in this incredibly luckily timed photo he brushed it off hooting and hollering his way through the rest of the ride. He also learned to pay more attention to the ride, and I was thankful the steering wheels were padded. Gotta admit this photo is hilarious though!

^Jenni and baby Walt.

^Me and Amos.

^Christine and Amos.

^(L to R) Heidi, Jenni, Amos, and I.

^Even me and Christine got to ditch the kids onto Jenni and Heidi for a bit to have a rip on a couple rollercoasters together like the old days when we went to Great America with our high school physics class. The day was perfect and Amos talked about the rides and Jenni and Heidi for a good week afterwards. Needless to say the first time at an amusement park was a hit with Amos, and Christine and I are once again forever grateful to our dear friend Jenni and her sister Heidi. It's the people that make this life worthwhile and we are blessed to be loved by great people. 

Then the time to head east to the midwest and Christine and I's hometown came upon us pretty quickly. After Amos got sick we felt the draw of our hometown more then ever. We always planned to have a home there some day, which is why we bought the land, but after Amos' ordeal the pull towards more time with our families there became deeper and moved up our timeline to a faster pace. 

^We wanted to make sure to take one more hike on one of Amos' favorite trails,...

^... and snapped a nice little family picture before we packed up. Ogden is beautiful. We'll be back just after Thanksgiving for winter, but I have to clear that property in Wisconsin if a house is ever gonna get built on it so we had to pack-up and do Amos and Walt's first big road trip across the Great Plains of America east to Wisconsin.

^I love this little house. We'll be back pretty soon. Time flies when you are as busy as our summer was slated to be, and it will undoubtedly fly by before we are driving right back.

^The van all packed up.

^On the road bright and early.

^The gang.

^We took the scenic route. We linked together some cool spots on a more northerly route from Ogden to Wisconsin. Our first stop was in Lander, Wyoming for a day. It was a "happy first" for all of us in Lander, and we did a great day hike to these Popo Agie Falls. We also stopped in the Badlands of South Dakota for a day as well.  

^First time any of us ever had a fast food picnic in the one shady spot on a hot summer day next to the gas meter behind an O'Reilly Autoparts store. Traveling with a dog adds a few extra elements. We thought it was a pretty hilarious "first". The whole road trip was a 6-day affair, and the longest for both the boys.

^We arrived at my parent's house in Wisconsin, and the summer fun was on. Amos was loving his first Wisconsin summer. He quickly became a little fish swimming in the local lakes, and Nonni and Grandpa's little buddy. They are spoiling him right proper, and there's not a whole lot I really want to do to much about it. For now.

^I on the other hand began lumberjacking on the property. This picture above is the first time that all of us were out on the property together. I have a lot of work before its ready for a house, but it's time and labor that I have, and money I don't so I am settling into the chore. 

^Amos' first ride on a Stand-up paddle board! Murphy getting her swim on too! This new local park near our property is quickly becoming one of our favorites. It has hiking trails, a non-motorized lake, and its dog friendly for Murphy too.

^Beautiful. All of it.

^A really cool first... Amos' first day of school! It is only 3k so its not "school" really, per say, but it was still a huge milestone for Christine and I especially.

^Amos was pretty pumped about it too though. He was super excited about his Cars lunchbox and his Curious George sleeping bag.

^It was the school that I grew up in too. Pretty nostalgic all around.

^He took right to it. No problem. His mother and I on the other hand had a hard time leaving the classroom. We kind of milled around for a while, filled out some paperwork, milled around again, and eventually had to appease the strange looks from his teachers and just leave. Neither of us spoke at all for a while on the drive back. It was a strange mix of joy, sadness, nostalgia, victory, and loneliness. We both agreed neither of us were quite sure how to feel about it. Amos though, he was fine. As far as he was concerned, he was just another kid in that classroom. No big deal.

^Learning to ride his Strider bike at a local trailfest at Silver Lake Park's new mountain bike trail system. Happy first for me to come home and ride a mountain bike on real single track flow trail! That will make Wisconsin summers more pleasurable for me, and I am glad to be able to share it with Amos too. Christine and I both came to love mountain biking in Utah and it is awesome to have it growing so much in Wisconsin now, and to have the local Park with a single track trail system is huge. Maybe one day Amos will ride on the new mountain bike team at the local highschool. 

^Amos gets to become friends with his cousin, Cole, too. My big brother has a young son a year younger then Amos, and due to Amos' whole ordeal they really had not been able to spend much time together. This summer and fall the two have become fast friends, and both get so excited to hang out with the other. Just two kids who want to play, do not really want to share yet, but we're working on that one! Watching them play together, and fight each other, is really special to see. It is also such a comfort that Amos has no idea why his mom and I cry over everything, or why every new thing he encounters is such a "thing" for us. I think we'll get used to it too, maybe not. Either way, he is a regular kid now. Yeah, he still has risk, as I said before, to some degree, we all do, but for all intensive purposes... he is a regular kid. He is trying to potty train, he doesn't want to share his toys, he loves his momma, Lightning McQueen is a very famous race car, he loves getting dirty, and he hates when it is time to leave the playground. He throws me this pouty lip and puppy eyes on that dirty face, and I cave in for twenty more minutes pushing him on the swings just like every parent now... and he doesn't know why that is such a big deal. That's my favorite part.

A Proper Birthday Party

My wife, Christine, and I bustled about the house tying up all the last loose ends before people were to be starting to show up in our backyard. This was our first proper birthday party we were throwing for Amos. His first two birthdays were fraught with cancer fight obstructions. One actually in his hospital bed. The other just shortly after he came home in remission, which with the timing of it he could not yet really interact with many people and kids per doctor's orders at that time in his recovery. However, today our little warrior turned three years old, and we finally got to throw him a proper birthday party in the backyard with as many friends that we still managed some contact with after basically two years in social darkness with his battles. I whispered a lot of promises in his little ears as he lay motionless in the ICU at Primary Children's just barely holding on during his worst moments. Now as Christine and I nervously prepared for our guests I recalled all those promises about my own efforts for his young life, and all the people I promised him he'd meet. Many of those folks were going to be showing up, and many of those same folks were a huge part of our support here in Utah when he was fighting his battles. 

^Toys out for the kids. Munchies on the tables. Drinks chilling on ice in coolers. Balloons blown up and hung. Pizza for all the guests. The list was larger then each of us realized it would be in our first endeavor into a backyard birthday bonanza toddler style, but we checked tasks off with intent for our little boy. We both just wanted everything to be perfect for him. We often find ourselves trying to go over and above for him because of the suffering he endured and our tendencies to want to try and make up for it all with him. He has no idea he has had a rough go of life thus far for such a young boy, but we do. We often find ourselves setting unrealistic expectations on ourselves to give him a good life worthy of his will to live. It is a parent guilt burden we will have to live with forever even though he only knows that the large scar across his belly is, as we taught him to say, "from when I was sick, but I am better now". The second part of that phrase which we made sure to teach him is kind of like if we make him say that, then it will manifest itself to remain true as long as he keeps saying it. We both also know that if that does in fact remain true that we too cannot hold onto that parent guilt that drives our need to over produce a life for him that is worthy of the amazing sacrifices and pain he endured to survive. We know that over time we will have to treat him just like any other little boy, but this day he is his first real birthday party we can throw for him just like many little boys get to have every year. So for us that is still a really big deal worthy of all our nervous running about with last minute preparations.   

^Once we settled into the evening we began to enjoy watching him play with our friend's kids enjoying all the bells and whistles of a birthday party just like any other three year old boy. We were able to relax, and take it all in. The smile on the his face racing around with the other kids. The giggles in their tiny voices as water balloons and water gun squirts shot across the backyard playground scene. The nervous look on Amos' face as everyone sang "happy birthday" to him. It all became so precious as the  party milestone moments unfolded. 

^Blow'em out buddy!

^Eat as much cake as you can handle little man, you deserve all of it and so much more! We will keep doing our best to make sure you have every chance at the kind of childhood any little boy should have.

^I can't speak enough about how grateful we are to be able to have had this party for him. I can't speak enough about the people who came to celebrate with us, and the support all of them were to us when we were in our darkest hours of the cancer fight. We joked with our friends that this party was our first emergence out from social darkness, and that we really wanted make a point to see them all more in the future. It seems the more we can return to a life that resembles something normal the less and less we will have to feel like we have to go above and beyond for him so he can continue to live just like a regular boy enjoying a standard proper birthday party.