Sarah's Spring Break

If the timing of Sarah's spring break was good for Mackenzies wedding it was bad for Lisa. Several months ago Kira and Justin asked Lisa if she would watch their boys while Justin made a humanitarian dentist trip to Peru to fix the teeth of those who could never otherwise get the help they need. Of course Lisa was more than happy to do this but how could she have known that she would have to leave just two days after Sarah came home for spring break? So with a heavy heart Sarah and I put Mom on an airplane Tuesday morning and then it has been just the two of us this week.

Before she left however we had to celebrate Alex's birthday on Monday. Our boy turned 21. That is almost unbelievable to me. Since Alex is Chile we used our missionaries as proxy. They both have birthdays in April anyway so it was good timing.

I think Sarah had a very relaxing time and she is quite happy to be going back to Utah with a nice sun burn on her back. We had planned all week that Friday night we would go camping. The plan was to camp on the beach at San Elijo State Park. I checked out the availability of camping spots and since there were quite a few openings I decided not to make a reservation. That was lucky for me. As it turned out we had the worst storm in nearly a year.  I took Friday afternoon off from work and went with Sarah to run a few errands for her. Since her mother wasn't home I had to be mother as well as father. On our way back from shopping we looked out towards the ocean and the sky was as black as night and it was still the middle of the afternoon. Up until then I had still held out hope that we could go shopping but when I realized that the weather man was right we went to plan B. We camped in our family room.I don't know if you can tell what Sarah is doing in the picture but she is roasting a marshmallow in the fireplace. I have to admit that it was quite cozy sitting by the fire, watching a movie and listening to rain just pour down.

I did miss my air mattress however and somewhere during the night I had to cave in and move onto the couch. That floor is way too hard and my hips were killing me. There is something about a storm outside that makes a warm bed feel so much more comfortable. It was a good sleep.
Saturday morning Sarah and I decided to use our final few hours together to go for a walk on the beach. The rain had stopped at our house but when we got out of the car at the beach it was still coming down pretty hard. You may notice that in the picture we had the entire beach to ourselves. It was a really fun walk but we didn't go very far.
Finally it was time to take my baby to the airport. This has been the longest I have gone without seeing Sarah in her entire life and her next stint away may be even longer. It was tough saying goodbye to her. I think Lisa and I may have to make a trip to Utah in the next few months.
After I got home I decided that I had to get a long run in. I run during the week but I can't normally go more than three or four miles before it gets dark so I try and do a long run on the weekend. The problem is that last Saturday was Mackenzies wedding so it didn't happen then and the week before I had business meetings and so this would have been the third Saturday in a row that I would miss out on my long run. The rain had pretty much stopped so I decided I just had to go for it. Yes, you can guess what happened, I didn't get a half mile out and the skies opened up on me. I mean the rain was coming down so hard that it was bouncing off the pavement. As you can imagine I aborted the run. Tomorrow I HAVE to get at least five miles in.

I miss my wife.

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Haiti and Lichtenstein by complete coincidence ended up having identical flags. 

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