My Last Day in Colorado

ricia and I both woke up at about 0420 to get our day started. While she was dressing a half awake Jeffrey, I went down to the kitchen to make a breakfast of pancakes, bacon and biscuits. A few nights ago a group of youth from the church came by caroling and left us with a basket of goodies to make breakfast along with an assortment of Jams and syrup. We agreed to save it for today so that our last breakfast together could be more than a bowl of cereal. Jeffrey poked at his pancake, but perked up when we offered a biscuit.



Just before Christmas we took Jeffrey to the Build a Bear in the mall where he picked out a bear and had it stuffed. In the arm of the bear we had a recorded message placed of my voice telling Jeffrey that I love him and will be home soon. Soon after we left the mall he forgot about the bear and we put it up in the closet until last night when we pulled it out to give it to him. We explained several times throughout the night that he would be going to visit Sugar-Po (Grandma and Grandpa Brown), but Daddy would not be coming since he had to go to work far, far away. He hugged his bear all night, squeezing its arm occasionally to listen to the recording.




After a family prayer on the stairs, we put Jeffrey in his car seat with his Daddy bear, a blanket, a and a bag of toys that he would not let out of his hands. Tricia and I said our goodbye's and I watched her drive off toward South Jordan where she will be spending the holiday with our families.





Tricia has named this rock formation, "Foam Finger," as in the foam fingers waved by sports fans in stadiums cheering on their team as number one.

With my bags already packed, I took part of the morning to clean the house room by room. I do not want Tricia to have to worry about a messy house when she comes back, and it was a prime opportunity to clean thoroughly without Jeffrey. Tricia has observed that cleaning the house with a toddler present is like shoveling the side walk while it is still snowing.

I did not want to sit in the house and just wait for the time to expire. I grabbed my camera, jumped in the neon, and headed for the Garden of the Gods. It is a wonderful place to shoot, and is just a short drive away. I had my entire day planned out down to the half hour, so I knew just how much time I had to spend on each thing I did this morning.
Several years ago as the 91st Engineer Battalion was preparing to deploy our battalion commander took every opportunity to talk about lasts, and not taking them too far. He was referring specifically to things such as a last beer, a last night at the club, or the last drive in your fast car. His point was to not get wrapped around the theme of last and go overboard on activities, trying to live a year of fun and adventure in one weekend.

I thought about that a lot during these last two weeks. I was certainly going to enjoy all of the moments I had with family, the simple things around the house, some photography and reading, but I did not feel that I needed to live a year in two weeks. If you neglect brushing your teeth for a year and try and make it up in one morning before your schedule checkup, no matter how much you brush, floss, swish and gargle, you cannot fool the dentist. On the other hand, if you faithfully care for your teeth each day, and happen to forget to brush in the morning before you meet the dentist, you may have some bad over night breath, but under the lights he is going to see that you have done your work.

Doing the important things daily is what puts life in the right direction and puts you on the correct azimuth in the big picture. Here are a few things I find important.

Bath time with Jeffrey
Making dinner with Tricia
Watching Ghost Adventures with Tricia
Driving Tricia to dance
Reading the scriptures after breakfast
Family prayer before I go to work and just before we all go to bed
Taking Jeffrey for a walk
Reading a good book
Admiring Tricia's handy work with paper and material
Chest bump with Jeffrey ten times in a row