Canyoneering Post-trip Report and Exciting News!

We had a great trip to the Arizona Canyon a month ago. Sorry for the late update, our camera broke on the first day and we only got a few pictures that our tech has been getting ready to publish. We spent three days completing our trek, without seeing a single other backpacker the whole time. Unfortunately, this trip proved to be a little more advanced than we anticipated and in the future we will only be able to reserve it for our experienced clients. The good news is that it was incredibly beautiful and the fun factor was off the charts. We look forward to bring our seasoned clients on this trek next summer.

We also have some exciting news to report! We have started making plans for a summer camp next year. This summer camp is going to focus on working with children with disabilities (families included). We plan to take three or four individual day trips from a base camp, while the parents have the option to stay at camp and sit in on seminars from our behavior therapists. We are very excited about this opportunity and are working as fast as possible to get it off the ground. Updates will be coming regularly.

Baptized in the River

Today is a special day for me. 5 years ago, on March 26th, 2005 at 10:00 AM I was baptized in the American River by Mr. Clyde Kilough. I had just graduated high school a short while before that and I was planning on moving out (for the first time) so that I could help expand the company I was working for in Tennessee. I faced a lot of hard challenges and decisions that year after my baptism but I got through them mostly unscathed. I look back on that time in my life with joy and a little longing, wishing I could start over back then but I will continue to look forward not back.

*Funny note about that day I was baptized. Right after Mr. Kilough laid hands on me he let me know that it was Easter that day. My friend Dave says that getting baptized on Easter is like mooning Satan, lol.

Down With the Sickness

Ughhh... I ate at a chinese buffet Sunday, then my roommate, Chris made some boxed chicken alfredo bake thing, which was basically like a heated jar of Ragu alfredo sauce, with canned chicken.  It was gross.  Anyway, between those two things or possibly a flu bug I picked up on Sabbath, I got sick.  Real sick.  I'm so tired and worn out and sore.  I'm finally feeling better and don't have the wicked stomach ache that I had the last two days.  I can't wait to get back to school...

Breaking Down My Week

This has been one of the longest weeks at ABC so far, but not necessarily in a bad way.

We continued our module from last semester, The Doctrines of the Church, which means we had to start classes at 8:30 instead of 10:30.  Dr. Kirkpatrick taught the class that Jim Franks had started before we went on winter break.  The class was great and I learned a lot, a lot of thanks to Dr. Kirkpatrick for taking time to come teach it while Mr. Franks was in the council of elders meetings.

On Tuesday I started getting back to the gym.  A couple of weeks ago I found a mixed-martial arts gym that was offering a month long free trial.  I was going to take advantage of it then, but we got a ton of snow and the gym was closed for a while.  Now the snow is mostly melted *tear*.  So, I went to a jujitsu class there and it was amazing.  I missed doing MMA (I haven't been back since I broke my leg and then ribs).  I found out pretty quickly though that I was completely out of shape, but it was still fun and I'm looking forward to continuing the classes there.  I'll also be taking Muay Thai there two days a week.

So... that was pretty much my whole week.  I'm excited for the Sabbath tomorrow so I can get some rest finally.  I hope everyone has a great weekend and gets plenty of sleep also.

[Kevin]

My New Blog

You know that smell when you go camping out in the woods, away from the city?  When you're so far out that the only light is from the moon and stars?  When you can't see the glowing yellow lights, can't hear the car horns blaring and you can't smell the exhaust?  When you wake up early with the sun and you step outside your tent and breathe in the crisp air?  That smell is new.  Fresh, brand new air, dew and foliage.  It's wonderful and clean and so natural.

That is not what I smell right now.  I'm sitting in an apartment on my computer smelling the burnt french fries that just came out of the oven overlapped by the algae-infested pond filled with dozens of ducks and duck doo doo.

I was simply using that smell as illustration to a point I'm about to make; This is my brand new, fresh, clean and unused blog.  I don't know how often I'll update this one. It may fall by the wayside in a few weeks just as my last one did, or I may be able to continue updating for quite some time.  We'll just have to see.

Thanks for checking it out though and don't be afraid to follow me on the side over there ---->

Coffee, Eggs or Carrots?

I wrote this article for a church magazine several months ago.  Very few people have read it so far...

Three years ago, a seventeen year old girl came to her mother in a time of great need. This girl was scared and completely unprepared for what was happening in her life. Four months earlier, she had found out she was pregnant and now she was going to her mother to ask for any kind of advice she could get.

Her mother, without saying anything, took her into the kitchen and turned on the stove. She took out three pots, filled them with water and set it to boil. In the first pot, she placed a dozen carrots, in the second, six eggs, and in the last, she placed half a cup of coffee beans.

The girl’s name was Leanna Hollon. Two years after this experience, Leanna and I met at the feast in Panama City Beach in 2008. When we met, we both knew we shared an instant connection. Over the next six months our love grew strong, and in May 2009 I asked Leanna to marry me. We spent the next few months of our lives planning our wedding and picking names for our future children. Leanna and I had a love that we knew would last forever.

Sadly, on July 30, 2009, on our way to meet a wedding photographer, Leanna and I were in a car accident in front of her parents’ house. In an instant, everything we had planned ended. Immediately after we were broadsided by an SUV, I watched Leanna die while I held her in my arms. In that one day, we went from planning our wedding to planning her funeral.

I spent the next few days in the hospital recovering and had a lot of time to think about what God’s plan was for me, what I was going to do with my life and why this happened. At that time, it would have been so easy for me to turn away and deny God. Part of me wanted to tear away from everything I had ever been taught in Church and leave it all behind. Something kept me going though; A story Leanna had shared with me of a time in her life when her mother helped her through a trial. She told me about the carrots, eggs and coffee that her mother had boiled that day and the lesson she learned from it.

Her mother, Rebecca, explained to Leanna, after the pots had boiled for a short time, that each item in the pots had reacted differently to the hot water. Leanna told me, the carrots, eggs and coffee beans all faced the same trial, but each came out of it with different traits than they started with. The eggs started off soft and malleable on the inside with a protective exterior shell. After they boiled, they still maintained that hard shell, but it broke away easily to reveal a hard impenetrable interior. The carrots, which started strong and unrelenting, now became soft and easily crushed.

The coffee, however, was unique. The coffee beans, themselves, did not change but rather changed the water. The coffee beans turned the trial on itself and released their aroma and flavor into the hot water. Rebecca explained to her daughter that she was going to come out of her trial like one of these things. Would she become hardened on the inside? Or would she become too soft? Would she change her trial and turn it into something useful and good?

I can tell you right now that Leanna did the latter. A few months after her son was born, she repented of her sins and was baptized. Leanna spent the short years of her life after Conner was born devoting every aspect of it to God and raising a wonderful young boy. Eventually, Leanna moved out on her own and worked while going to school and raising Conner. She was able to balance her life, always keeping God in the forefront. She was truly someone who I not only loved but looked up to and respected. As I laid in that hospital bed, questions flowing through my mind, I remembered the story that Leanna had told me about the trial of the boiling water and I asked myself; When I come out of this trial, how will I change?

I am now attending ABC, something I’ve wanted to do for years. With every class, every lecture I grow closer to God, and I’m beginning to get the answers to the questions I had in the hospital. ABC is not taking my mind off of the accident as I thought it would, but it is helping me put it in persepective. I am working hard to stay focused on God and the Kingdom, and I will continue to grow through my trial, just as my love got through hers. 

For Leanna

This is a poem I wrote to read at my fiance's funeral after she died in a car accident:

This is the story, of a girl,

a girl for whom, I’d give the world.

Raised with love, she grew up fast,

how quick the years seemed to pass.

At young of age, she made mistakes,

from which she learned what motherhood takes.

After he came, she knew she had won,

a love that shined from her only son.

And then one day, she met me,

a silly young man, but she could see...

Something more from deep inside,

a love for her I could not hide.

Her bright green eyes, her curly hair,

I loved the way that she would stare.

She was my soul, she was my life,

and so I asked, please be my wife.

I made a promise, I made a vow,

to love her always, as I love her now.

She was my angel, sent from above,

to cherish, honor, respect, and love.

Though these words were never said,

with this ring, I thee wed...

She was and is the love of my life,

I’m yours, Leanna, you are my wife.

I loved her then, I love her now,

I’ll love her always and keep my vow.

-From Your Love