kendall card 2.0

I love firsts. First kiss, first climb, first summit, first 100 mile bike ride…first are fun.

We had a few firsts this weekend, particularly the planting of our first garden. It’s small and while we don’t have big ambitions for it just yet I hope more than anything that the kids realize the joy of planting, caring and then harvesting from a garden.

Even if just one item grows, I’m sure their excitement will be uncontainable. Just looking at the tiny lettuce seeds they were blown away that something so small could produce food. Definitely some life lesson applications to share once it does produce food (fingers crossed).

I also hope it doesn’t yield as many weeds as my parent’s garden did when I was growing up. Ah the angst of “pulling weeds” in that behemoth of a garden. I’m sure my sisters (the two older ones) will recall the joy that was pulling weeds.

We’ve got corn, two kinds of lettuce and watermelon. We’d hoped for more stuff but the space was limited. Perhaps that’s best for this first go around.

First drink from a garden hose on a hot summer day:

First time planting a garden (a small one):

I remember sneaking snacks and treats when I was young. Tip-toe down the stairs, avoiding the third one from the top that creaked loud enough to wake the dead. If successful I’d slip into the kitchen to snag a Ding-Dong, Twinkie or whatever sugar laced item could be rummaged from the kitchen, all the while my parents watching TV.

Then with a weary eye to the north room I’d sly back up the stairs and enjoy the booty in bed. If I were extra stealth I’d catch a few scenes of Dallas or Fantasy Island while enjoying the bounty. Bold as it was, I think that few things were as rewarding as pulling of a successful mission for booty.

Fast forward to today. To think that now as a father that my kids are any different would be folly. But when you catch them red-handed it’s fun to joke with them.

So it was when walking through the kitchen that I caught Annapurna with her hand in the Cheerios. Talk about a bold undertaking, mid morning and all! Her brothers could likely teach her a thing or two. At least she was willing to share!

After a long Saturday of weeding the yard in preparation for sprinkler system installation and subsequent grass plantage, McKinley and I were noticing the wildflower seeds had taken hold and were beginning to sprout. This week’s rain showers certainly helped.

As well, the sunflower seeds that I planted in our primary flower bed were beginning to push up through the soft moist soil. I love to see this new life growing in this, my first yard.

Although I’ve seen many a mature sunflower plant and even my fair share of sprouts I’ve never seen them sprout from a planted seed. They were pushing up through the soil with the seed shell capped on them like a beanie they were ready to throw off. It almost looked like Pac-Man eating a seedling…but I refrained from making the comment to McKinley as I didn’t think he knew what Pac-Man would be. Ah, growing older.

I removed one of the seed caps and within a couple of hours it had opened up its two leaf pedals. The other’s remained captive for my camera.

Here are some unique views of the yet to be liberated sunflower seedlings.

Annapurna loves to go outside. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with her name being that of a mountain but she constantly will say while pointing to the door “shhhhhh” , which translated for those of you without young kids is to say “shoes”. And once she’s outdoors it’s straight to the dirt for hours of fun.

So it was that this past Saturday had me planting wildflower seeds and transporting new topsoil to the flower beds with my little helper along. As the sun was setting after a great afternoon of work in the yard, she posed for a couple of photos - one with Dad and the other to show off her “makeup”.

Took McKinley skiing this past week to Deer Valley. Not that it was anything out of the ordinary but then again, it was. After an early morning ski tour on Mt. Aire with friends I came home, got a couple things off my plate and went and pulled McKinley out of school to ski the rest of the day at Deer Valley.

After years of begging, my parents plunked down for some used gear and a night lesson at Sundance that my dad took me to. I remember that night like it was yesterday. That night a fire was lit inside me.  All I wanted to do from that night forth was to ski.

As my passion for skiing grew he was always there to push me along and support me. We’ve only skied a couple times together and as a kid taking me out of school to ski was something I always wished he could have done, but he didn’t ski so much and we weren’t nearly as fortunate when I was growing up. Either way, taking McKinley to Deer Valley today felt like coming full circle.

Aside from falling in love with the place, Deer Valley had little jumps everywhere that McKinley honed in on like a heat seeking missle. I snapped a photo of him in action:

It’s so very cool to see my son develop a love for skiing. And it’s even cooler to see him making parallel turns down steeper slopes and keeping up with me as I ski my own pace. This year has been his year indeed and ripping up Deer Valley from one end to the other was a great way to showcase his skill.

Finding ourselves on the Empire lift at closing time (3pm), being the end of the season and since we have season passes at Park City we broke the rules and ducked over to PCMR to finish out the day skiing more tree stashes of powder (Deer Valley was also a gold mine for untracked powder in the trees). The first thing after doing so McKinley said “Dad, Snowboarders!!”. The joy of being a skier at Deer Valley.

After a few runs at PCMR on McConkey’s, Pioneer and a home run down his favorite black at PCMR we took a ride on the mountain roller coaster. I HIGHLY recommend this ride - it’s a bit pricey but what a blast we had riding it together.

McKinley’s reaction after the roller coaster ride

As we rode the town bus from PCMR back to Deer Valley I struck up a conversation with the young man sitting in front of us. He asked if we were here on vacation to which I replied that we lived local. He asked if McKinley was out of school today to which I replied that I had pulled him from school to get one last powder day while the lifts were running.

He turned to McKinley and said, “You’re one lucky kid. Your dad is one cool dad.” If you say so…

My little brother in law is fast. Super fast. Funny thing was, I never realized this as he was growing up. He was this skinny little kid (still is ultra skinny) that bounced off the walls and when he wanted to speak had to pump up the volume to get anyone to hear him. That is, because there are 11 kids in the family and being the youngest is a challenging spot to be in when you want to be heard.

Anyway, like his older sister Cynthia (my wife) and his brother Mark, Matt decided to run Cross Country in High School. And run he did. During his senior year he placed in the top 3 at state in Cross Country as well as the 1 and 2 mile distances in track.

I experienced his running speed when last summer during the Burley Spudman Triathlon after putting a solid lead on him during the swim and bike he came blazing past me somewhere around mile 5 in the run. I didn’t have a chance as he went on to post the second fastest run time of the day.

High School (and me) behind him he’s running at Utah Valley University. So when my mother in law sent this story about his recent run I knew I needed to give “little Matty” a shout out. Props to you brother!

Matt ran the 1500-meter race (1600 meters = one mile) at BYU on April 4th and Jenilyn, Angela, and I went down to watch. It was Matt’s first Outdoor Track Meet as a college student and he had no idea how well he would do. Matt was running near the end of the pack as he came around the last corner on the last lap and I was thinking, “Come on, Matt. Don’t come in last place.”

All of a sudden, he kicked into top gear and started passing runners like they were standing still. I had been cheering for him each time he came around the track, but this time I could only stand there with my mouth open. It was amazing. His legs were stretching out twice as far as any other runner and he looked like he was just gliding along. I was standing near the start of the straightaway and Jenilyn & Angela were at the finish line.

There was a BYU guy running way out in head of the pack and he was half way down the straightaway before Matt even came around the corner. Jenilyn said that the UVU teammates and fans were going crazy and yelling, “Go, Matt GO!” while the BYU fans were screaming, “He’s coming. He’s COMING!” The BYU guy gave it all he had and beat Matt by a freckle.

The announcer yelled, “MATT REEVES from UVU just gave a tremendous push at the end and nearly ran down the first-place runner!!” Then he got around to announcing the name of the first-place guy. It seemed that everyone was cheering for Matt and everyone was screaming. You don’t see that very often with someone running flat-out sprinter pace at the end of an almost mile run and coming from nearly last place to nearly first in just a few seconds time. It was so cool. Even Matt was enthusiastic! He said, “That was exciting. I didn’t know I could do that.”

– photo by MARIO RUIZ of the Daily Herald

Thanks to our fantastic neighbor Chloe, little Annapurna is ready for the snow. And timely too since we have seen two storms this past week that left 8″ in the front yard.

We’re headed out tomorrow night to Wolf Creek Pass to cut down our Christmas tree so I suspect that Annapurna will be sporting this cute outfit below…if she’ll leave the hat on! (she loves to take them off just as fast as we can put them on her)

While growing up my mom worked for the local newspaper, a small town weekly.  Typeset and old school printing machines in that little brick building.  I still remember visiting her there and the floor black with ink.

From the age of 10 to 13 I delivered a daily newspaper.  The newspapers would arrive on my front porch each day, bundled together with a plastic band.  My hands would be black from folding them and wrapping each with a rubber band.  I’d then load them in a carrying bag and ride my bicycle around the neighborhood accurately (most of the time) tossing them onto the front porches of my customers.

Fast forward to today.  I was working in the garage and asked my 6 year old son Koven if he’d run inside and grab some newspaper for me from the recycling bin.  While we don’t subscribe to a newspaper it’s common that the grocery store advertisements come as newspapers in the mail.

A few moments later he emerged from the house holding a single 8.5 x 11 white piece of paper.  He said, showing the paper to me, “Dad, it’s got writing on one side but the other side is blank.” He was smiling, obviously pleased with having brought me a great useful piece of “newspaper”.

“Oh buddy, that’s not newspaper” I replied.  As I headed into the house to grab some newspaper he looked at me and sincerely asked, “Dad, what is newspaper?”

Then it struck me.  Here’s a 6 year old who knows the difference between Internet Explorer and Mozilla, has his own e-mail address (which he proudly reminds me - even though I opened the account for him) and knows how to find a Line Rider post I put on the Backcountry.com Blog over a year ago but he doesn’t know what a newspaper is.

It’s a whole new world than it was 21 years ago when I delivered my last newspaper.

My oldest son McKinley leaned over during church today and said, “Dad, will you scratch my back?”  Of course I couldn’t say anything but “Sure thing buddy”.

It feels so good when someone scratches your back, literally or figuratively.  When I was young and my dad also scratched my back while in church.  I still remember how good it felt, nearly 30 years later.

As I was scratching McKinley’s back he looked up at me and said, “Dad, it feels so good.  I like it when you scratch my back.”  I told him that my dad did it for me as well but that sometimes when I asked he wouldn’t (he was obviously better at focusing in church than I).

Looking away for a moment McKinley started to think. He then glanced up at me saying, “Maybe when I have kids I’ll scratch their back too and perhaps they will do it for their kids.”

I was surprised.  Here was my eight year old son contemplating the possible action of his future kids and their kids - his grandchildren and my great-grandchildren.  I had never really considered my grand or great-grand children let alone considered how my actions today will impact their lives 60 some odd years from now.

It’s likely I may never know these my posterity but perhaps McKinley is correct - one day my great-grandchildren may look up to McKinley’s kids and say, “Dad, will you scratch my back?”  Kind of cool to imagine it.

It snowed again, so like any self respecting backcountry skier I put my bike away for a few days and went out to ski some powder which promptly turned into another fine corn harvest.

With the road to Wolf Creek Pass open for the summer, I took advantage of this easy access location just 20 minutes from Kamas. Besides the access, the other beautiful thing about Wolf Creek Pass is that I would have the area to myself - no skiers, no snowmobilers, and virtually no drive by traffic.

After one powder day with my friend Alex and a solo corn day I asked my eight year old son McKinley if he wanted to go backcountry skiing. He doesn’t have touring equipment but I reasoned that if we got there right at sunrise the surface would be firm enough to bootpack up the main slope. With his excitement and the green light from his mother (knowing that he would likely be late for school) we got our gear ready.

At 6:30 I woke McKinley and after a mandatory stop at the local Chevron station to entice our taste buds with some of the worlds finest doughnuts, we headed off to the pass. A quick ski across the flats and we were booting up the main slope.

Reaching the top we had spectacular views of the Uintas and the Wasatch Mountains. McKinley looked around and said,

“Dad, this is so awesome. It’s like our own private ski resort for just you and me.” I had to smile, responding, “Welcome to backcountry skiing.”

After some hydration we started down. The snow was buttery smooth as this main shot gets the first morning light. McKinley went first and although he skied a bit timid I couldn’t have been more proud. When I arrived at the bottom of the slope he asked if we could ski one more lap. But of course.

Once more we arrived on top and took some time to snap photos with my camera phone (my digi is broken) and spent some time chatting. Some father’s take thier son’s golfing, others play video games with them while some go fishing in order to have keen time to openly communicate. I take my son(s) to the mountains.

I could have never thought so much enjoyment could come from skiing a little 400′ shot but there was no place I’d rather have been nor anyone else that I would rather have been skiing with than my oldest boy.

The second run was smoother, both snow and McKinley’s skiing. After skiing that run we hiked up to the highway and then walked back to the car. I said to McKinley that we needed to get him to school to which he replied,

Dad, I could miss school today. I don’t care when we arrive.” I asked him why that was. “Because backcountry skiing with you is so much better than going to school,” he said.

It was priceless.