Jodi’s cousin, Lindsey, got married last week and we were lucky enough to be able to go. She and Aaron were married in the St. George temple. We had a great couple of days in St. George spending time with family and meeting Aaron’s family. We wish the two of them a happy eternity together!

Jodi and I celebrated our two year anniversary yesterday. Who would have thought that she would be able to stand me this long! I have loved being married to Jodi the past two years and look forward to an eternity together. She is the best!

We went to dinner at Ruth’s Chris last night to celebrate which is probably one of the best steak houses on the planet. After dinner we went and saw our friends Aimee and Marc and their new baby, Jackson, at Primary Children’s Hospital. Jackson was born a week ago and has a heart problem so they have had him in intensive care since his birth. We were glad to be able to see them and see that things are progressing well.

This is my new favorite album, I have always liked Coldplay but I really like this one. I have listened to it over and over the past few days. My favorite song is #6 “Yes”. I even purchased it legally, first album I have paid full price for in a long time. I kept thinking I should start getting legit with my music purchases but it was just so cheap to buy stuff from a Russian site that I have used for awhile. Recently they lost their deals or something with credit card companies so adding funds to my account was trickier so I decided to find a new source for tunes. I bought this album through Amazon.com and their system is easy to use, cheaper than a lot of other options, and sells plain old DRM-free MP3s. They also let you buy music with Pepsi Points and we all know I can rack up a few of those!

Jodi and I think this commercial from Hillshire Farm is hilarious!

Jodi and I helped to contribute to the $66.4M record setting amount that The Dark Knight took in on its first day. I really liked the movie and I thought that the acting was very good, especially Heath Ledger’s role of The Joker. This movie is by far the darkest Batman movie ever made; the Joker is no joke in this movie, just downright evil, corrupt, and insane. The special effects were top notch and batman, once again, had some incredible moves and awesome gadgets. They said a lot of the movie was shot in Chicago so there was a lot of hype and excitement here because of that.

Jodi and I arrived in Chicago today. She has to be here for the CHA convention for work and I just came to tag along. We both work a lot when we travel for her conventions but we do get to do some sight-seeing also and this is my first time in Chicago so it will be a new experience for me.

We flew in to O’Hare this morning on American Airlines. The last 20 minutes of our flight was bumpy and the landing was pretty hard but other than that it was a smooth flight. After a meeting that Jodi had to go to we went downtown with Brent and Jen and their 15 month old, Isaac.

We drove to Michigan Avenue and found a place to park the car and walked to the John Hancock Center where we went up to the observatory and looked out over Lake Michigan and the city. They had headsets that we each listened to that described the sights and history of downtown Chicago, narrated by David Schwimmer. We happened to drive by the Weber Grill Restaurant and stopped there for dinner. Jodi and I had seen something about that place on the Food Network so we were excited when we saw it and the wait wasn’t too long. It was good; all of their cooking is done over charcoal. I wouldn’t say that the food was amazing, but it is unique how they cook it so the flavor is a little different than most restaurants. I had a steak and they did a good job of cooking it the way I wanted.

Downtown Chicago traffic was pretty crazy. The roads are narrow and cars just park and drive all over the place. The buses are the worst; they just change lanes and drive between lanes whenever they want. Drivers are also quick to honk their horns if the vehicle in front of them isn’t moving even if that car would have to hit the car in front of them or drive over pedestrians to be able to go forward. Jen made the comment a couple of times that she was glad I drove so she and her husband didn’t have to deal with the traffic. I made the mistake once of trying to change lanes behind a parked bus so I could turn at an intersection and didn’t realize the bus wasn’t going anywhere until it was too late and I was still blocking the lane of traffic I had been in, I got a lot of honks! Whoops!

I started off the week with a bit of a head cold, a sore throat and a runny nose but not too much to worry about. Wednesday morning I woke up and within a couple of minutes my left eye started to hurt. It felt like I had an eyelash or something in there but I had a difficult time finding anything. I got ready for the day and then looked again and found an eyelash at the bottom of my eye, once I pulled that out I assumed everything would be fine and my eye would start feeling better. Things didn’t improve and my eye continued to hurt all morning. I assumed I just had something else in there or that I might have scratched my eye earlier. I looked several times but was never able to find anything. I tried rinsing my eye out with eye drops and with water several times but nothing seemed to help.

I finally decided, with promptings from Jodi, that I would go to the eye doctor and see if they could figure out what was going on. I thought I was being a little ridiculous going to the doctor over an eyelash in my eye but it hurt and I couldn’t find anything to help relieve it. I went to the same place I had my laser eye surgery done over a year ago, Hoopes Vision because I didn’t know where else to go and I have always been impressed with them. I explained my problem to the nurse that took me to the exam room and he thought that I just had a case of pink eye since I had just had a cold. I considered that but didn’t think that was what I had since I didn’t have all of the symptoms.

Before I was told what was going on I had 4 different doctors in and out of my room looking at my eye. Each one that came in wanted another opinion. They put two different dyes in and looked at my eye through a mirrored lens thing under normal and infrared light. I had met the second and fourth doctor before but the other two were new to me. This last doctor finally started telling me what was going on.

He said my problem was potentially a couple of things, he said it could be a virus similar to a cold sore or a bacteria infection. I guess it was a little peculiar shaped to be the virus but I didn’t have some of the symptoms of a bacteria infection. He asked a few times if I had been outside the day before gardening or mowing a lawn or if I have had cold sores in the past, which I hadn’t. He said they could do a culture to find out for sure but they wanted to just start fighting it instead of waiting for the test results.

He ended up prescribing 3 different drugs to help fight it since he wasn’t entirely sure what I had. He prescribed Valtrex (huge blue pill that retails for about $10 per pill) and told me to take 3 a day. He also prescribed Viroptic and told me to take 6 drops a day spread throughout the day. He also mentioned that if I took 9 drops in a day it could be toxic to my cornea! Last he prescribed Ciloxan which is an ointment I was to put in twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. The Valtrex and Trifluridine were for a virus and the Ciloxan was in case it was a bacteria infection and to help protect it from further infection. I ended up having to go to 3 different pharmacies to get my 3 different medications, the first place I went didn’t have the drops or ointment but thankfully they called around and found places close by that I could get each of the other medications. The doctor mentioned that I needed to get these prescriptions filled as soon as possible to help fight this thing because if I didn’t get it taken care of I could possibly lose my vision in that eye. He might have told me that to be sure I would get them and take them as prescribed! He also warned me not to touch my left eye and then my right eye because I might spread it to the other eye.

I went in to the eye doctor expecting them to find another eyelash or something or tell me I had scratched my eye a little while trying to get the eyelash out and ended up leaving with an array of drugs to take and worrying if I was going to lose my vision. That night I did some research on WebMD and learned all sorts of things about cold sores. I didn’t realize that cold sores were a herpes virus along with chicken pox and shingles. I had no idea you could get a cold sore on your eye! Based on my research and the things the doctor had said I figured I had a case of herpes simplex keratitis, which is basically a cold sore on the eye.

Jodi took me to my appointment the next day and the doctor that had performed my laser eye surgery, Dr. Hoopes Jr., was there this time and he looked at my eye. He seemed a lot more positive about my condition than the doctors did the day before and said according to the notes he had that it looked like it had improved already. He told me it was a rather peculiar case but he was pretty sure it was herpes simplex keratitis, which is what I thought from my research. Two of the doctors that looked at my eye the day before came in to see my progress and to look at the oddness I had going on in my eye, they also agreed it looked better.

I am glad that I went in to the eye doctors when I did instead of waiting! They told me if I wouldn’t have gone in that day I probably would have been in the next. Dr. Hoopes told me that people will often wait a few days before they finally go in and then it can take 3 weeks to clear up, I only had to deal with it for about 3 days. It still isn’t quite back to normal but it is a lot better! I went back in today and met with with Dr. Hoopes again and he took me off the eye drops and ointment and told me to just take one Valtrex a day until they are gone. He also gave me a bottle of Flarex, a steroid, to help with the redness, pain, and light sensitivity which are all pretty much gone. Two of the doctors that saw me the first day came in and looked at my eye again to see the progress.

I’m not really sure why I attracted so much attention with all of the doctors over the past few days. I saw 5 different doctors 2 times each in the past week. They said my case was a little peculiar but it may also be because the thing I had just isn’t that common. I have mentioned my condition to a few people and nobody that I have talked to has ever heard that it was possible to get a cold sore on an eye. When I broke my leg a few years ago all of the orthopedic surgeons enjoyed checking out my x-rays because I had managed to do quite a number on it. I don’t usually have too much wrong with me but when I do I do it in style!

Below are some pictures that Jodi took on Wednesday evening. My eye got swollen and bloodshot but I could never see any sign of a cold sore like you can see when they are on your skin. I also didn’t notice anything in my vision although it did get a little worse for a few days. I think I normally see about 20/15 in my left eye but I was seeing 20/25 last week. I was tested again today and I am back to seeing 20/15 with both eyes and 20/20 with my left eye. Hopefully when I go back in 2 weeks I’ll be back to 20/15 in my left eye again. The pupil is huge because the doctor put some drops in to dilate my eye, they said it was to relax the iris muscles to help with the pain. According to WebMD they also do that to help keep the eye’s natural fluids flowing. It stayed dilated for a couple of days which made me look pretty weird.

Dr. Hoopes warned me that I could be susceptible to getting this again in the future. He said a bloodshot eye and a feeling like something is in my eye are the first signs and it can often go along with a cold or flu so I’ll need to pay attention to my eyes when I get sick in the future. I can’t imagine dealing with this for more than a few days so I will try and make sure I get in ASAP if I think I have it again!

No, I’m not referring to a movie with Will Smith, I’m talking about the day we commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence back on July 4, 1776 when we declared our independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain! There are so many great things about the way we celebrate Independence Day such as fireworks, parades, barbecues, and carnivals. I have always enjoyed fireworks on the Fourth of July, growing up we would sometimes get on the roof of our house so that we could see the fireworks that were shot in downtown Wichita. Luckily things are pretty flat in Kansas so it is easy to see for long distances without much trouble! Now Jodi and I try to get to as many shows as we can. We have found a few regulars that we like. The Canyons in Park City has a show on July 3rd that we like a lot and always make it to and we always go to Kaysville for the Davis County show on July 4th with a lot of the family. We also like South Jordan’s fireworks but they did them earlier this year than normal so we missed them. We usually find enough shows to be able to make it to 3 or 4 every year. We planned to go to West Jordan’s show on July 5th but I was not feeling well so we didn’t make it.

Our morning consisted of the Centerville parade and celebration. Lindsey and Aaron have some pictures from those on their blog. There is a bunch of carnival type food and stuff going on at the celebration but we usually just go and hang out for a bit and then go somewhere to eat so we can get some good food and not pay out of our noses for it; the past two years we have gone to Bajio. It was so hot and muggy this year so we didn’t stay long and couldn’t wait to get indoors! After lunch we went and saw the new Indiana Jones movie with Jodi’s parents and Jake. Jodi and I had already seen it but it’s good enough to see a second time.

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. Not just because of the fireworks, parades, barbecues, and carnivals but also for the reason we have the holiday. I am so thankful for our country’s independence and for all who have lost and risked their lives to protect it. I thought it was great that everyone at the Centerville parade stood and clapped as the troops walked by.

Last year Jodi and I did the Triathlon at the Utah Summer Games in St. George. We had the idea to train all winter and do lots of triathlons this summer but so far we haven’t done much training or any triathlons. Jodi and her brother, Josh, signed up for a few swimming events at Summer Games in Cedar City, it was my first time ever going to a swimming competition and I thought it was pretty interesting. The competition was at an indoor olympic size pool at SUU, it was nice being indoors instead of outside in the sun all three days! They seemed well organized and had people from all ages swimming. There were swimmers from 20 to 81. We only went to the adult competition but they had a separate one for people under 18. One of the guys that swam in several events only used his arms when he swam and had to scoot himself along the floor to get to his lane. He walked with a brace on one leg and a cane but he swam very well! I’m sure he could beat me in any swimming event and I have two able legs!

Jodi and Josh did well, especially for not training much at all. They both earned some medals and Josh set a couple of records. They both use to swim competitively in high school but haven’t competed since then, I think summer games rekindled their love for competitive swimming! They were both talking about doing it again next year. The only problem if Josh does it next year is and if I chose to compete he would be in my age group which would pretty much guarantee that I wouldn’t do so well.

We all had a good time and it was good to take a few days off work (yes, it’s true, I didn’t work at all while we were down there!) We made it down to St. George one day and went to In-N-Out for lunch and then Jodi and I went shopping while Josh, Sabrina, Harrison, Kelley and Kathy hung out with Sabrina’s sister in their pool. Harrison had his first swim, Josh was so excited to get him in the pool he almost didn’t wait for Sabrina to put her swimming suit on before getting him out there. We also got to see our cousin, Lins, and her fiance while we were down there for a minute at dinner. It was so hot in St. George, 110 degrees!

We have been busy working on a few miscellaneous home improvement projects the last couple of weeks. We found a pretty good deal on some knobs and pulls for our kitchen cabinets and drawers. We decided it was time to do some patching on the walls, we had a few dimples from recessed screws and some dings from carrying the bed up the stairs. There were also a few dings and dents that were in the walls before we bought the place that we discovered after we put a fresh coat of paint on the walls that we just filled in and fixed. An end of one of the hand rails for the stairs was rubbing against the wall so I took that off and fixed that up. We also framed and hung our college degrees and my Eagle Scout award above my desk in the office. And we finally put up the valances on our blinds! We pulled them all down before we moved in so that we could paint everything and in the process I broke a lot of the valance clips. We finally decided to go looking for some new clips and got the idea to use Velcro instead which worked out very well and ended up looking nicer too since there isn’t a visible plastic clip holding the valances on! Our list of things left that we want to do while we’re here is getting smaller and smaller!