Starting Fresh

One winter, while President Dieter F. Uchtdorf was skiing with his 12-year-old grandson, he lost control on an icy patch, crash landed in the powder, and sat helplessly alone.

"I tried every trick to stand up, but I couldn't—I had fallen, and I couldn't get up.

"I began to wonder what it would take to rescue me. That was when my grandson came to my side. I told him what had happened, but he didn't seem very interested in my explanations of why I couldn't get up. He looked me in the eyes, reached out, took my hand, and in a firm tone said, 'Opa, you can do it now!'

"Instantly, I stood."

Today, I'm going to stand. It's taken me four years, but I "can do it now."

That's right. I'm finally starting our family blog. 

Over the last four years, I have kept talking myself out of starting this blog because I didn't start from the beginning. I have this thing—an enslavement, if you will—that prevents me from wanting items in an incomplete set. For example, because I didn't buy a marching band t-shirt that depicted our show (In the Spring, When Kings Go Off to War) my freshman year, I couldn't bring myself to buy one any other year, including the year I was a drum major. Same scenario with yearbooks. Get this—since we didn't start sending out Christmas cards until our third year of marriage, I actually had to go back and recreate fake Christmas cards from our first two years if I wanted to keep any of them. I chose a representative picture, wrote very-after-the-fact highlights of our year, and ordered just one copy for myself—to what? convince my distant-future self that I was on the ball with Christmas cards from the very start?

Despite this "thing" of mine, if there is one lesson I learned from my reflections on Easter this year, it's that it is never too late. Because of Him, we all have the chance to stand up after we fall—even if we've been on the ground for what feels like too long.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to our family:

I'll do my best to give chronological glimpses into our life, but don't be surprised if I have to go back and recreate blog posts on old memories. At least they won't be fake.