Dancing Girls

We have a ton of already downloaded pictures to choose from--Trav's just being lazy (I know, I know, so unlike him...) Anyway here's the girls all dressed up for the aforementioned dancing that they were involved in yesterday. Enjoy!

p.s. I don't know if I'm involved in this whole injury sharing game, (and I do have a host of them to choose from) so I'll just say that my favorite Travis imposed injury was when he gave me two black eyes the day after our last wedding reception in Oregon. You know what they say, when the honeymoon is over....

Favorite injury....how about injuries?

Well, as you all know I am accident prone. No injuries snowboarding, no serious injuries playing basketball, but Mandy and I had the same problem judging where the ball would land, but it hit my cheek, not my eye, so IN YOUR EYE MANDY! J/K. I would guess the one that everyone really knows about is the time I was walking on a BBQ and fell. Thanks for watching me CJ. Maybe dislocating my knee cap was a good one in Miami on my way to Honduras...that was a good one that led to knee surgery. Or maybe falling down playing basketball after getting tangled up with someone during basketball tryout for BYU last year...broken finger, although Megan's break was better because she could show how AO she was to people and they couldn't get mad because of the splint on her finger. Appendicitis cannot be considered on this list, I didn't do anything stupid to deserve that.
I would have to say my all time favorite is in 7th grade. I was being smart by using less time to get from point a to point b by taking the shortest way possible, cutting through the girls gym at CMS to get to the main gym for basketball practice. Little did I know that they had swept the floor and left the dust in the middle of the floor. I hit the dust, slid into the high jump/pole vault mats kept in the gym and WHAM!! face first into a metal door jam. Mind you mom had been gone for a grand total of 5 hours. Guess how many stitches I got? You got it, 5. 1 for each hour she was gone. Dad sure had a fun time coming to get me and taking me to get stitches. I think he was more concerned with what mom was going to say AS opposed to how I was. Needless to say, I played in the basketball game that night or the next day in true Stratton fashion, bandaged up, playing through the pain. I do remember getting tripped up and going headfirst into someone's knee, right on the stitches. My coach made sure it was alright, but before going back to the bench, he told me how cool I was for playing with stitches.
Side note: Justin and Travis, do you remember the time we were helping dad with the sprinklers? The time we fixed the pipe, only to find a break less than 6 inches away? I think that would fit into the injury department for dad, but not a physical injury, but a moral injury, or even an injured pride. Which ever one it is, it was hilarious. Dad was literally two-face. Half clean, half mud, and 3 boys laughing so hard they could barely stand up. Oh the good ol' days.
I have another injury caused by my stupidity, but that one still gives dad nightmares, so it will remain off the blog.

here's the scoop: Mandy edition

So, I've had a hard time deciding what my best injury is. It comes down to two incidents, really. The first, when I got a black eye in fifth grade (just in time for the school awards ceremony) is funny but pretty anticlimactic. The entire story involves me, a softball game, and my inability to judge _where_ exactly the ball is going to land. Apparently it wasn't going to land in my glove, but on my eye instead. End of story.

The real winner, though, has to be when I broke my stupid arm. I had made it 25 years without a broken bone, but that didn't stop me. I was up in Utah for a visit and Megan and I decided to go snowboarding for a half-day at Sundance. We had free passes, so why not? Well, we hit Sundance and it started out okay. (Alright, probably less-than-okay, seeing as I can't seem to get off the chair lift without flailing and/or falling into someone nearby.) We went down our first run and it took me forever. Whenever I started to feel I was going too fast, I just sat down to slow myself down. Then I got back up and did it again. Towards the end of the run, I sorta got the hang of what to do if I started going the wrong direction, etc. Enter the second run. I did much better. I would still sit down if I started going too fast, until I realized that was dumb. Everyone was going much faster than I was and they were just fine. I told myself I was just going to suck it up and go. That may not have been my best decision. I started going somewhere other than where I wanted, but instead of panicking, I tried to correct my course. Then I caught an edge and fell. Hard. Lucky me, I fell right underneath the chair lift so I got a lot of, um, encouragement from people overhead. Megan (a really good, patient teacher) stopped about 15 feet in front of me and looked back to make sure I was okay. Megan yelled back, "Are you okay?" I said, "I think I broke my arm." Megan: "Did you really break your arm, or does it just hurt?" (valid question.) Me: (slightly loud) "I think I broke my freaking arm!!" The rest is a bit of a haze -- several people offered to send the ski patrol up, but being a Stratton, I figured I could do it on my own. That is, until I realized that even sitting up made me want to hurl. I finally relented and the ski patrol came and I rode down the mountain on a snowmobile -- no toboggan for this Stratton! After a stint at the ski patrol station and several trips to different urgent care/emergency rooms (trying to figure out what wouldn't cost me my firstborn), I ended up at good 'ol Dr. J's for a splint and sling. The rest is history. Or just too boring to blog. Enjoy the only two pictures I think I have of the ordeal!

(The first is in one of the urgent care places, right after the accident. The second shows what I had to do every morning just to shower!)

here's the scoop 2

So, Meggie is insistent that everybody participate in her little game (that means you Travie!!) My only problem with this query is that I've had so many great injuries, which do I post as my favorite? Unfortunately, I have no major injuries to report so I'll stick with something a little more entertaining (no, no falling off my bike, that's already posted on my blog). So here it is:

Many of you may have noticed a rather large scar on my left elbow. Well, I received this little beauty from the Alpine Slide in Park City. Back when I worked for Pfizer, we would often do our POA (plan of action) meetings (or POW as Pops liked to call them) in Park City. There would always be some sort of "team building" activity. At this meeting, my manager thought we should spend all afternoon utilizing the Alpine Slide. Well, after about an hour, all the other girls decided that they wanted to go shopping instead. Of course I decided to stay and hang with the guys. Well, when you get a group of sales reps together (and when most of them are male), it was soon decided that we needed to race. If you've ever been to the Alpine Slide you will see signs and be told repeatedly, "Please, don't race." Well, if they don't want you to race, why do they put two tracks side-by-side? So, of course we decided to race. Well, I was in the lead and flying down the track. I hit a turn a little too fast. My sled went flying out of the track and I proceeded to slide down the track. Keep in mind, the track is very slick cement so you slide easily down (only, you're supposed to be in a sled, not on your bear skin). My biggest fear as I was sliding down was getting off the track and into the weeds......I knew who was coming behind me and I knew how fast they'd be going. Well, I managed to get out and grab my sled just as a fellow Pfizer rep went flying by.......I was actually impressed that he slowed slightly to see if I was OK. Well, I grabbed my sled, got back in the track and made it down to the bottom. Sadly, I didn't win that race. But fortunately, I didn't sustain any serious injuries. I continued to ride for another hour or so with my team. And, in memory of the day, I have a cool scar to show off!

Come one people, share your stories! Travie....I'd love to hear your version of breaking your collar bone!