My Alaskan cruise experience would not be complete without mentioning this guy:
One of the many things I adore about Logan is how awesome of a dad he is! I loved hearing updates from home about the many adventures he had taken the kids on. He did an awesome job and he had a fun time doing it. I arrived home on a Sunday afternoon to find the house completely cleaned, the lawn mowed and beautifully green, the kids happy, and Logan putting the finishing touches on a nice Sunday dinner. Did I mention that this guy is Super Dad?
Lets rewind the clock to 2007... We began this blog to share information about ourselves for our family and friends as we set across the country for dental school in Cleveland. Since that time this collection of our life stories has become our official journal as we print them yearly and add them to our growing collection of "The Hazard Chronicles" yearbooks. Back in the beginning it was easy to update every week and keep everyone informed of what was going on in our lives and we fluidly took turns writing our adventures. As time went on life seemed to get a little bit busier... imagine that. Life became a bit overwhelming and the blog was carefully and lovingly placed on a backburner. This is when Logan volunteered to become the main writer to keep our stories alive. Thank you, my Love, for doing such an amazing job keeping our story going.
There is, in fact, another naturally occurring effect of Logan writing the blog every week. He has opportunities to brag about me, but I rarely have the same.... It is my turn.
When this picture was taken I knew a little bit more about the drive that my husband has to learn and experience the world. This was taken the month after graduation at BYU. Logan's final semester was filled with 27 (yes 27) credits of advanced science classes of which he aced each one (somehow while balancing two jobs and plenty of time with me!). Two of these classes were graduate level courses that he needed to receive special permission to take "just because."
"Life is amazing! I wish I could experience and learn everything about everything. I should probably get started now if I am going to even scratch the surface!" -Logan
OK. He didn't actually say that, but he totally could have! Those words exemplify him in every way. I have been thinking about this blog for a long time and trying to figure out how to include everything that I want to include. I have decided that the best way to get a broad picture of Logan is to write down some of his activities since the beginning of the year.
As a reflection of the above quote, Logan really does want to learn a little bit about everything. He is constantly creating 'courses' for himself in different topics. Each of these topics involves multiple books and online college courses, as well as written assignments and reports. He is always enrolled in at least one online college course (he is currently enrolled in two). This year a few of his topics have been: foreign affairs in Iraq and Iraqi history, micro economics, macro economics, a fascinating in depth study of Hitler and Nazi Germany, and he is currently doing individual studies on the major world religions. Logan has really motivated me in this area and we are currently taking a course together online titled "Public Policy Challenges of the 21st Century." We study the units separately and then we come together for an evening date on the deck to discuss and debate what we have learned.
A bit should be said about the books that Logan has read this year. He is currently reading book number thirty-one. These books have been a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, and a good many of them have numbered over 500 pages. Some of his favorites include: "Long Walk to Freedom," "Mistakes were Made (But not by Me)," "Guns, Germs, and Steel," and "The Brothers Karamazov." Along with these books he makes it a point to read the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CDA Press, and Idaho Statesman every day (he really does- I "test" him every few months and I am impressed with the diversity of subjects he is constantly informed about). News is definitely written with a slant, and it is good to get it from a variety of sources to maintain a balance of views, right?
Physical goals are also important to Logan. He makes it a point to run at least 35 miles each week, and he does it at a pace that should merit the respect of almost any runner out there. This past year he has spent a lot of time rock climbing. He is one of the best (maybe the top) climbers at the Kroc Center, and he has met a lot of other climbers and really enjoys his time there. The rock climbing staff is constantly setting climbs specifically for him, and I believe the current climb in his honor is a 12b titled "Logan's Run.". Of course he is almost always the one to get the first ascent of these routes. It must also be mentioned that Logan (according to him) is currently in the best physical shape of his life. He has been consistently flashing 5.12's and he has red-pointed 5.13a's.
As winter comes it is natural that he would move indoors, and what better thing to do than to practice the guitar? During the winter he works out at the Kroc and spends part of his early morning doing self created courses for guitar. I have been impressed with some of the pieces he has perfected over the past year. I can request virtually any song from him and after about 20 minutes he will astound me with a beautiful acoustic finger-style rendition of my song. Lately, he has taken to exploring the many possibilities of the electric guitar and it it clear that he finds a lot of joy and fulfillment in his music. I love listening to him play! He has a gift that he has honed.
Logan has also been loving his career with Loftus! He is especially doing really well in the oral surgery field of his career. This has been an area of focus for him since dental school, and he loves the more advanced procedures like impacted wisdom teeth, implants, bone grafts, and gum grafts. Besides this, he has become the go-to doctor in the practice for Invisalign, and is one of the main organizers for community outreach programs that the practice does. In short, he is loving where he is working and is enjoying his rapidly growing and loyal patient base. He also enjoys working with the team and interacting with the other dentists.
Our spiritual journeys have been a little bit tumultuous over the past 3-4 years. We both feel that this is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to balancing our lives and raising our family. We have found a wonderful church family where we feel that this part of the puzzle has come together for us. We are setting down roots and balancing our lives with weekly attendance and activities at First Presbyterian CDA (PCUSA affiliated).
For me, the most important goal I have is to strive to remain balanced. This balance includes: family time, mom time, wife time, me time, friend time, fitness time, professional time, educational time, and spirituality. All of these categories are important to me, and I have often turned down good things because I could feel that the balance was off a bit. I feel that when everything is balanced is when I can excel in each area because they definitely play off of each other.
Logan is a great example to me of finding this precarious balance. So far I have shared little bits and pieces from his professional, personal, educational, spiritual, and physical......... These alone are pretty impressive, but it just gets better when you add the amazing job he does with the husband and dad roles.
I must say that my favorite part of this balance is that Logan is an excellent husband! He is my best friend and I love that we talk about EVERYTHING together. Every night is a date night and we definitely take advantage of this time together... from dates on the deck (a pretty common occurrence), to Seahawks games on the projector, to talking deep into the night, to reading our book together (probably number 168 or something like that), to an occasional movie. We definitely take advantage of the time we have after the kids are asleep. On top of all of that time we make it a priority to go on an out-of-the-house date night at least 3 times a month. Some of our favorites are: bike rides, festivals, any kind of live music, rock climbing (we actually need to do this together more often!), Broadway plays, walks downtown, hikes, etc. There is always something fun to do where we live. I love this place! Logan is my favorite person on earth and I love just being with him.
As if that wasn't enough, Logan is an awesome dad! Every Monday he has a "Papa Day" with all of the kids while I work in the afternoon. He seems to always have something fun planned to do with them. We follow Papa day with Family Night. I love family night! We have a lot of fun traditions that I hope our kids will treasure as much as I do. Saturdays are "sacred" in our home because we make it a point to schedule a family activity. Sundays are one of my favorite days because we have church in the morning, family dessert night (each of us take turns rotating and doing this one-on-one with each kid), and we try to do a family activity on Sunday night as well (family walk, family dance, or something else). Aside from these weekly things it is also important for us to take each child on special one-on-one dates with us.
With all of this craziness Logan also somehow manages to clean the house early in the morning because he knows a clean house is good for my sanity, keep the lawn green and beautiful, and have a wonderfully positive can-do attitude. Did I mention that I love this guy!
If you ever think there are simply not enough hours in the day you can ask Logan how he manages. He will probably begin his response by telling you to wake up at 5 am every morning. Ummm. No thanks, I will try and make do with the limited hours and enjoy that extra hour of sleep...
"Logan, my love, I can not tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world."
He is amazing!!
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