candlelight dinner for Matt

 We had our first ever candlelight dinner at our house tonight.  We celebrated Matt.  Kelsey made him a crown to wear, and when he got home from work, we were all sitting at the table waiting for him to eat dinner with us.  The kids loved the candlelight, and I must admit, it was pretty fun.  We celebrated Matt's 'still alive day.'  That sounds morbid right?

Last year on this day, Matt was trich testing bulls near Nephi, when a bull came out of the chute and hammered him against the fence for a bit until he and the fellas could get him out.  He broke 11 ribs, most in multiple places, fractured his breastbone in 2 places, deflated a lung, messed up his heart a bit, and broke his shoulder joint.  So, we celebrated today because he is still here with us, and because he is almost perfect.  His shoulder still bothers him sometimes at night, and his ribs hurt if I hug him too hard, but other than that, he is great.  (easy for me to say!)  It is sort of crazy to feel his ribs because you can feel the spots that were broken and have repaired themselves with a big bony callus.

He had a few rough weeks in the ICU, and a few rough months at home recuperating, but he came along just great, and so did I!  We are blessed in so many ways concerning this accident, but mostly because that darn bull didn't have any horns.  About a month ago, Matt went back down to Nephi to trich test bulls again for the same good old cowboy on the same ranch.  I was a little ansy about it, but Matt was cool as a cucumber.  He is a great rural veterinarian and trich tests about 150 bulls every spring, and that one was just an onery old boy that didn't want to be messed with that day.  He loves working with large animals - horses and cattle, but he definitely loves the cattle.  It is in his farm boy blood!