Colorado

We went to CO a few weeks ago and I thought I would post some pictures from our trip. I took way too many, but had a great time doing it. Some of them are from hiking to a secret slot canyon with my friend Alma, others are at my Mom's garden, and some are from hiking with my brother Sam. Alma and Sam took some of the pics in the slideshow.

These pictures are some of the many reasons we LOVE Colorado. We had a great time with the Sherwood, Mckeans, Andersons, and the Smiths. We love you all and can't wait to get back to beautiful of CO.

Mike

Happy Days

It feels like a long time since our house has felt normal! Hurray for slower days :) This week has been nice. Asa came home from the hospital Monday evening and seemed back to himself more and more the longer we were home. He did end up breaking out with little red dots all over his body later in the week, but the pediatrician took a look on Wednesday and said they were probably just the virus working itself out of his skin! They are gone now.

Asa has been smiling a lot more this last month - so instead of posting 4 minutes of smiling videos, I'll just post this one:

Ha ha, I realize you might not really want to listen to us coo over our baby for a minute and a half, so I am not offended if you just skip over the video.

Annabelle and I have been having a good week together. She has been working really hard helping me put the house back together and on Friday we tried doing "Princess Hair". This is the curly version of the french braid 'crown' that my mom used to do with my hair:

It looks a little different dry, she wore it this way to church. She of course would try to avoid eye contact and stiffen her face to avoid smiling when someone mentioned how pretty her hair looked.

Thanks for all of the words of encouragement and phone calls. We are doing just fine, have survived some minor drama and may even meet our insurance deductibles BEFORE the end of the year after all!

98.5

Asa has not had a fever all day and so long has his 48 hr blood cultures come back normal at 6pm, we will be going home. Thanks for all your notes and prayers, we are doing well. Can't wait to get back to regular life!

Fever

Friday night Annabelle had a little fever, complained she wasn't feeling well and was all together out of sorts. With a little Tylenol and spoiling she was back to herself Saturday morning. Unfortunately when Asa woke up from a nap on Saturday he felt warm. I checked and sure enough he then had a fever. Since he is so little I knew he needed to be seen, so we went to the Emergency room. They were awesome, saw him right away (and I mean instantly, no waiting) and started doing tests to rule out the most dangerous possibilites. After his chest x-rays and initial blood work came back normal they told me they wanted to keep him over night for observation. They don't have a pediatric unit at that hospital but they let me drive him over to their sister hospital not too far away. So we've been here ever since. He still has a low-grade fever. He has undergone more tests and so far so good. With any luck we'll be going home tomorrow. He seems like himself, just a little fussy when he is on tylenol and semi-miserable when he is not. He is on tylenol right now and is laying on my lap grunting and sticking out his tounge as he studies the half-open blinds.

All of this is mostly just precautionary, so I don't feel especially worried but I'd appreciate if you would keep him in your prayers today. I'll update again tomorrow and let you know how he is doing. Thanks!

Monsoon

For all of you who have never lived in AZ, here is an interesting bit of information: we have a monsoon season. from late July through August we have thunderstorms that build in the east over the mountains, and then drop into the valley. They sometimes flood the roads, and cause trees and telephone poles to fall. The Arizona drivers have a pretty rough time with the slightest amount of water on the road. They slow down drastically and accidents are more common. Anyways it is nice to see the clouds and to get a little bit of moisture in the dessert.

Here is the first monsoon of the season last week as seen from our balcony.

-Mike

Is this REAL life?

I love this video. Friday was not my most favorite day of my life BUT the kidney stones are out. I really felt like the kid in the video. Soooo out of it. My emotions were everywhere - I remember being so angry, why would they do this to me? when would my head stop spinning? who hurt me? I felt tired and had no ability to remember what was happening. It was like I was waking up over and over again every 5 seconds or so, until we got home from the hospital and I slept it off for a few hours that is. I've been under general anesthesia 3 times before and never took so long to wake up. Anyway, this video totally made my day. I'm considering buying a t-shirt from the website: davidafterdentist.com - I could justify it by saying that some of the proceeds go to a good cause.

Mike said my reactions weren't all together too different from this 7 year olds. Awesome, under the influence the main difference between me and a 7 year old is just replacing his finger and eyes comments with "Why did they do this to me?" groans thrust at odd places in the conversation Mike and I had on the drive home.

I'm doing better now. The stent that was put in during surgery was taken out today and so I am ready for my body to really start healing.

I'm a Stoner

That's right, I've joined an elite group of stoners. Kidney stoners that is. My dad and his dad are in the group and I almost feel privileged to be joining them. I only wish I was as tough as them.

As it turns out my body has produced some pretty good sized calcium stones and the big one (at least 8 mm) tried to take a slide to the nearest exit and got stuck. So later this week I'm going to have a quick out patient surgery to have it broken up and taken out. The doc is kind enough to take the others with him while he is in there.

Thanks to some prescription pain killers I really just have a mild back ache most of the time. Mike of course hasn't let me lift a finger and has kept me away from the car keys as well! I have had awesome friends in the ward taking care of me, driving me around, watching Annabelle - so far I have been on something of a "stay-cation". Seriously: personal drivers, live-in chef and house keeper, a part time nanny and the overall feeling of relaxation (yes, some of that feeling could be due to the drugs). Ha ha!

Anyway, life goes on. It will all be fine. Poor Asa won't be able to nurse for 5 days after the procedure due to some antibiotics that I will be on and I only have enough milk frozen for a day or two . . . so we've gotta introduce formula, hopefully he likes it because there isn't much of a choice!