Sunday, June 20, 2010

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3....

So, I just wanted to post something that is fun. Since Charlie's surgery I haven't noticed too much the difference in his hearing. This morning though, I realized how his hearing is affecting him. It's time for him to change his clothes and take a bath. He's pretty much just been wearing the same thing since surgery and it has reached the moment of stink that needed to be addressed. He wasn't excited about getting in the tub, but after some coaxing he is finally in there. I put some bubbles in the tub and I was sitting with him and he asks what a noise is. We talk and it's the sound of the bubbles all popping. I left and came back a min later and there he is with bubbles in his hand and he's holding them up to his ear. HE CAN HEAR!! What a blessing hearing is. It is really a miracle unfolding before my eyes. I am so grateful for Doctors and the advance in technology that makes this possible.

I'm guessing that as I watch him and as he gets feeling better that I will see more manifestations of our own personal miracle in our lives. What a wonder.

Also, in other news. Jacob is taking more and more steps. I think he will reach his goal of walking by July (I'm not sure how much he understands his goal, but that's what it is none the less). Things are going well, just hoping our house will sell soon. We have found a couple that we like and can't make any offers until this one is done. So, we'll stay patient and it'll work out for the best.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Surgery Day

So, today was the day. Surgery day for Charlie. We talked to him about what was going on a few days ago and he seemed to handle it well. I don't know how much he has actually understood about what was going to happen today, but he did well.

What do you expect from something like this?? Well, he really started to act nervous/scared when they came to take him back to the operating room. When they had us come back to see him he was obviously just waking up from the anaesthesia. It was a good thing dad was there to hold him. He was thrashing about and not doing too well. We finally got him to calm down and he fell asleep. He slept for quite awhile before he woke up and was calm. He was then ready to try something to eat and then he had to take some pain meds. He was good eating some jello and then when we got the medicine for him, he really didn't want anything to do with it. Finally, he took it and then they monitored us just a little bit more before they would let us go home.

So, we expected to be home by 1:00 and it turned out to be closer to 2. It was a long time, but good. He seems to be doing well and is currently asleep and isn't supposed to get more pain meds until 9:00. In about an hour we might find out how much pain he really is in.

I'll probably be able to post more later with how his hearing seems. We were told that his worst day will probably be day 4, so on Sat. we'll know how that is and maybe have a better idea on how his hearing is.

Friday, June 11, 2010

2010 Dino Camp

So we just spent 4 days in Central/Eastern Utah camping and exploring a variety of dinosaur associated sites in the Price area. On Monday we arrived and set up camp at the Huntington Reservoir State park. It was a very nice camp ground with a lot of grass but little shade. The biggest benefit though was that it was empty. There were 22 sites and no more than 5 were full each night. We had a simple meal of roasted hot dogs and then spent the night eating a wide selection of S'more variations. These included using Keebler Fudge striped cookies, Chocolate covered Graham Crackers, Grasshopper cookies (Mike's favorite), using peanut butter cups instead of plain chocolate, A banana boat (banana sliced open and stuffed with marshmallows and chocolate and heated till the chocolate and marshmallows melt, Ben's favorite) and the classic S'more (Becky's favorite). (Charlie, Brigit and Jacob were content to eat the various ingredients uncooked.)

We began Tuesday with a lesson in Baseball (I never realized how difficult this would be to teach). Ben and Charlie had gotten Balls and Mitts for Easter and had been practicing throwing and catching for a bit. This week we introduced the Bat. We had both Ben and Charlie hit the ball. Ben from a soft pitch and Charlie from in improvised tee (my hand). They both did great with it and we will try to attach the video of Ben hitting the ball.

Of course this was the hottest day of our trip and we chose this day to visit the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry and go for a hike. The Quarry was about a half hour away (14 miles of that over dirt road), and includes the single largest source of Allosaurus bones in the world. One full skeleton was there on display and more than 40 others are on display throughout the world. We were able to see an excavation site and then spent some time hiking around the Quarry. There were several trails and we chose the moderate difficulty 1.5 mile trail and took of walking and looking for dinosaur bones. I thought that 1.5 miles would be easy even with Jacob on my back but I did not count on having to travel at the slowest pace or that we were truly in a desert. We spent about 2 hours on that trail. Ben did an Awesome job of leading us (though he did keep confusing the trail with dried out water creek beds. Charlie did well for about the first mile. Towards the end he got really tired but he did finish the whole thing. Brigit did fine though she did need to be carried occasionally. And Jacob fell asleep on my back. It was a fun adventure.

After returning to camp we spent the rest of the day and all of Wednesday pretty much recovering and trying not to get any worse sunburns. Being right on the reservoir we were able to get into the water a few times and cool off there and just enjoy camping in general. Wednesday night I tried my hand at Dutch oven cooking for the first time and it did not go too bad. We had BBQ chicken which was great but I had trouble baking the Potatoes at the same time. We'll have to try something different next time.

On our final day, Thursday we headed home through Price with a stop at The College of Eastern Utah's Prehistoric Museum. It was a neat place to visit with several full skeletons including a Mammoth, Saber Toothed Tiger, Short Faced Bear, Wolf, Allosaurus, Raptor, Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and many others. The kids were able to dig for bones and they had a great time.

With this being our first major trip of the summer I think we have stepped off on the right foot.



Monday, June 7, 2010

Lots of happenings....

So, I realized that I STILL hadn't uploaded pictures from our camera and we are going camping today, so I figured I better post now and get ahead of things before I have camping pictures to add.

Mother's Day we spent dinner up with my Mother. My brother-in-law did a wonderful job with the ribs and I ate to my hearts content. It was great! Here are some pictures of the event.











Next we have Ben's graduation from Kindergarten. He got to dress up and there was a ceremony with all the Kindergarten classes. Here are some pictures of my recent graduate.









The next big event that we have pictures from was Memorial Day. It was great to spend some time with family. We have always had a reunion at the Perry Park on Memorial Day and it was decided that it was the last one this year, so we'll be coming up with new Memorial Day traditions I am sure. Here are the pictures I have from this event.









Ain't no need to watch where I'm going, just need to know where I've been.