Mid March

So it's mid march.....

Here's the "haps" this week:

We bought a truck.We've been looking at getting one for awhile. Stephen's always wanted one, and with his assignment at church as a scoutmaster, his troop is growing and the past two camp outs he's had to take the van, which has come home dirtier than it left, and it left me stranded without a car so I 100% supported this decision for sure! Our friends were selling their truck and so we got this guy. It won't get used a lot, but will really come in handy!

We got a lot of rain--a true Texas Thunderstorm! I loved it and slept like a baby! We've prayed for rain because we're in a severe drought, I hope it rains more.

Just after it stopped we (Lindsey, Matthew and I) to go have lunch with Sam. Lindsey was dressed in her rain boots & rain coat and went outside to find puddles. I got Matthew ready and sent him out after. I took just a minute to get my socks and boots on too. When I went out to get them in the car, I found Matthew, up to his knees in the drainage channel between our house and our neighbors house! Lovely!

I took him in and changed him, when we pulled up to the school I noticed that Lindsey too was wet up to her knees and her boots were full of water!

Then later that afternoon, most of the water had drained off, but Matthew once again found the puddles and played....I had to take off his pants and socks and shoes again, and I thought, what the hey, let him be two (almost).

Our First Family Camping Trip!!!!--NOT

The plan was for Stephen to work extra hard (he always does) and take Friday of Spring Break off so that we could go to DINOSAUR VALLEY STATE PARK, see the sights and camp overnight in a tent.

We were all excited, the stars aligned for Stephen at work and he WAS able to take off Friday. This was the plan.....

THURSDAY NIGHT.
LATE.
10:30.
We've just finished some cheesecake, Stephen and I are about to go to bed when my stomach starts hurting, and gets worse and worse.

Then I start throwing up, only to have the pain return worse. I've got the chills, I'm sweating, I keep throwing up. Nothing makes me feel better. 45 minutes pass, I've thrown up 5 or 6 times and now my arms are tingling and my hands are curving in and they're limp. My feet are starting to tingle. Everything is fuzzy. The cold of the toilet and tile floor feels good against my skin...

I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE.

I'm praying to feel better, to have the strength to endure this, to let me live.

I'm able to get one or two word commands out: Blessing, Hospital, Ambulance, Please Help

Poor Stephen didn't know what to do. He called our neighbors, the Huangs and Brother Huang and he prepared to give me a blessing. We'd decided to try and get me to the ER. I somehow make it downstairs but the car is locked, I bang on it and yell, "door" but Stephen can't hear me. I slump over to the bench and wait. There Brother Huang and Stephen give me a blessing--(I am so thankful for the priesthood! watch a video here)

Sister Huang is going to come watch our kids, we just leave Brother Huang at our house assuming she'll be over shortly. Our children are asleep. She and one of her sons sleep the whole night on our couches. (I am so grateful for Visiting Teachers!)

I'm wheeled into the ER, Stephen signs the minimum required forms and knocks on the door where the doctors and nurses are working, and humbly asks for them to help me.

My hands are curved in, my head slumped to one side, my body is limp. I keep whispering a cry for help, and say "hurt".

Bless those nurses, they take one look at me and whisk me into a room. I hear them call for Doug who was apparently the guy who does the IV's and he's in very quickly running a line in my arm with some IV's. They've drawn blood.
I still hurt.
In a few minutes they've got Morphine going. After some time, I'm still in pain so they add something to it. Because of the narcotics I've got oxygen.

This is where I start to feel better, but I start dozing off too. They did a thorough ultrasound and a CT scan. I remember waking up to have them give me some potassium pills, and from that point on I vacillate between sleep and watching the TV, and feeling sorry for my poor husband who can't get comfortable in those hard chairs.

The diagnosis: I have a high white blood cell count which means there's and infection somewhere, and my small intestine is inflamed. I'm sent home with 4 prescriptions to fill.

We roll into bed at 5:00am.

At 6:00 our first child wakes up, by 6:30 they're all awake, we tell them what happened overnight and call my mother to come take over so we can sleep for a few hours.

Needless to say, Dinosaur Valley will always be there, but we're not in a position to go this time.


But thankfully the weekend wasn't wasted, want to see what we did instead?we mulched the flower beds
Notice the new gear Stephen's wearing? He partially tore is MCL playing soccer, and he gets to wear this bad boy for 8 weeks. He's THRILLED!

For dinner we got pizza, because neither of us were feeling like cooking and it was a "treat" as compensation for not going camping.

And because my husband was campaigning for "Dad of the year" he pitched the tent in the DINING ROOM and let the kids camp out still.
They thought that was fun.

Spring Break 2012

Spring Break was very full.....

Grandma McKneely is making a dress for Kaitlyn to be baptized in. She was having a hard time sizing it to her so we took a 24 hour road trip to College Station. Aunt Rachel, who was off for the week too rode along with us which was a big help since Dad had to stay behind and work (and worked he did--crazy 27 hours in 2 days!!).

It was perfect because our time there overlapped with cousins Shelly, Ashlyn and Elisa being there too. It was a wild and fun 24 hours, we made a ginormous mess of the toys, didn't sleep well, and really enjoyed some special grown up version of the famous Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie.

Then on Thursday we Painted with Aunt Pearl:

She brought a canvas with a section partitioned for each of the kids and all her painting supplies and...
made their own masterpieces!

Lights, Camera, Action

Had an exciting opportunity recently....

In my church assignment I am the director of Public Affairs (think Public Relations--right up my alley) for my area. And at times I get to do really cool things.

Our Activity Day Girls throughout the Stake (140 of them--many congregations worth) did a service project making drawstring bags and then the different wards (congregations) donated different hygiene items to fill them. In all they made 234 bags.

These bags were then donated to a local hospital who had opened a new NICU unit where the parents get to "room in". Sometimes parents come to the hospital to have a baby a bit earlier than anticipated and they come without the necessities. This is where our little bags come in.

Well, one morning I got a phone call. Three of the girls and a leader were going to deliver the bags and the hospital had reached out to local news media (CBS 11 News). In a few hours I'd farmed out my kids and was prepped to be interviewed on camera--WOW!

On the way to the hospital I prepped the girls too, they did great! To date the story still hasn't aired, but it's the kind of story that is "evergreen" meaning it's not defined by time and could be aired whenever they have a hole to fill. I was grateful for the experience.