Life is not boring...

I know it has been quite a while since I have posted. Believe me the reason is not because nothing is happening!!!

Garrett had his All Conference Honor Band concert. I did have intentions of posting a clip but have not had the time or energy to do so. I might get it done before next year....Both Garrett and Kaleb have joined the basketball team at the local christian school. So starting next month we will have basketball twice a week with games one night a week and wrestling twice a week with matches on Saturdays. Can you say no free time?

Steven is doing better. He has therapy twice a week in Tomah and is still driving to Elroy to work. His doctor and therapist said he is ahead of schedule. He sometimes pushes his limits but when do we all not do that? Otherwise I am impressed on how well he is obeying (at leaset in front of me).

As for me...The last month they switched my meds 3 times, I have put on almost 40 lbs from the various meds. The migraines still occur if I accidentally have any of my trigger foods, which seem to be growing. Now I have a constant tremor. It started like I felt like I was shaking from the cold all of the time but it was not visual and now it is and is affecting both hands, my left leg and my head. So if I turn a corner too fast I tip over. My Neuro now says it is not related to the migraines and has removed me from all the meds. My thoughts seem to get jumbled and my speech either stutters or the words don't come out right. I have had so many tests and have seen 10 doctors since July for various things. I have problems typing since sometimes my fingers jerk or do not work. I am so thankful for the spell check but I hate seeing all the little red lines! They cannot find anything definite so they are just saying benign essential tremors. They wanted to put me on a med for the tremors but it would just mask them so I would not know if they are getting worse or what is causing them. Plus the med would cause kidney stones in those prone too (oh, and the catscan showed mine to be 8mm instead of the 6mm the ultra sound thought it to be). I did pick up another web-site which I am thankful for. It helps keep me productive and creative plus it brings in some exra income since stamping is not very fun right now. With the shakes it is hard to get a good image. Off to work! I have a class on Thursday and haven't even started the prep work....

Update

Ok, to start with....Steve is back to work. They have him doing paper and computer work at the Elroy office. He cannot wait until life is back to normal but work is work. He goes to therapy twice a week and continues to follow the doctors orders of his home therapy. He is finally starting to sleep again. I think working has helped that. When he was home he slept a lot during the day which made him not sleep at night.

My migraines have improved. I continue to take the meds daily. I have also had to change my diet drastically, which I HATE! I had to give up all artificial sweetners and other things because they where now "drawn" into my allergy realm and were causing a lot of my migrianes. Even a half of a pack gives me a migraine. Poor Levi made me a glass of ice tea on Sunday afternoon and put in a half of a pack like he usually does. One small sip gave me a migraine for 2 days. I am still also trying to figure out what I can eat with the stones too. Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day in bed with galstone and kidney stone pain. I did lots of reading and found that flax seed tea and sweet potatoes helped settle the galstones but the kidney stone is not going to pass at the size it is (over 6mm-1/4") The doctor said it is not interfering with my kidney funtion so there is no need to see him again. (Can you see the confused look on my face!?!)

Now on to better (and more interesting) news. Garrett, and the rest of the band, had a concert on Monday night. I just could not get a good picture of him. Steve was in pain, as the not so smart (I did not say stupid!) part of him tried to clap after the first song (DUH!). Any way as I was looking at the flyer I noticed a few kids had * next to their names. There were just 5 names out of all of the band members and Garrett was one of them. He is a nominee for the Honor Band. He did not even know. The bummer is the Honor Band concert is the same day as a pizza party he wants to go to. Hopefully they are at different times and he can still make it to both.

Yes, I know these are not good pictures, but the fish just will not stay still! I had to clean the tanks yesterday. In the 55 I found 4 baby Red Zebra Cichlids about a month old. I had to totally empty the Convict Cilchlid tank. Remember they had about 50 babies in July and boy are they messy. Here is what I have left. They are getting pretty big, so if you want some speak up now! Kaleb said he is getting ready to filet a few (and he does not eat fish).

Steven's Surgery Update

So the surgery went well. We had to check into the hospital about 10:30 a.m. He had already been up all night pacing and of course if he is up he had to make sure I was too. So I woke up with a migraine. What a way to start a busy day! He finally got into surgery at about 2:00 p.m. He was very very very nervous and scared. He had never had surgery before, so this was a whole new experience for him. He was in surgery for just over 2 hours. The surgeon told me it went very well and that he is to do NOTHING for the next week. Ok, I now believe my job for the next week is harder than hers. They sent him home around 6:00 p.m. and he was starving since he had not eaten since midnight the night before. The ride home was uneventful since the nerve block was still holding pretty well. It finally started to wear off around 11:00 p.m. (just as I ready to fall asleep) and he was miserable. So I held on to his pain meds and kept track of what he took when. At 3:00 a.m. He swore that he was going to die from the pain. So he called the hospital and they told him to come in. I was in no shape to drive since I had only slept maybe 2 hours in the last 48 and had taken meds for my migraine. So we tried other things.

They sent him home with a cyro cuff. Now this is a fabulous invention!!! It comes with a cooler that you fill with ice water. You connect the cooler to the tube on the cuff, raise it up and it fills the cuff. You lower it and it will drain. So we kept cycling the water for a couple of hours every 10-20 minutes all night. It did help and I got to close my eyes every few minutes (not usually by choice).

This is picture of the cyro cuff. It is not a picture of him. I found it on a google search. There is no way he can look this good at this time, plus he also has to wear this special sling (again not him, he cannot get a shirt on yet so I WILL NOT post a picture). This will just give you an idea of the contraption he is in. The cyro over the sling since he cannot take off the sling until his appointment next week.

I do have pictures of the before and after of the inside of his arm if you are interested and have a strong stomach. I even have a picture of the bone they cut off....

Well, it is time for his pain meds again so I better go dispense them! Have a great week and thank you for the prayers!

Hello

Has it really been over 2 months since I last posted on here? Well a lot has been going on. The painting and floor is finished in the Living, Dining and Kitchen-grouting. Steve fell at work the end of July and tore 2 muscles in his rotator cuff. He is scheduled for surgery on Friday to re-attach the muscle and repair a bone where arthritis is setting in due to the accident. My migraines have improved. They changed my medication and I quit using all artificial sweetners. I hope that is the fix of it! We had a great day today at the Civil War re-enactment at Norskedalen. We have missed it the last few years because Garrett had football games. Did you see Seth's pants are a little short? He might have even grown a bit this summer! Dave & Dena met us there. The view was beautiful. Not bad for taking them out the window while driving 60 miles an hour huh? The cow at the end of the slide show, the boys begged me to take her picture....

Sneak Peak

So now that we have 2 reliable renters (Praise God) we are doing a little bit of work on our own house! (Whooo Hoooo!) I thought I would give a slight sneak peak of our "Work in Progress"

Poor Levi got a sty and is hurting.

Steve finally built the tank stand I wanted.
I have had it sketched out for probably a year.

I love it!!!

Seth jump

Levi's Dive

Garrett Back Flip

He got in trouble for not getting far enough away from the board.

Seth & Shelby getting in the deep end

Wednesday Swim Lessons-Shelby

Garrett's flip

Seth Lessons

So it took us awhile to get him in the water and then he wanted to go up and down and up and down. Can you imagine that, Seth ?

So in the water he goes! This is one of Susan's nieces. Her Mother is the special ed teacher at the school so she was assigned to work with Seth. She does an excellent job when he has his mind set. Hey, that is most of the time...

They could not get him to kick and blow at the same time, just one thing at a time. Boy, he makes the water looks tan! Can you tell he does not like being outside much?

"Hey mom watch, I can go under!"(please remember to come back up!) This is a big step as it took us a few days to even get him off of the steps.

I am a big big bubble ready to be popped (and fall into the water). See how all the of the other kids are back against the wall, except Seth. He lives on the edge. He just kept stepping forward and looking at me. I kept telling him to get back with the other kids. He would step back and creep forward again and again.

When he jumps in he puts his arms backwards to catch himself and just about hits his head (Soooooo thankful for the teachers knowing to be right there by him!)

I will try to get more pictures up of the rest of the crew later (I think I have a video of Garrett diving somewhere), but Seth is wet!

Doctor Update

Well, I just thought I would give you all an update. I got a call yesterday from the hospital right before we were to leave. The MRI machine had broke down, so they had to reschedule it for today (Wednesday) which means I also had to reschedule my results appointment which was suppose to be today. So they could not get me in to see the doctor until Monday. So I go in for the MRI later today and hopefully will get the results late Monday afternoon. God is in control, God is in control, God is in control, God is in control!!

7-18-08 Edited to add: The MRI shows no abnormalities (Steve & the kids beg to differ). So I wait until Monday to find out the next step to explain my numbness, fatigue and dizziness.

Be Thou My Vision

Dino Hunters

Just thought I would share my Dino Hunters with you this morning. Friday they had to dress up to match the VBS theme.

I have my energy back to day. Thank you so much for your prayers! The MRI machine broke down this morning so I am waiting to hear back from the hospital for when they could reschedule....God is in control!

2008 VBS

Since I was not feeling well this week I did not get a lot of pictures taken. Early in the week I volunteered to put together a slide show with all of the pictures that Lisa , my friend, had taken. So Friday night after the ER I put this together, except hers came with music, to be shown at the funfair/picnic on Saturday. Rather than weeding through them to find pictures of my kids I am posting the whole thing that I posted on our Church Web-site. I know you can find them. I have a smashing headache and cannot take my faithful ibuprofen with the other meds they have me on....oh well, God is in control and he knows what He is doing. Have a great day!

Thank you

As many of you now know, or may of read in my last post, I have not been feeling well lately. As you can see by all of the pictures we spent last weekend (3rd-6th) visiting Heath and Lois in Nebraska and had a wonderful time. On our way to the zoo in Omaha on Saturday I had what I call an "episode" where I lost the use of the upper left hand side of my body. I am very stubborn (it is in both families gene pool) and was determined to spend this well planned and looked forward to day with my family who I love and miss so much. They tried very hard to talk me into seeing a doctor but I refused. So I downplayed it and went on with the zoo and mall. We returned home late Sunday night and I started teaching 25 4-6 yr olds in Bible School Monday morning. My left side was still weak and I was exhausted but I pushed on. I came home and slept the whole day away. That is so unlike me, but I just had no energy at all.

Well, come Thursday I could not take the migraines (going on 3 weeks everyday) and the constant fatigue so I called my doctor (duh huh?). They told me no appointment but to come in as soon as I could get there. Of course with my luck a horrible storm came through town and we ended up sitting in the hallway of the clinic for 45 minutes waiting for the sirens to stop and the all clear to be posted. He treated me for the migraines and I was on my way with a check up appointment next week. I was set back that he was not concerned about the weakness in my left side. After waiting for that prescription at Wal-mart for 1 1/2 hours (and $250 later) I finally got to go home and rest. Well, come Friday during Bible school it got progressively worse. I lost my hearing, taste, total use of left arm and the numbness started in my left leg. Kaleb, who is thankfully home this week from camp, took me to the emergency room. The doctor thought I may have had a mini stroke. After all the test and questions they think I may have something called migraine paralysis. I go in early next week for an MRI to rule out a stroke. I am on a very strong blood thinner (and took me off the stuff I had just spent 2 weeks of groceries on) as a precaution since I am allergic to aspirin.

I do have some use of my arm but that comes and goes. The more I use it the weaker it gets. I am thankful that I am right handed and for the wonderful family I have who treats me like a queen. I am so thankful for all of you and your prayers for me during this.

Baby Convicts

Just one more post before I hit the sack (I have not been feeling well the last few weeks and VBS just wiped me out this morning) We got home too late last night for me to check out my fish. This afternoon when we got home from Bible school I fed my fish. For some reason they were all staying on just one end of the tank. I looked a little closer to find that my new convict cichlids (just got them last Tuesday) had babies. They are very protective of their young. I am so happy, I guess too happy to not think that this camera would rotate a side video...anyone want 40-50 convict cichlids in a few months?

Here is a better video. I will try and get as they grow.

Family

I will leave you with just one more picture tonight. I will try and upload the video of Heath and Kaleb doing the offertory tomorrow night. It makes me cry to see my guys using their music to praise God.

Build-a-Bear

After the zoo the boys hit the arcade and the girls where off to the mall. Lois had promised Shelby that she would take her to Build-a-Bear for a late birthday gift. Shelby has talked about it for the last 6 weeks. Can you tell how much fun she had. She named her Pink Leopard Princess Girl. Rumor has it that the guys had fun too, not that any of them could take any pictures....

Zoo 3/3

These are the last of the zoo pictures that I am posting.

Zoo 2/3

Not much to say...just having fun!

Zoo 1/3

On Friday we visited the zoo in Omaha. So they let me bring a bunch of animals to see the other animals...and they let me take mine home again. I split these up into a few slide shows. Garrett had the camera the majority of the time. If any one wants pictures of just about every animal at the zoo just let me know I am so glad I had 2 4GB cards for my camera with me, hey we even have a couple of videos. He loves photography.

July 4th Fireworks

Just wanted to share some of the fireworks with you.

July 4th Pre-Fireworks

So we we off to Fireworks after supper. When we got there a man was handing out balloon creations that he was making for the kids. He gave Shelby a penguin that fell in the grass. Boy, did she cry. After he finished making Seth a sword he made he this fantastic monkey. She was very careful with it and it even made it home. The big boys sat in front of us and threw fire crackers etc. It was so much fun being together!

July 4th Pool

So on day 2 Heath had to work so Lois came over and went swimming with the kids. I was not feeling well still so Seth sat with me this time. We went swimming later after the zoo and he went then. We found the green thing Shelby is wearing in one of these for him and I'm glad we did as he had no fear. I have no pics of him swimming as I was in the pool with him so I could not take any pictures. We had the whole pool to ourselves and so Lois brought a jar of change and threw it all over the pool for the kids to find. They had a lot of fun. Kaleb learned the hard way not to dive for money near his sister-in-laws' toes... Then we went off to their house to have lunch and let the kids play Wii. Heath does not have a t.v so thankfully their new house has a huge blank wall in their family room for his projector. Levi really got into it.

July 3rd

Well, we arrived in Nebraska right around the time Heath got off work, so he met us at our motel. We went and bought a bunch of fireworks for the kids and waited for Lois to get off from work. They then took us bowling. It was great since no one else was there we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was the first time Seth and Shelby had ever been bowling. Seth had a trouble lifting the ball so Lois went and got him a ramp. Obviously, you can tell by the scores, that it helped him a great deal. We need to do this more often, as the kids (and parents) had a great time. Then we headed back to their house to have supper and have our own fireworks show.

Rental House

Ok, Now looking at these I only took pictures of the front and Garrett was working on the same shutter the whole time. Boy, do I miss Kaleb (at camp) but Garrett kicked it up and we got it done! Anyway we needed to do some much needed work on the rental. Anyone know a good reliable renter? We have a 2 bedroom available now....

Graduation

Just a sneak peak. I hope to get some more up yet this weekend. I could not get the boys to stay still so there are more of Shelby with her friends then Seth with the guys. Sorry the grad group is blurry I took it from the back of the church as I helped the kids get ready. I will get a better one from one of my friends.

Fish Tanks

For Mother's Day and my birthday my wonderful kids and husband helped me get the fish set up I have always wanted. On the way home we must of stopped in every fish store we could. It was probably close to a dozen stores. I am specifically looking for starlight bristlenose plecos. I cannot find any of them anywhere around here. We did find some wonderful Cichlids for the tanks. The varieties include: Bumble Bees, Red Zebras. Black Flank, Calico Convict, Giraffe Haps, Blue Kenyi, and Yellow Labs. I love the way this tank is turning out! If any of you know where I can find the plecos I want let me know we will plan a special visit ;).

I had to move the fish that were in the big tank into a smaller set up. So here is my only angel I have left, the common pleco, zebra danios, Bolivian Ram, Rasaboras, and Julii cory cats.

Here is the bottom tank. It is filled with, Sword tails, Platties of all ages and sizes, and a few albino cory cats.

I did not get a good picture of Kaleb's tank. The reflection was horrible. He has a huge, mean, blue Kenyi and an African Catfish. I will post pics here when I get some good ones.