"Mucking" and the Mystery Ears

photo from Associated Press

Dan spent yesterday in Galveston, "mucking".

It's so easy to continue our life here with power and water and no damage without remembering that mere miles from our house, a whole city lay in pieces.

Dan said that the highway is lined with boats. Boats! Boats that belong in the water! He donned his yellow "Helping Hands" shirt and his team spent the day on one house. They removed all the furniture and "stuff" and then proceeded to rip out the carpet, the walls, the insulation, the doors, the kitchen cabinets, everything down to the bones. He said that the whole house had been underwater and even the insulation in the ceiling was completely soaked.

It was a long day of good, hard work. And there will be many many more days like that ahead for the residents of Galveston. Rumor is that they will be calling on members to go down for the next 6 weeks or so. Next time Dan will have better shoes and a camera!

And today we saw Luke's regular ENT. It was a bewildering appointment. According to her both ears look "great!" and both tubes are "intact!" and his ear drum "never ruptured!"

So, three different doctors, three different opinions. I really don't know what to think. It is fairly obvious that the infection is clearing up. And as long as he doesn't have any more problems, we will be all set. If, however, he does get any other infections, I am going to have serious concerns about where to take him and who to believe.

And to add to the weird record of Luke's physical status, he cut his eye yesterday about 1 inch beneath the old scar. He was under a table at church, when the table got jostled and a leg that apparently was no longer attached,only propped, fell and hit his little face, cutting his eye. Poor guy.

I like to remember him during happier times, like this love-fest he had with my mom and few weeks ago.

I have one thing to say about these photos. A fancy camera does not a good photographer make. I messed these up and I am sad about it. A good ol' automatic saves you from the fuzzies of inexperience. Still, I love these pictures. He just loves her and spent quite a few minutes rubbing her head, kissing her face, sharing his pacis, and generally snuggling up.

Freud would be proud

It's no secret that Ava is a Daddy's girl.

She drove this point home again this past week.

Let me set the stage:

Monday 7:30pm. Luke's already in bed. Mom, Dad, and Ava sit on the family room floor for Family Home Evening.

Dan begins a lesson on families being together forever. He talks about the temple. He asks Ava, "Where did mom and dad get married?"

"The temple" she replies.

He explains that when she grows up and falls in love with someone, she can marry him in the temple, her reply was, "but I'm gonna marry you, Dad"

We chuckle and continue our discussion. She begins talking about how she is going to wear a certain dress and have a crown AND a veil because she will be a princess and she goes on and on and on.

Finally, hoping to just make one simple point and feel like she retained it through all of the princess blabber, I was holding her in my lap speaking with our faces close together. I was trying to give a quick summary and hoping that when I finished I could ask one question like, "what can you do so we can be together forever?" and she might give us a clear answer so we could reassure ourselves that she at least learned something and our FHE efforts were not in vain.

But, as I made mention again of her marrying someone when she grew up, she stopped looking into space, stopped talking about her princess accessories, looked me dead in the face and said,

"You can find somebody else, I'm gonna marry Dad."

Weekend without the Nuns

Last Saturday, we and the Marcks were looking for something fun to do and get out of the house. Many attractions we thought of were a bit out of whack as far as hours of operation and even being open at all due to the hurricane.

We decided on a miniature horse farm/monastery about an hour north of us. Getting there was an adventure in and of itself but we finally made it!

I think we were all secretly hoping to be able to see some nuns, after all, their website clearly show pictures of nuns with horses. But wouldn't you know we didn't even see one?! In talking with some of the workers there, sadly, the nun population has been decreasing as they age. Currently there were 4 nuns living on the farm and 2 were in their 90's. The man told us, "I guess it just isn't that popular to be a nun anymore." Kind of sad.

While we didn't see any nuns we did see some pretty cute miniature horses and dogs. As we drove there I explained to Ava that these horses were going to be just her size and she cut pet them. Somehow that translated in her mind to "princess ponies" which she talked about incessantly the remainder of the trip. It's all about the princesses these days. Princesses and mermaids.


Val and I were of course representin' with our big cameras, snap, snap, snapping pictures. For me there were some of the scenery, some of the animals, and lots of the kids.

Momma and Baby

2 weeks old

Jorgie and Ava brush the horse

We do have some pretty cute kids.

Lainey

Lainey and Quentin playing in the dirt

Ava being her silly self

Luke, pink and sweaty

Sweety-pie Jorgie

Luke basically walked around in his "man" shoes and could have cared less about anything else. He was hot and sweaty and glad to be on his own.


Lainey was doing pretty much the same thing.


There was also an "art barn" on the farm where the kids painted pottery.

Val and Clara

All in all a really fun day. And had our weekend ended on that note, no one would have complained.

Unfortunately, Luke had a very rough night that night, woke up with a fever, and by 8 am I was noticing some gunk dripping out of his ear. By 9:30 am that gunk had turned red, and by 4 pm, that gunk was mostly blood. I gave him the ear drops prescribed to him when he had the tubes put in, at the instruction of the on-call ENT, but by that evening, the discharge was so much, and so bloody, and his fever was even higher, that I took him to Urgent Care. The doctor couldn't even see in his ear because there was so much yucky stuff. She prescribed an oral antiobiotic as well.




The next morning I followed up with the only ENT in Houston apparently, who was not out of town at a conference. That appoiuntment is a blur, but they suctioned out his ear with a heinous looking machine and the doctor told me that the ear is badly infected, eardrum ruptured, and the tube had fallen out. He said the other ear tube is blocked and is falling out. I will take him back next week for another follow up and discuss putting the tubes back in. The thing about Luke is, he may get fussy and pull some attitude but the kid can have blood literally dripping out of his ear with a fever, and he pretty much just tools around minding his own business, playing with his toys. I think I'm gonna keep him.

Sisters, Cousins, Grandma, Ants

Well, I have been enjoying my new camera a little too much. Dan thinks we will have filled up our computer's memory in a few months. It's just so hard not to take hundreds of pictures! He thinks that this is just the beginning of my wants-next it will be a bigger computer, faster internet, new lenses, photoshop. Yes, yes, and yes. He's right. But I will just add them to my docket and plan to get them for the next 15 years. Now he will never have to wonder what I might like for a gift!

Anyways, in case I didn't make it clear before, Thank You, Dan for my new rebel friend.

Another result of this camera is that I take so many pictures, it makes it difficult to narrow them down for the blog. I will do my best. And remember you don't have to look at them if you don't want to.

We just enjoyed a quick visit from my mom, my sister Leah, and her two boys, Noah and Ian. Her husband was out of town for a few weeks (sounds familiar), so she mosied on down to Texas.

It has been waaay too long since we've seen them. I did get to see Leah at our Girl's Weekend back in April, but it has been a year since Dan's seen her and either of us have seen Noah. This was also our first time to meet baby Ian.

This is Ian. He ate his first apple here at my house.




He's a cute little guy who enjoys a good bottle,





has some of the most deliciously chubby legs I've ever seen,




and smiles like a bulldog when he gets excited.




And this is Noah. He has gotten a lot bigger since I last saw him.




He's a sweet little boy, who probably wondered why this weird lady kept following him around and sticking a camera in his face.



He loves trucks, especially this garbage truck of Luke's,


Though he remained somewhat reserved around me, this little guy can let loose and scream and run with the best of them.


One of the favorite activites for the kids was playing in the backyard in the water.



And you guessed it, I took too many pictures. But because it's taking 30000 minutes per picture to upload on here and I don't have the energy to sit here all night, it was easier than I thought to narrow them down.







And finally, we had a small dinner celebration for Mom's birthday. Ava was so cute when she met my mom at the door upon their arrival explaining that we were going to have a birthday party here and it was going to be for her and she proceeded to tell her how she (Ava) was going to make a cake and decorate it with this and that down to the very last detail.

And you know what, she did decorate that cake! She was so excited!



Before the hurricane we did not have any problems with uninvited guests of the 4-8 leg variety. Now since the very day after the hurricane, we have seen a noticeable influx of insects and bugs in the house. Especially ants. They are getting in our kitchen and we just couldn't figure out where they were coming from. So, after the cake was decorated, we covered it and set it carefully on the table, a place so far undiscovered by the ants, because I am trying very hard to keep the counters absolutely clean and free of food or crumbs (bleh!).

Now the next night, when all views from the kitchen looked clear of ants, I moved the cake to the counter so I could set the table. And in the time I did that and we ate, Johnny the Scout and Scavenger Ant happened upon the gold mine that was Grandma's cake and alerted the neighborhood. They partied hardy with that cake before we even uncovered it.



Double Bleh!


Not quite the celebration any of us had in mind. But we did improvise with our famous cookie ice cream sandwiches and enjoyed our dessert regardless. Happy Birthday, Mom!



And Leah, thanks for stopping by. I love you.

Oh no he didn't!

Oh yes he did!

My present arrived yesterday. The one I was guessing. And it's spectafantastiwonderlous!

Dan hasn't been one to surprise me in our marriage. He usually wants to talk and plan things out down to the nitty gritty detail. Of course there are the occasional, well appreciated surprise bouquet of flowers, but anything worth any serious kind of money, is not surprise material. It gets added on to the end of our wishlist which is currently running about 5 years out.

It kind of goes like this-Any item you want gets put on the docket for either your birthday or Christmas. So If you have more than 2 items on your list, it gets bumped over to either your birthday or Christmas for the following year. So say you have 9 items on your wishlist, you can expect to get that last one for Christmas 2013. Items may be moved up and down the list according to priority at your discretion.

I'm only kidding a little. Seriously though, without Dan and his financial plans we would probably not have any money, be paying our school loans into our 90's, and have lots of cool stuff.

But 2 weeks away, calling for minutes at a time, mostly to hear your wife crying or yelling, must inflict a certain amount of guilt, sympathy, and love.

And he told me he got me a present. My heart jumped immediately to one item on my wishlist we'd been "discussing" lately. One that I wanted really really bad even though it wasn't Christmas or my birthday.

He told me the mystery present would arrive in 2 parts. One last week and one this week. I tried my best not to get my hopes up.

Last week I opened a box containing a memory card. Which led me to believe that part number 2 was the camera I wanted.

Back in the day, 1996, I took my first photography class. I liked it so much, despite my pot-smoking, tree-hugging teacher that I took it the next year, and the next, and then there were no more classes, I had done them all. But she obliged and let me do independent study and I pretty much got to make up my own curriculum and spend all my free time in the lab. Now don't be led to believe that I am a great photographer, I just really enjoyed it. And one of the funnest parts was developing and printing my own pictures.

When we got married, I told Dan that someday I wanted to have a dark room in our house. He said, "Okay, sure" and we went on our merry way. Well, times have changed and so have cameras. I don't see a darkroom in my near future, but I had set my sights on the Canon Rebel xsi. No dark room necessary.

The present came yesterday and I was right! Dan was right! Oh mansie, was he right! There's so much to learn and play with!

I busted it open and tried to figure out how it all worked last night when the kids went to bed. That left me 2 subjects to photograph.

This one, especially, was a glamourpuss, as it was the most attention she's probably gotten in a year.





And this one. This one.


He is my favorite subject ever.

It ain't over til it's over

In the early hours of this morning, a storm was upon us. We had drained our bathtubs, let our phones run out of charge, and basically taken a nice deep breath.

But from our bed we could hear the rain pounding and thunder booming, and the lightning looked like it was in our backyard, at least from what we could see through the cracks of our still boarded up windows. And then we lost our power.

And all I could think was, "Oh my gosh, it's not over!" It was disconcerting mostly because we thought we'd made it and the hurricane was gone.

Luckily, after a handful of hours the power was back.

Dan jokingly said that we didn't lose our power on Saturday because God wanted him to be able to see BYU whip the patooties out of UCLA.

And yes, Dan made it home, thank goodness. I can't tell you what a welcome sight this car was.
And this is Ava saying, "Come out, Dad, come out!"




Literally just a few hours before Ike's arrival. Like a good daddy does when returning from a long trip, he came bearing gifts.



These life savers for the kids are especially meaningful as they are what my dad always brought us kids after a trip.

He got me a present too. Supposedly arriving next week, I'm not positive what it is, but I have an idea. I'm not even gonna type what my guess is, because I won't believe it till it's in my hands.


He walked off one of the last planes to land at Bush airport and straight into hurricane preparations. I had been busting my bum trying to get things ready. He got back just in time to help board up the windows. (Thank you Lee and Dave, for your invaluable help and tools and work!)



I had cleaned out the garage so we could park Dan's car, Pearl, in the other side. And I set up our "slumber party closet".



We disassembled the bricks,



and now all that remains is the grave of my garden.



This picture doesn't quite capture it, but by about 7:30 pm, it was so eery outside with this purple/orange glow.




It was a long and scary night. Dan was so exhausted he fell asleep when the kids did. I was too anxious to sleep and spent a good part of the night glued to the TV.


We each got up a couple of times to peek out the windows. When I looked out the front our trees were being blown at a 45 degree angle.


In the morning, we were frankly shocked that we still had power.





We were relieved that the worst of our damage only consisted of 2 of our fence panels being blown down.

The trees were back to their upright and locked positions, though it was quite telling that the twine supporting our littlest tree was snapped in the night.


These trees down the street were not as lucky!





Out where we live would technically be considered a "flood plain". But when they develop a big community like this, there are alot of measures taken to elevate the ground so that it won't flood.

But on the road out to our house, there are some homes not associated with a "community" that perhaps are not so equipped to deal with the flooding. And I think that most of the problems we are having out our direction are from today's storm, combined with the high waters left from the hurricane.

And for reference, in normal conditions there is no water here. Your not seeing overflowing ponds, lakes or rivers. Any water in these pictures is not normally there.




This is "Grandma's donkey's" pasture (a cute miniature donkey that my mom loves). Hopefully he got put somewhere safe before the storm. This water would probably be up to his belly!




And here's the road, rounding the bend to our neighborhood.



Church was canceled, work is canceled, thousands of people are without power, homes, and/or have major damage. We feel very lucky to be safe and sound.

Our phones are very spotty, but I really appreciate everyone who has called and left messages. Really, on Friday, before the hurricane, when Dan was still gone, and impending doom was upon us, one by one I got a call from each of my siblings. I don't know why that should make me so emotional, but it meant so much. Just to know people were worried, concerned and thinking and praying for us, made me feel comforted.

Dan got home, we survived the storm, and BYU won. Life is good.