Went to the farm...

So, today I took the kids to a lambing barn for a while. We went with Caleb's friend Luc, and his dad Chris. Luc's mom and Brent were playing on worship team. We went to first service and then went to the barn while Brent and Kathy played for the second service, and then we met them for lunch. I think Caleb had fun. He didn't want to pet any of the animals, but he loved looking at them. They had sheep, pigs, cows, turkeys, chickens, ducks, horses, goats and a donkey. Caleb got a kick out of the turkey. The turkey would gobble, Caleb would giggle, then the turkey would gobble, then Caleb would giggle...this went on until I convinced Caleb that there were more animals to see. We pushed our luck with naptime a little...and Caleb was definitely tired at the end (hence the last pic with him crying). I included a few other pics too. :) Oh yeah....now every time we go to put our coats on, Caleb asks to go see the baby sheep.


Look! They still like each other!

My "GQ" guy...

Aren't they adorable!!

Um, yeah...try to carry a 2 year old and a baby at the same time! hehe...Thank goodness for baby carriers!

Oink.

Caleb and Luc

This is our group pic. Yup, you guessed it...Caleb had had enough!

I thought it was supposed to be spring!

Well, it's the second day of spring and we got another 6.6 inches of snow! Caleb only napped for about 45 minutes, so we all went outside, except Abby was sleeping of course.

Meet our "Snow Dino"


Caleb, of course, had to play in the sandbox too, and decided he wanted a brown snow dino.







Caleb's best "dino-ROAR!"



So, since it's Spring, why not play on the swingset?


Okay, even the dog had fun.

Not meant to be the Energizer Bunny...

Wow...what a few couple of weeks! Everyone has probably already read the past blogs, so I won't repeat that...but wow, the business never stops! We came back on Tuesday from going back to Illinois for a visitation/funeral. I went to pick up Maya from the kennel. We kennel her at our vet, and they also have a groomer, so I decided to have her groomed as well before I picked her up. I told the kennel person when I dropped her off a week ago what I wanted. A trim, shampoo, and nails clipped. Well....they must have told the groomer to do Maya's "usual cut." That would be the SUMMER cut....you see her fur is so thick we shave her during the summer to keep her cool. Yup. She is now shaved. Grr!

Maya "Before"



Maya "After"



Tuesday night Brent had Highway to Heaven rehearsal (a Christian big band he's in). After he'd been home for a while, he started getting sick. By morning this morning, he could hardly have the energy to get around. This was a problem you see, because I had ACLS class to get re-certified, and Brent was supposed to watch the kids. Luckily, our daycare person is a lifesaver and had room to take the kids on short notice. And...off to ACLS I went. ACLS is Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Basically it boils down to me having to prove I can run a code and know what drugs to give when, when to shock, etc. This usually requires studying...but who could study lately? I actually passed with a 92% on my written, and did pretty good in the "mega code."

Oh...did I mention my dog hates blondes? Yup, that's right. Not blonde people, blonde dogs. That is, long haired blonde dogs. It started with a run-in with neighbor's dog that was aggressive towards Maya. Now...another neighbor has a dog that looks similar and Maya has issues with it. Weird thing though....my other neighbor has a dog-aggressive dog that they're putting through rehab. Great dog.....loves people, just has issues with dogs. Name is Kaley. Maya gets along fine with Kaley...doesn't try to growl, or anything. Kaley is getting better, but is still a little aggressive toward Maya....and Maya doesn't return it. Now....why would she be that nice toward Kaley and have issues with the other dogs? Must be the long, yellow fur. I dunno. It's annoying.

Easter Egg Hunt...

Our Married Couples Fellowship group at church hosted an Easter Egg Hunt today. Brent has National Guard this weekend, so I took the kids. Once Caleb warmed up, he had a blast. I had to tell him that he didn't have to put the eggs back. Everytime he found a new one, he tried to put back the ones that he had in his basket. He was also more entertained by emptying out all the Easter grass and paper that was hiding some of the eggs. I was carrying Abby in a carrier strapped to me, so I didn't take pics of her, but they both did very well. They also had face painting, story time, games (including a parachute), snacks, and crafts.




This is Caleb and his friend Timothy...watch out when these two get together!

Ah....Spring!!

Okay, so I know it's not offically Spring yet, but the warmer weather definitely brightens your spirits! We've gotten outside for walks even. I saw robins today. Lots of them. Robins make me happy....that may sound odd, but they do! :) I had to catch up on posting picks, so here are a few!

Peace...

At 1210am Wednesday morning, Grayson (Brent's grandfather) went home to be with God. He is no longer hurting. Now our healing starts.

Mixed news...

Dad is out of the hospital and is scheduled to see his Parkinson's specialist tomorrow. They don't think it's Guillian Barre. (Yippeeee)

We're back in Illinois again...Brent's grandfather is now on comfort cares. He's on a morphine drip to make him comfortable. Brent's mom and sister are staying at the hospital tonight and we're staying at Brent's parents' house. It's 10:30 at night...we're all exhausted, and Abby won't go to sleep. In fact, she's wide awake, smiling and giggling like it's the middle of the day. We really need sleep, but it's hard to get frustrated when she's so happy about being awake.

What I know as of now...

Well, we're back home again. We drove back today. We're still exhausted from this weekend, but it's good to be back. So, the neurologist consulting on Dad in RMH now says they think he might be hypotensive from his Parkinson's meds and that he needs to see his current neurologist for that (gee....and what has his daughter been saying the whole time? call your neurologist!!!!) He's still in the hospital...not sure when they're thinking discharge.

Brent's grandfather: did find an obstruction, not a candidate for surgery, now in isolation for MRSA. Brent's mom now has the flu.

Getting tired of hospitals...

I am really getting tired of hospitals, and the bad thing is, I work in one! This has been one of the longest weekends I can remember. It started out with a phone call from my mom yesterday (Saturday). Dad hadn't been feeling well, having a lot of weakness and low blood pressure; they "had a call into his doctor" and weren't coming up. Then mom mentions that Dad wanted her to call 911, but she thought he was doing fine. I basically said that she needed to hang up with my and call the stinkin ambulance if he said he needed it. You see...Dad hates hospitals. He wouldn't want to go to one if he didn't need it. I got back home quick (I was at the store). I basically said to Brent "How fast can we get to Illinois?" Somehow we fed Abby, packed all four of us up, packed the dog up, and got on the road less than an hour from the time Mom called. We decided to see if we could stay at Brent's parents' house instead of my parents' house so Mom wouldn't think she needed to host us. Then...we find out that Brent's grand-dad wasn't feeling well, and hadn't been feeling well since the last time he got out of the hospital, which was a week or so ago. Okay....at this point, we're thinking we're meant to be in Illinois.

So we get to the hospital to see Dad....they did a spinal tap and drew blood to run a bunch of tests...ruling out Gullian Barre syndrome. Oh yeah...he's also lost 20 pounds in the last month....not on purpose. Fast forward to today...pulmonary function tests look really good...got some preliminary tests back, still don't know much. And then my mom just kind of mentions that the neurologist that is consulting on Dad is questioning his Sinamet and Requip dosing for the Parksinsons meds. Mom said the doctor said she'd figure out what's going on here first and talk about the Parkinson's meds later. Okay...small explanation...it took a lot of work and a little prodding from me to get him into my hospital to see a Parkinson's specialist and finally get his Parkinson's managed to the point that he can function....and then this doctor, who doesn't know Dad for more than a day starts questioning things. She is NOT a parkison's specialist...I left there making Mom and Dad promise they wouldn't let anyone change anything about the Parkinson's meds unless it came from his specialist. Needless to say...I want Dad in my hospital, being seen by the docs I work with and taken care of by the nurses I work with. I don't know how we can make that happen.

Ah...the story continues... as we're leaving the hospital with the kids, Brent gets a phone call. It's his dad....they're sitting in the ER in a different hospital with his grand-dad. Now, as I'm typing....they've run xrays, CT scan, I'm pretty sure they ran some blood tests....and we wait and see. Needless to say, we're in no shape to go back home, I didn't sleep last night hardly at all (although the kids did) I'm a worrier...so I'm completely drained right now. I'm pretty sure I'd be a wreck at work tomorrow, so I'm not going in. We'll try to head back in the morning. Ugh!