What a day!

This was Evan's toe when we were able to see it yesterday at the Orthopedic surgeons office. We had to get the swelling down yesterday so they could operate today. The surgeon said Evan was lucky...he's never seen a case where the toe was broken off this way and not detached from the foot!! (Yuck!). So he was lucky in that way.

Here's Evan waiting for the doctors to take him back. We've learned from previous experience that this can take a while and so I was prepared with a movie to keep him in the bed and not "overthinking" the proceedure to follow. Shortly after this picture they came in and gave him some Vericet and he was in la la land when they took him back to the OR.

And here he is after the surgery. The doctor was able to insert one pin from the outside of the toe to the inside of the foot that will be removed in three weeks. He didn't have to make an incision and so the recovery should be faster. Evan did really well and it's still hard to keep him down and resting. He has to be home tomorrow and then back to school on Thursday with restrictions (no PE, no recess, little walking). He's a terror on the crutches and can cruise around pretty quick...kids are so tough.

All this happened on Ethan's 11th birthday!! He was a trooper about having to reschedule his friends to the movie outing tonight and we celebrated his birthday on Sunday before David left...but tonight we had the cake. He chose breakfast burritos for dinner and a chocolate cake with mint filling and chocolate frosting...it was yummy. He loves his new Ipod and has put together all his Star Wars legos and has had many battles with the lego people upstairs. It's fun. Happy Birthday Ethan!!

Life Lived

I'm back in Texas tonight after a very quick trip back to Southern Maryland to attend the funeral of dear friend, Jon Caless. Jon was the high counselman over the Young Women when I was in the stake YW presidency back there. He was (IS!!) an amazing man, with an amazing wife and family. Jon was a great example of living life to it's fullest and being a great example to everyone. He was always willing to serve his fellow man, was a friend to everyone he met, and worked hard. I am very priviledged to have worked with him and I already miss him. I'm glad that David and I were able to attend the funeral and to pay our respects to his wife and family. It was also very nice to reconnect with the multitude of friends that we left behind when we moved. At times it felt like coming home while we were there.

While we were gone, Evan had an accident at school. He and a friend were lifting a landscaping-type rock and ended up dropping it on his foot. At the Urgent Care they x-rayed it and determined that he has a compound fracture that is displaced. That means the bone is broken and out of position. My dear friend, Kim Draper, got way more than she signed up for when she agreed to watch the kids overnight while we left and ended up with a two hour wait in the Urgent Care followed by a gimpy fragile seven year old. I, on the other hand, had to deal with being away from him when it all happened and not being there to comfort him. He's been waiting these past two days for the swelling to go down so we can meet with the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow morning to make an assessment. There is a 90% chance he'll have to have surgery to reset the bones...we'll let you know. Either way it's not pretty and he's in a lot of pain. And of course, David is headed out of town tomorrow and will have to miss the whole process.

No pictures tonight...wrong computer, but I'll post some tomorrow.

Promised Photos

Ok, so it's been a couple days, but here's the zoo pictures...why are they sideways??

Pets and Animals

Here's our big boy Jagg "babysitting" McKinley for me. He comes in handy and doesn't ask for much in return. He's getting so big!!

About a week ago (maybe two) McKinley and I went to the zoo with our friends Kim, Haven and Payton. It was a nice girls trip to the zoo. We stayed out of the snake house, enjoyed the views quietly, and had a nice picnic lunch with the crows. It was very pleasant. It ended with a photo opportunity near the butterfly house. The camera battery just died during the upload...so this is the only photo so far. This is Haven and McKinley at the zoo. I'll upload the "photo shoot" pictures tomorrow.

The Ice Game

McKinley brought home a great activity from school for our FHE. It's called The Ice Game. It's very simple, but simply fun!! Here's the jist of it. Each person gets a plate and an ice cube. Each person takes turns rolling the dice and does the corresponding action to their ice cube. The first person to have their ice cube melts wins. It was fun for everyone, from 4 year old McKinley to David!! It was great. I think Evan won in the end.

Here's the "directions"

If you roll a...

1. Hold it for 10 seconds

2. Drop it

3. Breath on it for 10 seconds

4. Float it in water for 10 seconds

5. Pour 10 shakes of salt on it.

6. Put it down your shirt

Have fun!!

Facebook vs. Blogging

Ok, so I've had a Facebook account for years. Apparently someone "found" me and I had to sign up to see who it was and so I used an email account that we use for junk mail and signed up. That was that...end of story. Until Monday...

On Monday I went to said Facebook page and realized there's been a lot of things going on in that cyberworld without me. My wall was written upon, I'd been tagged, and a lot of people wanted to be my friend. Nice warm fuzzys.

Then the addiction began. Anyone who knows me knows that I pride myself in keeping in touch with people. I like to stay in touch and know what's going on in other people's lives. Nosey? Thoughtful? I don't know. So there's a whole page on this Facebook that helps you find anyone you've ever known. So I began typing in names and faces pop up. Some are instantly recognizable and I know I've found an old fried. But there are others that use funny pictures or pictures so small you are stuck wondering if this is the Sue Jones that you knew in highschool or one of the other 100 from your home town... So what do you do? Do you send an invitation to Sue Jones and hope it's her? Sure....what can it hurt? And maybe you'll make a new friend. And then you'll know two Sue Jone's from your home town. Wow...amazing.

So I hope to see you on Facebook. I'm trying to get my Facebook friends to come to the blog. Then we can all be one well rounded happy family!

Mutiny

Help me. My children are growing up...and I don't like it. Sometimes I do, I mean I don't miss the diapers and the puke and the endless crying, but since when did I lose my status as their favorite person? After all, I am pretty fun. But lately my older boys have decided that they are not so in to the whole family outing thing. And it's not that they don't have a good time when we go on "an adventure"...it's merely the idea of going out and not being home to do nothing. I don't get it. They hum and hah about having to go somewhere. I don't think I've had a day in my life where I would rather stay home than go somewhere, so I just can't relate. But they go and we have a good time...and the next time they start fussing about it all over again.

Yesterday's adventure was to a farm outside of Seguin Texas. We went in search of railroad ties for a landscape project, but we also noted that they had a dairy and a hayride and tour etc, so we made a family outing of it. We arrived to the farm about 2 o'clock and met Gina, a baptist minister from Maryland who had moved to the farm of 140 acres 4 years ago with her ex-lawyer husband and 7 children to run a farm and a Genesis Christian school. The sign on the gate read "Everything Jesus" and the dairy itself is called MooJesus. They have a website www.moojesus.com. They sell raw milk and lots of organic produce and hay fed beef, lamb, and pork. They also collect railroad ties that are discarded by the railroad company as they replace them. Many of them are really bad, but there were some that were usable in our project. The minute we walked in I knew we had entered a place where time ticks slowly. It was nice. The people were in no hurry, except to feed us and have us sample all their products. We sampled the milk, two cheeses, buttermilk with hone, and their lunch of ground beef and salad greens, followed by pineapple banana shakes. It was good.

It was during the hour long tractor ride that I realized how different my children's childhood is from my own. My children are boderline city-slickers, definitely sububanites! While this was an adventure for them I found it was a trip back to my childhood to be on this farm. There were cows and pigs and stray cats and a beautiful garden. The kids were pointing to the animals like we were at the zoo and asking questions about where they got their food (since there were no stores around). It was a sad realization for me that my kids won't have those experiences that I had growing up....except when we got on "family adventures"...and that's if they keep going with me. I'm pretty sure they will.