MY Goodness, how the time flies.I would have posted some news in June, but the month got away from me.So, I plan to make atleast a decent recount of the last month’s activities.If you don’t want to read all of this, scroll down to the 8th paragraph to read a funny discovery I have made.
First, My family situation: My wife and children are still living in Utah and will be for quite a while. My daughter, Emery, is just being a normal 2-almost-3 year old. Her birthday is on the 21st of July and I think we are going to get her a powerwheels. Don’t know what kind yet, but I think I want her to have the HUMMER. So she should like that. She has been the best big sister! She is as helpful as she could be and she genuinely loves her little sister. She gives her kisses on the head and loves her. What a wonderful girl. She is still growing up too. Our current battle with her is Potty Training, but she’ll do it when she is ready. Her hair is a problem too. We have been wanting to grow her hair out, but she won’t stop chewing on it, so we are cutting it short and proper to keep it out of her mouth. Ugh. Other than that, she is the textbook toddler/child. She tests our limits, She makes dumb decisions (like swimming in her kiddie pool in her play clothes. 🙂 and learning every day. She loves puzzles and games. I love her so much.
Ashlynn is wonderful girl. She has been having weekly doctor visits and it sounds like she is getting better. We are working with a few doctors about her club foot. She has been in a cast up her leg for quite a while. A couple weeks ago though, the last cast was removed and she is now wearing a foot brace that will help position her foot in the correct position. After a couple months of that, she will be put in food braces that will keep both her legs stationary. No kicking for this little one. This foot brace is called the snowboard because it locks their feet in “bindings” like a snowboard. Who knows, this might be good later in life when she is a multi-millionaire snowboarding champ.
Her lungs seem to be doing good. She was on 3/4 liter oxygen, but we have had a couple doctor visits and she has been turned down to 1/2 liter oxygen. For those of you savvy with premie and healthcare systems, she saturates high (between 93 and 99) while on the 1/2 liter. Her doctor wants to turn her down to 1/4 liter, but in order for that to happen, she needs to saturate and sustain a 92 while at 1/4 liter before we can leave her at that level. That may be coming up in the near future, but until then, we’ll wait.
She is growing up too! A few Fridays ago (June 24) she smiled for the first time. Her grandmother was making funny faces at her and got a grin out of her. Then, last weekend (July 2), her great grandmother was being silly with her and got her to smile a second time :). Her great grandmother was also the first one to get Emery to laugh at 3 months old by barking at her like a dog.
My wife is doing wonderfully. She is getting tired of living with her folks (which is understandable) and she is also getting tired of me living in Colorado. I am looking for a job and will hopefully move out to Utah to be with them, but for the time being, there are no jobs in Utah and I am employed here in Colorado. This past weekend, we blessed Ashlynn at church. We had a ton of people there for her blessing, from grandparents from Idaho, Utah and Colorado, to friends from the ward in Utah. But also, My best man, Kevin, came out to Utah from Nauvoo to participate in the blessing. I hadn’t seen him for almost 2 years, but it was good to see him.
My in-laws bought an above ground pool, and Kevin and I wrestled in it like we were 13 years old again. We played, wrestled and cooked ourselves for about 4 hours in the hot, afternoon sun. We both walked away with bad sunburns. It was a load of fun.
I began peeling the other day and was flaking and getting all over the place. (Kevin, this is for you…. JD would love to do this to you, and it works!) I was tired of it, and I had an epiphany. Instead of peeling off the dead skin, I would tear it off with nothing other than Duct Tape! I had my mother tape up my back and then peel off my flesh with the Duct Tape! Sheets of dead, peeling skin came off with the duct tape. We probably used 6 or 7 good strips of duct tape, and cleaned up a months worth of flaky, itchy skin. The technique is like this. Take a piece of Duct Tape, and tear it at a length that it will reach across your peeling area. Apply (or have someone apply) the tape with a credit card or floppy disk as a squeegie to get the tape all the way down. Then either you or your helper will grab the top corner of the tape and SLOWLY pull straight down. Don’t do it fast like, as this will not pull off any skin, and frankly, it hurts more. Repeat until all the skin is peeled away. I would recommend not going over a particular area more than 5 times as it begins to get a little tender after a while. WARNING: This hurts! I won’t lie to you, I am sure it feels much like a wax job that our fearless women and spa-goers take. It honestly feels like duct tape being torn off your skin, but the benefits are wonderful, and the pain goes away overnight (Kev, try it! I dare you!).
On the computer Front, I spent time through May and June purchasing parts for a new computer so I could have my server separate from my workstation on my home network. Well, after getting all the parts, I found out that the Motherboard I had purchased was bad. I sent it back to the company to get a replacement, but they didn’t have one, so that left me with not enough computer parts for my system. I’ve been out of commission from my music and movies and stuff for such a long time that I am getting desperate. I am buying a computer from my friend to solve the whole mess. When I get the server up and running, we’ll have more about this.
Whew. I think I am caught up. I just need to share an Emery-isms with you.
My little Emery was outside and everyone was watching the airplanes go by and they were commenting things like, “That plane is going to Timbuktu” or, “That plane is going to Colorado.” When Emery was asked where one particular plane was going, she said, “That plain is going shopping!”