First Day of School

#1 started school today. Hooray!! Isn't he a handsome kid?? :)

Summer Sum-up

Wow, I can't believe school is starting Wednesday! Where has the time gone?? This summer has turned out a bit different then originally planned, but we have had fun none-the-less. Here are a few of the big events from the past month or so...

Trip to Paradise, California - My Grandma Polkinghorne passed away in July. She was 85 and I'm sure is marvelously happy to be reunited with her sweetheart. I braved a 13 hour (each way) road trip with the boys to attend her funeral. I can't tell you how well they did! They were troopers! A few highlights from the trip: Stopping at the Salt Flats, celebrating #2's birthday and swimming in a canal.

A few weeks ago I was called into the YW Presidency. Lucky for me, I was put in just in time to attend Girls Camp! This past week we headed up to Bear Lake for four days and nights of fun. Besides having to rough it in tents, sleep through 40 degree temps at night and stave off misquitos we had a great time.

So that's our summer in a very small nutshell. We are looking forward to all the adventures the coming school year will bring.

Bet Your Husband Has Never Asked You...

To Drain His Cauliflower Ears

No, I'm not kidding. I was going to post a picture of a cauliflower ear, but just looking at them made me want to throw up, so if you're curious, do a little Google search and have a visual feast for yourself.

I won't go into all the details or my feelings on the matter, but Bryan has the oh-so-attractive cauliflower ear because he is training for his first professional cage fight. His ears aren't horrible, but have gotten painful enough that they hurt to the touch and he is having trouble sleeping.

How do you drain a cauliflower ear, you ask? Well:

Step One: Go to the medically acclaimed site YouTube.com and watch a couple beat up, rough looking boxer guys demonstrate the "do-it-yourself" method.

Step Two: Have a mini freak-out session with your husband, make a few threats, demand he go to a doctor instead, take a few deep breaths and calm down.

Step Three: Husband tries to go to an Urgent Care, but it's 8:30 pm and everything is closed. He comes home with a bag of insulin syringes instead...

Step Four: Husband begs, you finally tell him to hand over the needles because the prospect of administering a little pain is starting to sound better and better.

Step Five: Set up video camera because your deranged husband actually wants to chronicle the experience.

Step Six: Grab a Que-tip and a little alcohol and attempt to create a sterile environment by swabbing the infected area of the ear.

Step Seven: Trying not to shake too much, take the syringe and insert needle into the ear - just like the big boys on YouTube showed you.

Step Eight: Oops. Calmly explain to your husband that nothing is coming out and you are going to have to poke again. Second try works - slowly start extracting the blood that has accumulated. Continue to drain until the blood stops flowing or syringe fills up.

Step Nine: Repeat steps four through seven as neccessary.

Step Ten: Tell your husband he owes you big time. Grab something loaded with calories (you need to replace the ones you just burned by having your adrenaline spiked since even though you may have partially enjoyed it, you aren't used to sticking people's ears with insulin needles) and go lay down.

My Side of the Story

Well, word is spreading, so I thought instead of answering a million questions, I would direct everyone here and get it all taken care of at once. It's long a story, a little gory, so if you have a strong stomach, grab something full of calories, prop up your feet and and enjoy my side of the story:

As of Tuesday, I was 11 weeks pregnant. Don't feel bad if you didn't know. This has been a very different pregnancy from the start and I have held off spreading the news. Last Friday I came home from the gym and found some blood. I went to the doctor that afternoon, had an ultrasound and was told that the fetus had stopped growing and should expect to start miscarrying within the next few days. I was of course sad and disappointed, but have to admit, not totally surprised. I do feel in a way I was prepared for it. The doctor told me I could have a D & C or let nature take its course. I decided to just wait and have it happen naturally.

Tuesday I finally started bleeding. It was heavy, but stopped by noon so I figured everything was normal. Wednesday morning I started bleeding again, heavier this time (as in I would sit on the toilet and the blood would just drain out of me), but by noon it had stopped. I had started to feel light headed when I would stand but didn't think much of it. That evening I started bleeding again. Bryan asked if it was alright if he went to the gym and I said, "Sure". A half hour later the blood was really getting serious (I could hardly get off the toilet) so I hurried and got the kids in bed and laid on the couch trying to get it to slow down. This is where it gets exciting...

Suddenly I felt a whole bunch of pressure down "there". I got up, took a few steps and felt a huge gush. The next thing I knew I was laying on the kitchen floor, shaking. I realized I had passed out and must have hit the side of my head on the way down because it was throbbing and my left eye was starting to swell. I managed to make it to the bathroom. At this point I was pretty freaked out. I stripped from the waist down because blood was everywhere and just sat on the toilet for a minute. Somewhere along the way I had thankfully grabbed my cell phone. I called Bryan, but he didn't answer. I couldn't think clearly enough to scroll through my list of contacts for a neighbors number, so I called my friend Sarah - thank goodness for speed dial, the bad thing is she lives half an hour away. She has since told me that I totally freaked her out with how I sounded. I was having trouble breathing and I remember her saying she was going to call 911 and I said, "No, I will" and hung up. I stood up and passed out again by the front door. Once I woke up, I laid there for a bit trying to think. I made it upstairs, got a new pad, underwear and pants. Went downstairs, found my neighbors number and called her because I couldn't remember if I call actually called 911 or not and I knew I needed help. At that point I once again passed out on the living room floor and woke up when my neighbor was coming through my front door with the police.

Skipping some details, I got my first ride in an ambulance. Bryan had been contacted and met us at the hospital. They did a bunch of tests, but I was still bleeding like crazy. The nurse came in to clean me up a second time, I stood up, took a couple steps and passed out again. Luckily Bryan was right next to me and the doctor just happened to be coming in. They got me back to the table and I woke up wondering why everyone was hovering over me. They checked my blood volume level (can't remember the technical name for it). You aren't supposed to go below 35 and I was at a 26. They wanted to give me a blood tranfusion right then, but my OB came in and told them to hold off. They took me to surgery where I got a D & C and spent the night in the hospital.

The next morning, they checked my blood again and I was down to 21. I couldn't stand up by myself, was totally swollen (I'd had 10 bags of fluid pumped into me by then) and had a tremendous headache. The blood tranfusion was inevitable. Bryan was at home with the kids, my friend Sarah was nice enough to sit with me at the hospital for most of the day. She even made it though the transfusion - what a friend. After they checked my blood again, I was at 21.7 Not much improvement, but enough to get me on my feet and get rid of my headache. I really wanted to go home, I hate hospitals. They told me I could as long as I'm really careful (bedrest for 3 days) and if any of my symptoms come back I immediately head back to the hospital.

So, here I am at home. I have bruises on my shoulders, both sides of my head and a nice rug burn on my left hand. My face, hands and feet are still swollen and I feel like I've been beat up. My sister-in-law, Andrea, was gracious enough to take the kids overnight tonight. I am taking it easy and hoping not to see a hospital again for a very long time.

As I look back, I'm so thankful for all the small miracles and blessings that got me through the past fews days. I am so thankful for my friends who moved mountains to help me. You know, you think you are active and healthy and things like this just don't happen to you. I don't feel quite as invincible anymore...

My Bros

Since most of my family lives out east, I thought I would post this picture that my dad just sent. These handsome (maybe a little scary), crazy chaps are 5 of my 6 brothers. Joseph is the one missing, he is currently in Georgia kicking butt with the Army.

From left to right:
Steven (18), Michael (22), Sam (25), Don (27), Daniel (23)

I really have no idea how old they are, I'm totally guessing...

Here is a picture of Joe I just found, isn't he cute in his uniform! He's 19 - I think

Memorial Moab Mayhem

Okay, so we are a little slow at learning lessons. The last time our family graced Moab with our presence, we were literally blown to pieces. Despite our best efforts, our tent didn't make it through the night, finally giving up and collapsing on us around midnight. The kids were terrified, #1 was screaming, "We're gonna die!" So, we high-tailed it out of there in the middle of the night only to drive home through blizzard conditions the entire way. That was two years ago...

So, once again we attempt Moab with Bryan's family. Things started out alright. We arrived on Friday, set up camp, had dinner - so far so good. Then came the rain, it poured the entire night. The kids didn't seem to mind, but I hardly got any sleep. Saturday we woke to cloudy skies and MUD. Once again, the kids didn't seem to mind, but all I could think of was what a chore it was going to be to clean up everything...

Around noon we headed out to Arches National Park. We hiked to Delicate Arch and had a blast. What a beautiful place. It's a good hike, about 3 miles round trip and pretty much straight up on the way there. The boys did great and really seemed to enjoy it. We were grateful for the cloud cover and slightly cooler temperatures. I can't imagine hiking that in the dead of summer.

We made it back to camp just in time for the sky to explode. It rained so hard for so long, it was unbelievable. We were surrounded by lightning and thunder so close it felt like the air was being sucked from you. All 23 of us were huddled under shade tents trying to calm the kids who kept watching the adults to see if they should be terrified. My nieces' tent happened to be in the wrong spot and literally was swept away with the gushing water. All the guys had to rush out and pull it from the "river". Then, as swift as the storm came, it was gone. No one was in the mood to try to cook anything, so we hit the local Pizzahut for dinner.

Sunday was blue skies and gorgeous. We hung out until around 4:00 when Bryan and I finally called it quits and headed out - in the nick of time too. While driving out of Moab, the skies turned black and all you-know-what broke loose. Those back at camp were hit with fierce winds, torrential rain (again) and HAIL. I was very grateful to be in the car.

Despite the crazy weather, everyone surprisingly had a blast. The kids were oblivious. They were thrilled just being covered in mud.

The verdict it still out on whether we will brave Moab again. I'm pretty much done with tent camping. If Bryan wants to buy me a camper, then I might reconsider...hint hint :) We do have three boys though, so camping is inevitable, we'll have to figure something out quick.

This last picture is of #3 using his potty, enjoying the great outdoors. He wouldn't let anyone near him while he was taking care of business. Funny kid.

Cruisin'

Well, Bryan and I made it back from our first ever cruise.  Thanks to the "terrible" swine flu, instead of a Mexican Riveria vacation, we were treated to a California Riveria experience.  We weren't too excited about this change at first.  Our cruise line (Princess) wasn't very cooperative, they let us know that our only option was to cancel and loose all our money... Nice.

We ended up still having a good time.  Our ports were Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco.  My favorite was San Francisco where we toured Alcatraz, visited Pier 39 and Fishermanns Wharff and saw the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.  Our three days at sea were spent lounging by the pool - the weather wasn't real warm, upper 60's, but if you laid in direct sunlight and really concentrated on soaking in the rays, your goosebumps would at least go away - and reading books, my kind of relaxation.  

Although we had fun, we weren't overly impressed with Princess.  The food was mediocre (not that that stopped us from stuffing ourselves just for the point), entertainment was practically non-exsistent, the pool areas played elevator music and ice cream was a la carte.  It definitely seemed geared for an older crowd, say 65+

Bryan's parents came out and stayed with the boys.  I wasn't too worried about the kids, I was more concerned with Gary and Linda surviving.  But, thankfully everyone was breathing when we got back and Grandma and Grandpa didn't look too battle scarred.  They will probably go home and sleep for a week...

Princess did end up offering us half off our next cruise...The catch is you have to use it by 2010.  I was lucky to get this cruise, let alone another one in a year and a half.  Oh well, live and learn.  If we do go again, we will definitely pick a different cruise line.