Day 366 - New Years Eve

1. Spent some time in the morning working on Herbert

2. Tyler and I saw Les Mis together!

Day 365

1. Enjoying my Christmas scarf from Ange. A quick after church selfie!

Day 364

1.-4. Laura (visiting home from teaching in Hawaii) and I went to visit her sister and my friend, Katie. It was super refreshing, dinner was delicious, and the conversation was amazing. So thankful for these girls!

Day 363

1. Sunrise.

What else? Spent the day recovering and our lovely friends the Murrays brought dinner over. So, so, so nice!

Day 362

No pictures from today. Spent the day wondering if Jacob was going to be able to come home tonight. Around 5, just as the boys were about to leave to go visit Jacob and Dad for dinner, we found out that he was coming home, but it wouldn't be for a while. Then around 6:30, Dad called to say that the cars window had been smashed in. So Scott and I set off on a rescue mission and made it home around 9.

Day 361

Poor Jacob had surgery again this morning. I went along, since poor Mom is still recovering from her own surgery. It broke her heart not to be able to come and take care of her little boy. :(

Jacob was super brave though!

After the surgery, Jacob and I played bingo with some hospital staff and other kids. We could call in by telephone when we got a bingo. We were the first "winners". :)

The view from Jacobs room was of downtown Portland. Scott and Juli came up for the evening and brought barbecue. I went home with them and Dad spent the night with Jacob.

Day 360

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas was interesting, to say the least. It started out with our usual routine of waking up early and opening stockings. After we were done opening stockings, Jacob said "My back feels weird." Daniel then looked at it, and knew that something was wrong. We then all looked at it, and it was obviously infected. Whee! *insert sarcasm*

Juli soon came over and we opened up presents until lunch time. We then enjoyed Scott's potato soup for lunch and S&J headed over to the Paynes to open up presents with them. Meanwhile, I headed upstairs to take a nap, and Dad went in search of a store that would be open on Christmas Day because of course, we couldn't find the thermometer and we figured we should know whether or not Jacob had a fever.

By the time I had woken up, Dad had arranged to meet Jacob's surgeon at the children's hospital  so the three of us left to head up to Portland. We met with the surgeon and he said that the surgical site needed to get cleaned out and Jacob should come back in the next day for surgery! Poor Jacob. 

We then headed back home, Scott had arrived right before us, and I finished wrapping presents, so that we could finish unwrapping them!

The boys who stayed at home had finished heating up leftovers from our Vietnamese Holiday Party, which made for a lovely dinner. And no clean up!

And then after a movie we went to bed!

Day 359 - Christmas Eve

1. Scott and I surprised Juli at work. He bought her a mocha, or something like it. ;)

2. What else? It was a crazy day. We basically had NO presents wrapped given the craziness of the month. Mom and I spent what little energy she had in the morning trying to sort out presents to get wrapped, but she crashed before we could get them all sorted. Basically we sorted them into two piles, one for the older siblings to wrap and one for the younger siblings to wrap. And yes, I kept on holding a blanket over the various boxes so that I could avoid seeing my presents!

Then we spent time wrapping presents and getting the house cleaned up for tomorrow.

Scott and I got to run a few last minute errands together, which was fun.

Then we came home to find out that Mom had caught the flu and was worn out from throwing up. Which meant we were calling the surgeon on Christmas Eve at dinner time to try and get a anti-nausea prescription and trying to figure out where there was a pharmacy open on Christmas eve.

Tyler had brought home Chinese food for dinner since that is our traditional Christmas eve outing, so that got put in the oven to stay warm. Between taking care of Mom and getting her prescriptions  we didn't have a traditional family dinner. But the food was yummy!

Day 358

1. I have no clue why this is the only picture I took of the Evan's new house. But it is. Andrew and I popped in for a little tour after church.

Day 357

1. Huang, Tyler, Andrew & Daniel playing a game they made up.

2. What else? I was sick all day with the stomach flu. Blech.

Day 356

1.-7. Today we had over 9 PSU students from Vietnam. It was so much fun. We celebrated Christmas with them. We had a farm tour, decorated a small Christmas tree, and cooked a Christmas feast with them. Bev graciously helped out, and it was fun to hang out with Kenny (Tyler's friend) & Liz who came over for a little bit at the beginning. Mom pretty much slept the day away, but she appeared a little bit for dinner. We also sang carols and read the Christmas story. Then we all played games for an hour.

And yes, it was rather crazy to do this dinner with everything else going on, but  we really wanted to do it, and Tyler did a great job organizing it!

What else? It was Mom's birthday too!

Day 355

1. & 2. Goofing off at Taco Bell with Andrew and Daniel 

3. Daniel took a picture of the sky on the way home.

What else? Mom's home!!!

(Full disclaimer... I'm actually writing this on 3/19/13.. but believe me, this is what I would have posted if I had felt up to it.)

Day 354

1. Jacob looking out at the hospital post doctor appointment.

2. Jacob and I enjoying our lunch in the kids wing.

3. What else? 

Today was interesting. 

When we woke up this morning we found out that poor Mom had spent all night throwing up in the hospital. Sounded just horrible. Then all the boys went off to their respective duties and Jacob and I headed up to the hospital for a post-op appointment. Afterwards while eating lunch, I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to go to my dentist appointment that afternoon, since no one would be home with Jacob, so I had to call and cancel. I felt so badly, but with excuses such as I'm still up at a hospital in Portland, and my Mom's recovering from surgery in the hospital and my Dad's with her so there's no one to take care of Jacob as all the boys are at work/school, I felt like I had a good excuse. 

After our lunch, Jacob and I walked out to the car, where, oh horrors, he fell down. I had been walking by him the whole time we were out and about, just as a precaution against this very thing, and then when we were about 5 feet away from the car, I started walking ahead so I could open the door, and he slipped on what must of been a water/oil mixture. It hurt him bad. (nice English there, eh?) So I helped him to the car, and then I went through the rigamarole of finding the number and calling the doctors office to get a hold of the PA to make sure there wasn't anything I was supposed to do. And of course the reception is spotty and the internet was slow. There wasn't anything to do so we headed slowly home.

Now for the past two hours I had been trying to get ahold of Dad/Mom to find out if we could visit them after the doctors appointment, but they weren't answering their phones. So we headed towards the hospital hoping someone would call back. However, Jacob hurt so badly and was feeling so nauseated from the muscle spasms that he wasn't up to it. It was really sad to drive by the hospital and not be able to go in!

Then we had to stop in OC, so we could pick up Jacobs pain meds, and of course our normal pharmacy didn't have it. Then I had to go to another pharmacy, and they had it but it wasn't going to be ready for a while. Well, Jacob was more then ready to be home, so I arranged to Tyler to pick it up on his way home and we headed home. 

Once home, we got Jacob resettled on a mattress with a foam pad on top so he would be super comfortable, and I worked on dinner. I also had to keep trying to get him to drink a little so we could get pain meds down so he would feel better.

Tyler and Scott came home and we had a little dinner, and then Tyler headed up to the hospital to bring Dad a fresh change of clothes. By this time they had decided that Mom needed to spend another night as she was still having a hard time eating. 

Later that evening, once everyone was home, we facetimed Mom and Dad. Everyone was piled on Jacobs mattress so that he could see, when I realized that he was not looking well, at all. So I shooed everyone off, and grabbed a bowl. Well, the second I sat down next to him, he started to ahem, up chuck. I was able to swish the bowl under him and catch it all! And let me tell you, it was a really good thing. Because, drumroll, please. He was lying in front of directly eye level with, the Christmas tree. Yes The Tree. And he would have covered the Christmas tree with throw up. And what do you do with a tree decorated in such a way? So far no one I've asked has ever had to figure that out, and I pray I never do! So yeah, after we realized what had just barely not happened, there were huge sighs of relief and Praising the Lords. Whew.

The never ending day ended finally. Andrew and Daniel both slept in the family room with Jacob (I asked one to volunteer and neither one wanted to miss out) and I watched Toy Story (1&2) with them until 1am or so, when I determined that Jacob wasn't going to throw up the latest round of pain meds. Whew. Well, that's all folks!

(Full disclaimer... I'm actually writing this on 2/12/13.. but believe me, this is what I would have posted if I had felt up to it.)

Day 353

1. A beautiful light snowfall fell this morning and then slowly melted away. I took a walk in it with Tonka when it was still falling. 
2. Our huge pin oak got trimmed! It went from a shaggy beast to a work of art. Don't know why we didn't do this years ago!
What else? Mostly just taking care of Jacob and doing household chores. Mom went into surgery this afternoon for a disc fusion and disc replacement in her neck. She was having a really hard time waking up afterwards and is in a lot of pain, so she's spending the night. Rather a sad evening.  

(Full disclaimer... I'm actually writing this on 2/12/13.. but believe me, this is what I would have posted if I had felt up to it.)

Day 352

written 2/12/2013

1. Driving to the Woodburn Auction we passed a store selling what looked like sugar cane... cool.

2. At the Woodburn outlets with Andrew doing some last minute Christmas shopping. 

3. My birthday present! My birthday is in February, but the gift that the boys were going to give me didn't work out.  So yes, it took a while, but I'm very happy with the end result.We also opened up Tyler's (11th) and Mom's birthday presents (21st) as Mom is going in for surgery the next day and we hadn't gotten all of Tyler's presents when it was his birthday. So it was a mini party!

3. Our rather last minute attempt at taking a family photo for Christmas letters. With Mom going into surgery, this was it!

4. The result. I think it turned out pretty well. You can't even tell that Jacob is wearing sweat pants. :) From the left... Sara, Dad (Jeff), Daniel, Mom (Ann), Jacob, Scott, Andrew, Tyler

5. What else? Finally taking the older hens and some extra bantam chickens to the Woodburn Auction. 

Day 351

1. Just realized I should post a photo of our stocking for old times sake... this will be the last time ever they are all together. Weird. But good.

2. A picture of real life right now. Jacob's spent the whole week lying on a foam pad in between the TV and the Tree, mostly watching movies or netflix; right now we're just starting Merlin. Tonka often lies next to him, right now he's lying behind the laundry basket. Mom's just starting to eat dinner as she was still napping when we ate ours. Dad and Andrew and Daniel are watching the game (49ers!) downstairs. I would normally be down there too, but was upstairs in case Jacob needed anything while Mom was sleeping.  Scott undoubtedly facetiming with Juli and Tyler is up at Huang's dorm spending the night.

3. What else? A great sermon at church, playing basketball!, catching chickens in the windstorm to take to auction tomorrow. And catching up on blogging.

Day 350

1. Tyler and Huang work on raking leaves before leaving with Daniel to go watch The Hobbit.

2. What else? Not feeling so great today. Mostly spent the afternoon and evening watching movies with Jacob. Oh well!

Day 349

Christmas Play! This year, they told the story of Gideon.

1. Tyler as Jerubbaal peeks out.

2. Andrew is the Angel Gabriel appearing to Gideon. (He was hilarious, btw)

3. Jerubbaal speaks to the Israelites.

4.-5. Closing with Joy to the World.

6. What else? Jacob was able to come and lie down in the front pew. I sat next to him; thus the semi decent pictures.