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. 

Day 348

1. Huang's US Culture bingo sheet from a class at Intel. Huang is a fellow student of Tyler's at PSU. He's from Vietnam and is here on an Intel scholarship. This was the third weekend we've had him over and it was fun as usual. 

2. What else? Jacob had a post surgery appointment up at the hospital. 

Huang and I cooked a Vietnamese style dinner. Yum!

Day 347

1., 2. Rebekah's lovely Christmas decorations. I dropped in for an impromptu visit, which was wonderful, while Mom had to do pre-surgery things at the hospital.

3. What else? A pre-surgery appointment with the surgeon, and then Mums and I went Christmas shopping. We now have to hurry up and cram all the shopping in so it's done by the surgery.