Summer Vacation Part 2-Who knew bowling could be so dangerous?

It's a family tradition to go BYU bowling whenever the parents are in Utah and this year was no exception. Asher had bowled maybe 4 frames. We had a ramp and bumpers for them, but the adults still assisted in the process. It was Asher's turn. He picked up his ball and started walking it over to me by the ramp. He tripped, dropped the ball and landed with his chin against the ball. Lots of blood and 4 stitches later, he doesn't like bowling anymore. We'll give it a few months and take him again. Thank heavens for forgetting - especially about all the stuff that happens to you when you're 3.

Summer Vacation Part 1

So there I was, camping at Flaming Gorge, minding my own business, taking pics of my baby girl with her 'cousin' Olive...
when all of a sudden I was ambushed by HYRUM!!! - With a 6 foot snake draped around him.
WELCOME TO MY LIFE!!!

Springfield, IL

We went to Springfield after Nauvoo and had a great time there too. This was Lincoln's home.

We also went to the Lincoln Memorial and all rubbed Lincoln's nose for good luck (and probably a germ or two).




We found a park to play at while Brad was at his conference.

And of course, the vacation was finally complete with a little critter joining the show. Hy caught a frog, loved it, and let it go 10 minutes later.

Nauvoo

We went with a group to Nauvoo, IL in May. It was fantastic! Here's the pic of all of us in our pioneer garb. I promise Samara was not choking on the bonnet, she just didn't like it.

This is one handsome pioneer boy!

Samara loves animals, even/especially wooden ones.

We stayed in the Nauvoo House run by the Community of Christ. They were great to us. This is how close we were to the river - literally 40 feet or so.

About 100 feet in the other direction are the graves of Joseph, Hyrum and Emma.

The turtles in the Mississippi River would climb up on these logs and bask in the sun. My boys thought that was the coolest thing ever...until they saw something else cooler...

The weather was perfect and we absolutely fell in love with the ambiance of the little town.

I'm still alive and breathing

No, I have not had ear problems for months. I lost my hearing in my left ear but got it back about 3 weeks later.

It has been too long of a hiatus from blogging. Today is the first day of school though so hopefully I can use some of my time to play catch-up. We had a great summer and were lucky enough to see most of our families and a lot of friends. If we didn't get to see you this time, your time's comin'.

I also had an ultrasound today. I am 20+ weeks and everything looks great. For those who remember Samara's placental (?) problems, you can probably guess that I was overly interested in where the placenta is this time. Well, it's high and looks good and will not interfere with the delivery. My due date is the same - January 22nd. As for gender, all we asked is that the technician be sure that it is either a girl or a boy, but we opted not to know. He gave us some of those 3D pictures. We had never had them done before - they are awesome! This is the closest we got to seeing the face.
What you see here is the hands grabbing the feet with the head in the lower right-hand corner.Flexible little one, huh?

Here's the more traditional view.

Everything looks great! It's amazing that they can see so much.

I will try to get on here soon and update everyone on the other happenings of our little (and growing) family.

bull-a-who-what-huh?

Bullous Myringitis. It's in my ear. Every doctor that has heard what I have looks at me and says, "Oh, that's pretty rare!" Then they ask to look. I don't feel like a freak or anything... Or they look at me like I think I have that but they really know I don't. It's awesome! They don't know how I got it, which stinks, but I am not contagious, which is good. They did say if I took some of the infection out of my ear and shoved it far enough into someone else's ear, they might get it. Nice, huh? And it's called bullous myringitis. Here's another. It's as awful as it sounds. Ear infection with blisters on your eardrum. The only symptom is severe ear pain. I got it Wednesday, the 10th, at 4am, and their only treatment at that point was pain control with Vicodin. I got to the ER at 4:45am and left at 3:15pm. I waited pretty much all that time for an ENT to be available. I lost my hearing around 11am. The ENTs are certain that I have the viral strain despite the websites suggesting that the hearing loss is caused by the bacterial strain. I had ear drainage on Wednesday night and I thought I was all better. Thursday I went to my Primary Care Doc and she found 2 more blisters. Friday was much worse. So I decided to have a 'procedure.' During said procedure, they deadened the ear with drops which caused what the doctor described as "excruciating pain for 5-10 seconds." Check. Then he popped one blister. Didn't feel it. Then he put a small hole in my eardrum, smaller than if they had put tubes in even, but big enough to get the tip of a little vacuum in there. Doctor said, "You might feel some pressure and hear a whooshing sound." Check and check. He had sucked out all the infection!! He looked in my ear and found another blister that the infection on the inside of the eardrum had been pushing against the wall of my ear canal. It had not been deadened, but he needed to pop it. He said, "Unfortunately, you're going to feel this." CHECK!

Today, I have no ear pain, but I am constantly exhausted. I have little hearing in my ear, but the doctors have done a few tricks using tuning forks and discovered that I have not lost the hearing altogether, I just can't hear right now. It should return in a few weeks. But honestly, I don't really mind. If I lay with my good ear down, I hear almost nothing and can rest beautifully. Oh, and BTW, I'm 8 weeks pregnant. :) Due Jan 22nd. Been feeling fine up until this.

FREEDOM!!!

Samara's cast came off today.