Merry Christmas Memories

I have been so behind in the blog, but I wanted to take some time to do a little Christmas update (since we are now half way through January!). We had a great Christmas season. It was filled with two dance performances for Katelyn, a visit with Santa, and family. We were so lucky to have one of Chris' brothers (and family) stay with us over the holidays. Brett and Stephanie have one little boy, Hyrum (18 months), and the girls loved playing with him. Katelyn even learned to wrestle (one of Hyrum's favorite past times). Here's a list of some of my favorite Christmas highlights and pics.

1. Katelyn's cute Jingle Bells dance. Megan even learned it a little bit. We have another dancer in the making! We have the whole dance on video, but that will have to be added another time by Chris. I have no idea how to put it in here!



2. At Katelyn's first dance performance, Santa made an appearance. Kids are great. I asked the girls what they wanted Santa to give them for Christmas. Now, keep in mind, by this time Santa in Santa's workshop had already made/purchased an item for the girls for Christmas. I just wanted to prep the girls so they were ready to tell Santa something when they got on his lap. Megan didn't know what to say, but Katelyn stated she wanted paints. Of all the things to ask for, she just wants paints to make artwork. Wow. I should have asked her that before Santa had finished his work in the workshop. It would have been a lot easier!


3. Cute new Sunday Christmas clothes by the Christmas tree. I love my cute girls!



4. Happy Christmas day! I love the magic of Christmas with kids. They get so excited that it is contagious. That is enough present for me. I even forget that I might have something to open.




5. The hot Christmas present this year for the girls and all the cousins was light sabers. My favorite pic is Chris playing Jedi-Ninja king in the backyard. Megan didn't like it so much. She told Daddy to stop.


6. My absolute favorite memory of this Christmas was the girls gift from Santa. After all the presents were opened, we told the girls that Santa had left them a letter. The letter told them to look in the backyard for their present. They went to the back door and there was a new swing set with a slide. Here's the good part! They started jumping up and down. Megan (in the rain with new slippers on) ran full on for it. We asked Katelyn what it was. She said, "It's a...it's a...I don't know...I'm so excited I can't say what it is!" And there you have it in writing. Katelyn was speechless. Something that might not happen again for a long time.

Humpty Dumpty

So, around October 2, I started having some pain in my lower back. I assumed it was from sleeping wrong or something. It's happened before a couple times. When it has, I just get some heat packs for a couple days and it goes away. Well this time it didn't.
After a week, I called the doctor, whose first appointment was a week away. I went to the appointment, and some X-rays were ordered to see what was causing the pain. I had those done the next day. That day was Halloween. I waited to hear the results on those tests. The pain didn't really get better or worse from when it first came on until this point. I found that sleeping in our glider rocker helped make it better, but still it hurt to sit, stand, or walk. I was on an Aleve regimen until my doctor appointment, when I was switched to Tramadol. Then around 6:30 on the morning of Wednesday, November 5, I slipped on the first step from our main level downstairs and fell down on my rear. That's when the real pain started.
I was up because Megan was awake and wanted to watch a Dora or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I had taken my medicine for the morning and was headed downstairs to get her situated. When I fell, I was able to roll over and crawl to where the remote was. Then I laid there for a while, hoping the pain would go away. It didn't. Katelyn eventually woke up and joined Megan on the couch. I had her get the phone so I could use the intercom and get Cassi to come help. She got ahold of my mom, dad, and sister; and called 911 so an ambulance could take me to the ER.
My brother-in-law came over to help and the girls were shuffled to school and Amy's house. My family all stepped up, and with the big ambulance parked at our house, our neighbors and ward members called to see where they could help too.
At the hospital, they took more X-rays, and I was diagnosed with "acute chronic low back pain." It seems I may have had something from birth, where a few of my lumbar vertebrae aren't lined up exactly straight. It's not to a degree where surgery is an option or would do much. When I eventually got the results from the first set of X-rays, it listed the same thing, including "mild scoliosis with minimal degenerative change." The minimal degenerative change just means that I've aged since birth, so that's ok. :)
I was discharged after only about 4-6 hours in the ER, with a prescription for Valium, Vicodin, and Naprosyn. After a day on those medications, I started feeling much better. I spent the rest of the day in bed, and felt better enough the next day to wander to my office and get at least half a day's work in. Within a few days, my back has felt TONS better. I have sciatic nerve pain, I think aggravated or caused by my fall.
I've seen my doctor since. She told me that walking would be a good start for therapy. I took that as an ok to go ahead on a quick vacation to Disneyland this past weekend. (Look forward to a post on that soon.) I've also started real physical therapy. I am learning exercises and posture skills from physical therapy to let the nerves heal and strengthen my back muscles. I'm walking with only a slight limp now instead of a much more significant one I've had. So, this LONG story made only a little longer, I'm feeling about 80% normal and looking forward to making it all the way back.
This post wouldn't be complete without a HUGE thank you to my family, friends, and all who have helped out, thought about, been concerned about me.

Happy Halloween!

The girls couldn't wait to wear their costumes this year. Fortunately, Katelyn's preschool had a little Halloween party on Thursday, so their wishes came true. Katelyn chose to be a "Nice Witch," while Megan will tell you over and over that she's a Butterfly. Too cute indeed!

Dancing Queen

One of the reasons we were so excited to move to Arizona is that Katelyn could take dancing lessons at my aunt's studio, and have Amy or Kaley as her teacher. She has lots of fun in Amy's class, and even got to perform at the Arizona State Fair. Here's the full dance. She's the tall one in the middle.

It was a fun family outing.  Katelyn was excited to wear bright pink lipstick, and Megan danced along from her chair.  Afterwards, they each got to pick a ride before we had to head home.

Katelyn turns 5!!!

Wow. I can't believe that 5 years ago today Katelyn transformed us from a couple to a family. We'll post pictures and stuff of her day, party, etc. later, but I wanted to write before I went to bed how proud we are of both her and Megan. We're extremely blessed to have such beautiful, intelligent girls. It's always a roller coaster when it comes to kids, but we love them so much. The last 5 years have seen amazing changes in our lives. Then, we were in student housing, I was almost finished with school, and Cassi was holding down the fort from the OR at Utah Valley. I was just an intern, not expecting to stay in Utah or with Novell, but now am amazed at what we learned and how many life-long friends we made because we stayed for a while longer. Now Katelyn is in pre-school and dancing, and her life is getting busier every day. Katelyn really is our pioneer, guinea pig, and little mother. I'm greatful to be her father. Today we took her to see Wall-E. She got tired in the middle, and asked if she could sit on my lap. I look forward to those "payoff" moments when you know the bumps and bruises are worth it. Happy Birthday, Katelyn.

Love,
Dad

Visitors

Visitors are always fun, right? Well, the people kind yes. Other kinds, not so much...more on that later.

First, Cassi's posted already that her parents came and spent a few days soon after we were in. It was fun to see them, show them the area (though I didn't really show them anything - they loved to go driving and discover), and of course show them the house. They got to be here for Katelyn's first day of preschool, and I know Katelyn liked that.

This week we had a visit from Steve and Georgia (great friends from Springville), who were visiting one of their kids and his family who just moved to Scottsdale. We were so glad they came over and caught us up on all the happenings in our old 'hood. Here's a shout out to anyone planning a trip to the Mesa area: Come on over!

Finally (and I've been meaning to post on this for a while) are the non-human visitors...scorpions. Arizona Bark Scorpions to be more specific. In all the years I lived in AZ before starting BYU and living in Utah, I never saw a scorpion, except maybe at the zoo. We figured that since our house is 16 years old, that any groups of scorpions would have been persuaded to move on by now. Apparently that isn't the case; they've been happily living in our cinder block fence, venturing out for food at night. We think our sellers moved out around July 31st, and we didn't start moving in until August 13. So the house was empty, and under new "micro-management" for a couple weeks. I don't want to alarm - we didn't have an army to conquer. But one scorpion is almost enough for a pregnant wife to say "I'm not staying here, let's not move in." :) After a couple treatments by the pest control people, and now the weather is cooling down, we (knock on wood) don't see any in the house anymore, and we only see a small number along the back fence at night. The back fence residents will be eliminated when I finish getting my hunting tools together. I'll post another night about our ward's scorpion hunter. For now, I'll just say that she's given Cassi hope, and fired me up to start handing out the eviction notices.

Our house

I finally have a picture to share of our new house. We still love it and we love being here. Oh, and I should add that the van is not mine. My parents got to visit for a few days, and that's my mom's van. We do realize though, that our time is soon coming to be van owners, just not today. I didn't add any pictures yet of the inside...it's still a work in progress! Most of the unpacking is done. I'm still working on the organization and decorating.