A Pirates Life's for Me

As you probably know Pirates 4 comes out at midnight tonight. Keanna and I are going up north tomorrow for a dance competition. She suggested that her and I go see it on Saturday. Well, I saw the first one a long time ago. I fell asleep during the second one. So needless to say Ashton and I have had a Pirates marathon this week. We have watched all three of them in three days. Now we are all caught up and ready to see the fourth movie. Ray, Ashton and Ambrea will be seeing it here while Keanna, Nate and I will see it up north. Arrgg, it should be some fun times.

Grangeville

Yesterday we received a fun package in the mail from Grangeville. Thanks so much. The "easy" dinners will come in handy, especially since I'm having to work nights for a while. They will also be helpful when we are traveling to different appts. Thanks so much. We really appreciate your generosity.

In case some of you don't know, Grangeville is in Idaho. It is a very small town in Northern Idaho. Ray worked there for almost a year. It is a looong way from here. Ray was only able to come home about every 4 to 6 weeks due to the cost and also the time away from work. Ray enjoyed working there very much and has made many lifetime friendships, but after much deliberation we decided that given our families circumstances it was better for us to stay here in Washington, UT. We are very thankful for the opportunity they provided and hope to always stay in touch with them.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all those beautiful mom's out there. To all of my friends, cousins, sisters who are such great examples to me of what a mother is. But I want to do a special shout out to my beautiful mom today. She is such a great example of what courage strength, and faith is. She has taught me the importance of service, and finding and developing my talents. She taught me the importance of continually strengthening my relationship with my husband. But mostly she taught me the importance of having the gospel in my life and always having a relationship with my Heavenly Father. She taught me to always pray to Him, to have faith in Him. She has taught me that no matter what, He will always love me.

I have so many good memories of my mom. Even during my teenage years when I was a dork, mom and I were good friends. I might have thought she didn't understand, or their rules were stupid, whatever, but I knew she always loved me. As I grow older I see more and more of my gma in her, and I see both of them in myself. One strong characteristic I see in all 3 of us is stuborness. It's crazy how those things are passed down.

Thanks mom, for all you do. I couldn't ask for a better mom. I love you.

On a side note, a quick update on Ashton. He improves a little each day. He is eating better (not normal), we are getting lots of fluid in him (this will help to get the fluid out of his right lung) and just trying to find things to help pass the time. We took him to sacrament meeting today, but right home afterwards. He spent a little time with his friend Andy the other night playing on the computer. He doesnt mind visitors as long as its short. He feels obligated to visit and it wears him out.

Home Again....

We made it back home again last night. The ward has been bringing dinner in and it has been so nice. We had been home no longer than 30 min and then dinner was brought to us. Do you know how nice that was? It was wonderful not to have to worry about fixing dinner after the long drive. It has been wonderful every night it has been brought. You don't realize how exhausted you really are until you get home and let down just a bit. Not only physically but emotionally. So having one less thing to worry about feels great. Thanks everyone.

Also, when we got home there was a package for Ashton from cousins in Minnesota. It had 2 different series of books, a ball cap, a baseball, and treats. We already started reading a book. We had never heard of either series. Thanks for the fun package. And thanks to everyone else who gave him packages before we left for surgery. He is just now starting to act more normal and asking to do some of the things out of the packages.

We feel like we are needing to continually give thanks to people. Please know we are so thankful for everyone and everything being done for us. None of it goes unnoticed.

Appointments, Appointments

We had an appointment with the cardiologist in Salt Lake today. Which means another long drive (4 hours), and another night sleeping in a bed other than our own.

The appointment went fairly well. Especially considering on Wed it's only been 3 weeks since surgery. His SAT's are still really low, until we put oxygen on. So that tells the dr. his lungs still need to heal. So he wants him to wear oxygen as much as possible. Also, they could see some fluid in his right lung. We are hoping the lasix (a diaretic) will help clear that up. If it doesn't then we will try a different diaretic. If that doesn't work then they will have to put in another chest tube. Noooooo.

He is still struggling to have an appetite. It's just not there. He has to make himself eat. According to our scale he lost 5 lbs. That's 5 lbs. he didn't have to spare. So he still needs to eat, drink, walk, and now wear oxygen as much as possible. We did switch his meds up a little. Not to anything different. Just the dosage and frequency. So onward with recovery, and then back we come in a month.

Good with Words

In a past post I mentioned that it's overwhelming to come home. Since I have a hard time explaining how I feel I'm going to quote Melinda because she said it best...."Being in a hospital with an unwell child is like being in a warp zone. It's hard to believe that real life is still going on around you. And it is difficult to go back to real life, even though you get so darn tired of the hospital."

Ashton is once again running a low grade fever tonight. We are watching him close.

We Made It Home

Well we made the long trek home. It sure feels good to be home, but at the same time it's kind of overwhelming. We were welcomed home with posters and banners on the doors and Ashton had a great surprise in his room. Our good friends Larry and Wendy, and their grandson Shandon, had redone Ashtons room. For Christmas Ashton had gotten a new comforter with black, blue and gray in it. They painted 3 walls blue and on one wall they put up corrugated metal. It looks so cool. And another friend ran and grabbed us a few basic groceries to get us by for a couple days. She also brought some yummy treats. We are so thankful to everyone who has done something to help us get through this. Please know we are all very thankful.

The trip home was a little much for Ashton. He was running a low grade fever last night. We talked to a nurse and she said it is probably due to the big day and he didnt stay hydrated yesterday. We gave him tylenol and put him to bed. We didn't get to bed till real late though. Lacey let us borrow ababy monitor so we could hear him in the night since his room is upstairs and ours is down. He said once he got to sleep he slept well. Better than I did. I was so excited to finally sleep in my own bed and then I didn't sleep well. But I have been catching up on therapy, cleaning. And tomorrow I get to run. Yeah. Anyone who who knows me at all knows how much I like to clean. I know, I'm nuts. But it feels good to come home and do some of the "normal" things.