We have kept ourselves busy, as usual! We had friends come stay with us that we were stationed with us in Italy. They were in the process of moving from Alaska to ...? Not really sure. It was CA and now may be Hungary ... still waiting to find out. They are currently with family in Arkansas. The Decker's have 6 boys, so it was quite the houseful but so much fun! It was just like having family come!
The Decker's left on a Fri. morning and right after they left, I took off with Rylan, Bradly, and Elayna for a baseball tournament in Idaho Falls, ID. Morgan and Addi got to stay with their Aunt Shelda. It makes it so much easier to have 2 less kids! My brother was able to come meet us down there and we were able to meet his girlfriend. Rylan pitched a great game on Friday, but the 2nd game got rained out. Saturday at 2 a.m. Richard called from Korea and woke me up. He was on the baseball website and found out our games and schedule were changed and we weren't even playing in the same town! After frantically changing my ideas for the next day, we arrived to games just to have those rained out and the tournament canceled. That was the most expensive 1 game tournament I've ever spent!
The next week I had the opportunity to go to the Salt Lake Temple and go to another set of friend's from Italy's family sealing. They adopted 2 little girls into their family and had them sealed to them. I'd never been to a sealing (except for my own, which I don't remember)so it was a neat experience!
I experienced the flu twice in a one week span of time, and last Sunday was suffering through my latest bout. I heard Addi cry from outside, but was too sick to get up, and I figured she'd come to me if it was bad. Later, she laid down with me and took a nap, but never really told me what was going on. That night, I was picking up the bathroom and found blood all over in her underwear. Turns out she flew and landed straddle on the outside bar of the trampoline. I checked the source of the blood and sure enough, she had quite a tear that looked fairly deep. I contemplated taking her to the ER but being without a hubby, very sick with the flu, and getting Rylan ready for a week-long scout camp, I decided to just take her to the base dr. the next day.
Mon. June 15, I sent Rylan off to camp (praying he wouldn't get the flu!). We heard of several other scout camps closing due to Swine Flu, a stake canceling Stake Conference due to their Stake passing it around, as well as the next stake over also canceled their Girl's Camp. While he was gone, the first death due to Swine Flu happened in the next county. I just found out today that my neighbor had Swine Flu last week. He seems to be fine and was teaching Sunday School today.
Anyway, back to Addi... I called the base and after looking at her they decided that she would need to be seen by a Pediatric Surgeon and sent us to Primary Children's in Salt Lake. She needed the surgery before 24 hours and since it happened the day before we were a bit pressed for time. Thank heavens I have my Sister in Law here!! This is the first base we've ever lived with family and I have sure needed it this time! She was such a blessing to be able to watch all the rest of the kids while I drove Addi and I to Salt Lake. They immediately decided to do surgery and was able to work her in right away.
Her surgery lasted 45 min and they repaired the tear as well as inserted a drain tube through the scope sight, which was through the inside of the upper fatty part of her thigh. She came out of anesthesia very well and was even able to talk to her dad on the web cam before they released us. We got home and settled late the night and had a pretty rough night, but each day got better and better and she's doing awesome now! You can see the drain tube hanging down between her legs. The bottom is a bulb that collects the blood that drains and I had to empty it several times a day.
Bradly has finished t-ball and really enjoyed it.
Elayna is now potty-trained! I think she was the earliest and easiest child to potty train! She's only 28 months old. We've had 2 accidents at night, but I'm fine with that! It's so nice to be done with diapers FOR-EVVVV-ERRRR!!
Her big thing is to act like a puppy dog. It's very cute to see her crawling around on the floor. She loves to do tricks for you ... for treats, of course! She also loves to lap out of a bowl! She is always cracking us up. I can't believe how big she is getting and that I'm slowly closing in on this stage of my life. I'll miss it, but I'm excited to be done at times as well.
Our biggest news of the week is that we are now parent's of a TEENAGER! Yes, Rylan turned 13 years old today. We changed our normal tradition of presents after dinner so that Richard could watch before he went to work. We met him on web cam at 3 our time. He requested Chocolate chip waffles for breakfast, 24 hour cake, and pizza for dinner. He got a baseball that measures your throwing speed (like a built in radar in the baseball), a titanium sports necklace (supposed to be magnetic healing energy ... all the pros are wearing it and a big thing around here with a lot of the kids on the team), and a NY Yankees baseball jersey (#13, A-Rod, which is his baseball number for the Jr high and Sandlot team) Notice that Rodriguez's name is spelled wrong? Richard had it made in Korea and I guess they made a bit of a mistake ... still trying to decide if we want to fix it or not!Richard is doing very well. He just got called as 1st counselor in the branch presidency (branch of about 15 people! LOL!) and is also umpiring softball. He enjoys golfing at least once a week and his team placed 3rd in the golf tournament last week. He was playing on his squadron softball team, but I think the team kind of fell apart with a lot of people on swing shift and deployed or home on mid-tour. We've been so blessed to be able to talk with him on the web-cam twice a day. He's completely involved with everything we do (even surgeries!) and it has made such a huge difference! I'm hoping it will really help with the transisiton when we get back together.
As of now we don't know what's going on with our orders since he made Master Sgt. There are too many Master's in South Dakota, so we think that is probably out now. We are looking into a Military Training Leader position at the AF academy in Colorado Springs, but don't know if openings coordinate with when he leaves Korea. More to come later on this!
Coming up this next week is the twins' birthday and we leave for our big summer vacation!! Hope everyone gets to enjoy some nice weather, since we aren't! That's about it for us! Love to all! Kim
