See you in a week...

I'm off to Hawaii for a week... I can already feel the sand between my toes! The picture is really Samoa, but it's still tropical, right? See you in a week...

Hospital Visit

Sam and I spent 8 hours yesterday at Seattle Children's ER. She's had a mid-grade fever since Wed. and starting Thursday night, she couldn't stand up. She couldn't even sit up by herself. It was very scary to see her trying to do stuff and just not be strong enough. I called her mitochondrial specialist early Friday to see if it was normal for mito kids to get this way with a fever. They said to get her to the ER. She doesn't have the swine flu (which is lucky since my best friend has a kid in the hospital with the swine flu...) just a cold. She just doesn't have the energy to fight off a fever and run the rest of her body at the same time. She was quite dehydrated and so they gave her an IV (horrible ordeal. Bad circulation + dehydration = 3 tries and a year off of my life) and gave her a bunch of fluid. She started perking up a little after the fluid and they also gave her a super-vitamin IV bolus that is supposed to help her get her energy and strength back more quickly. I'm exhausted. She's exhausted. But we didn't have to be admitted. Great thing to sleep at home. Now we just force fluids on her and try to keep her fever down as much as possible. She is able to walk (clumsily) today and it is good to see her back on her feet. What a trooper.

Sam update...

Sam had her muscle biopsy and a skin biopsy yesterday at Seattle Children's Hospital. (Great place, by the way.) It went better than I expected it to and she held up really well. It's weird that I fell all apart at my craft night, but apparently I had some pent-up emotions to deal with... We give her pain meds every four hours (we even wake her up to give them) and she seems to be holding up just fine. It's hard to hold her as she has an incision in her left armpit and a bigger one on her left thigh. But she's been up walking a little, and sleeps okay as well. Now we just have to wait the 8 weeks to get results...

Sam at her pre-op appointment.

The girls love this bench at the hospital
Having a great time with her sisters

Man, I love these kids. This last picture makes my heart ache, I just love them so much. I am one lucky mom to have four girls. I'm glad Heavenly Father didn't give the five boys I thought I wanted. This is much better.

(I posted a couple of other posts today, so keep on scrolling down...)

Quote of the day

As told to me by Elizabeth...
8 year old girl in primary (I'm the primary chorister) to her mother (excitedly): "Mom! I saw Sister Bishop at the bus stop this morning! She looks really different. Her hair was all wet and she wears glasses!"

It's now her favorite thing to sit on the side of the bus facing our house so she can wave and point every morning... I try not to disappoint her and look too human...

Holy Cow!

For the last four years I've played on and coached a co-ed softball team. First of all - our name rocks. Date Night. We are all just a bunch of married couples from church playing together. It's fantastic. We share a babysitter (who makes some serious cash for watching 10! kids...) and go play. The first season - we lost every game. The second season - we lost every game. The third season - we actually won two games! This season? WE ARE CHAMPIONS!!! We won our league! We rock! We won 6 games, lost 1 game and tied 1 game. We get T-shirts! And a plaque that we are all going to share custody of... Pardon me, while I wipe away a sentimental tear...

(I learned how to do collages, so know you get to stare at even more pictures... I'm in blue in the one picture because I don't have any of me playing co-ed, so that's from my women's team...)

Here we all are. Don't our shirts look great? Jodi and Don (aka Eagle Ink) made them for us! We all had funny nicknames on the back. They show in a couple of the pictures in the collage... It's worth reading some of them... Tom, for example is "Battle Cat"...

Just for fun... Here is what we looked like in 2007...

My Fair Ladies

As a non-lover of the Puyallup Fair, I feel it only fair (ha-ha) to fess up... We had a great time.

Alix on the bus ride to the fair grounds.

Brooke riding the Tornado with me. She is tall enough now to ride the scary rides. I'm in the process of grooming her to be my crazy ride buddy. I love how chill she looks flying through the air.

Erin eating "nibbley corn"