The Update before the Update

I am sitting here at Virginia Mason Medical Center waiting for Ethan, who is in surgery.  He has been in there for 2 1/2 hours now and they just started the second side.  I thought that maybe I should update my blog a little bit before I give the update on him.  (I'll openly admit that I am trying to keep my mind off of what I voluntarily sent my son to have done to him.)

2/18/10
Brenden and I flew to Anchorage for an appointment.  He had a good time waiting in the Kenai airport and playing with the legos.

More noteworthy though was that his head actually hit the ceiling in the middle part of the plane because it was just that little!

2/23/10
Waiting for Brenden at the bus stop.

3/1/10
My kids briefly had an obsession with sitting in the dryer.  I'm glad that's pretty much over.

Ethan has a new love of play dough.  He even crushed his graham cracker into it.

3/6/10
We left on a midnight flight to Idaho.  We flew and changed planes and flew again and waited on the plane while more people got on and then we flew some more.  The kids were very tired and ready to be off a plane when we finally arrived in the Idaho Falls airport.

We had family pictures that afternoon with the entire extended family.  In preparation for that, the Thursday before we left, we took the boys for their first real salon haircut.  Doug and I were simply stating that we thought the lady could have cut their hair a little shorter, so Brenden quickly addressed his own hair.  I was livid.  Doug laughed and said, "Well, I guess you're going to look kind of funny for a little while."  Brenden told him, "Mom doesn't laugh about stuff like this..."

Someday my little men will have all of the girls swooning.

The attempt at the picture of all the great-grandkids:

3/8/10
The boys LOVE grandpa's air hockey table... and Nolan LOVES his new Transformers hat and gloves.

3/9/10
We went to visit Doug's grandpa and Tyson in Geneva.

Grandpa made us a delicious lunch,

Ethan was very impatient while waiting to play outside and since he couldn't get his own shoes on, he borrowed someone else's.

Doug's grandpa has a dairy farm.  The boys insisted the hay was too far for the cows to eat it, so they had to help.

And then it was time to go.

On our drive home, Brenden discovered his first loose tooth!  He couldn't have been more thrilled.  He has been waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

3/10/10
Doug had to go home.  His sister Marinda was scheduled to have a baby out and ready to be seen before he went, but things didn't go as planned, so he still hasn't seen his new nephew.  The boys and I dropped Doug off in Idaho Falls and made a trip to Utah.  We stopped in Pocatello to see our old home, friends, and family along the way.  We went to Senor Iguana's, one of our favorite places in Pocatello.  We also got to see Donna, Brenden's (sincerely missed) teacher for the deaf.

3/12/10
We think cousins are the best!

My mom took us all to Chuch E. Cheese.

3/14/10
My mom threw Brenden a little family birthday party while we were there.

And Brenden wonders why I won't let him sleep in my bed with me:

3/15/10
We headed back to Idaho and stopped in Pocatello to see our good friends the Rudds.  The kids stood like this and watched Disney shorts for a very long time.

3/17/10
We were sitting at breakfast and I asked Brenden if his tooth, which had been barely hanging for days, was still there.  He reached up into his mouth to wiggle it and it came right out as soon as he touched it.  He carried it around in a ziplock bag all day.

Is there any question about how he feels about it?

We went to visit our new cousin and nephew Aiden.

It was nice to finally get to play outside.  It was a beautiful day.

3/18/10 

We colored Easter eggs.  

Doug's mom was pouring the vinegar into the mugs and evidently Ethan was not well warned.  He drank it.  He was less than impressed with his beverage.

He finally figured it out.

And that's all the pictures I have uploaded onto my computer so far.  I have many more between my camera and Doug's so be ready for another big update later.

Well, we finally made it to surgery.  There is a BIG LONG horror story to go along with that, but no one wants to read it (I promise) and I don't really want to re-live it.  We had a hard time getting here (and an even harder time getting plans to go home), but we're here.  Some story highlights: they forgot to get authorization from our secondary insurance, the surgeon resigned 5 days prior to surgery, and our insurance would not guarantee our eligibility for April.  All is right in the world, but it was hard to deal with from Idaho when I didn't have any of our information or the phone numbers for the people I needed to contact.  We had a big issue getting to our hotel from the airport here in Seattle, but we made it and that's all that matters.  We've been enjoying out time here, but more about that later...