Significant Changes

Hallie had her surgery this week, and we attended our new ward for the first time.

Fergus pulled his stent out. Dumb cat. We couldn’t take him back to the vet over the weekend or on Monday, so Mike took him on Tuesday after taking the kids to school and seeing Hallie off. Fortunately, Fergus seemed to be healing well, and by the end of the week he was back to normal, which included making another successful escape (for all of five minutes this time) on Saturday.

On Monday morning, we went to Santa Barbara for a “last hurrah” of sorts before Hallie’s surgery.

Over the weekend, Hallie had started her liquid diet in preparation for surgery. Then Tuesday was the big day! Hallie’s mom took her to the hospital in the morning, and a few hours later the doctor called Mike to say that Hallie was all done and all was well. All Hallie remembers of the first day is saying, “Why did I do this?” after waking up and at one point seeing Mike and the kids at the foot of the bed.

Hallie spent two days healing in the hospital before coming home on Thursday evening. Hallie was lucky to be able to share a room with Beverly, a lady from Hallie’s Options class. It was nice that the two knew each other and could comment back and forth about what happened. During her brief stay at the hospital Hallie had several visitors some of whom she had never met before but will now be at church with us. How wonderful these sisters are! Hallie enjoyed having her sister and her kids and her parents come to visit on Wednesday. Sawyer has taken control of Trixie Coconut and loves it! Shhh, don’t tell Landon and Eliza.  

In the meantime, with the generous support of family and friends, Mike managed the fort at home with the kids. We’re pretty sure the kids still have all their fingers and toes. Feet are pretty dirty though. We kept the house from burning down, although Landon did decide to use a flint and steel fire starter indoors. Yeesh.  

We picked Hallie up on Thursday after taking a brief trip to the beach, which turned out to be strangely . . . deserted. Hmmm.

On Saturday, Mike gave the boy a buzz cut. Now he’s looking cool for the summer.

In the evening, Hallie attended a baby shower for Courtney, a friend in the ward. During the evening Hallie felt fine. The next day not so much.

Mother’s Day was quite low-key what with sick children at both of the grandparents’ homes and Hallie recovering. Breakfast in bed for Hallie consisted of a popsicle and a vanilla protein shake. Due to gas moving around inside, it was hard for Hallie to breathe in the morning, and Hallie almost brought back up the small amount she had eaten before church. Thanks to a quick thinking Denise Harrison who followed Hallie out of church, a Pepcid seemed to do the trick. Thank heavens! Church starts at 1:00 pm again, so Dad and the kids had a long, relaxing morning.

We were happy to see familiar faces at our new ward when we went to church. Lots of new people were there to meet too. Familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time. Both kids are in bigger primary classes than they have ever been in. When the Bishop asked for the primary and youth to come and sing it was really a blessing to see so many stand up and sing the Armies of Helaman. It’s been over a decade, if not longer, since we’ve been in a ward with so many children and youth. It’s almost weird!