Our Morning View

As we were eating breakfast this morning, we looked out on the front porch and saw this:

and this: 

and this: 

and this: 

When I went outside to take pictures, I also saw this:

and this: 

and this:

Beautiful???  

Yes.  

Creepy beyond all imagination and way too like the old Arachnaphobia movie ???? 

YES!!

Jesse Loses a Tooth!

Well, Jesse has finally joined the ranks of the toothless.  He's been waiting a long time and put up with 2 loose teeth for the last several weeks.  Today, with the help of Daddy, one came out!  =)  Here he is displaying his accomplishment.  

Prince Edward Island

Heath's mom an I just got back from a trip to one of the most beautiful places on earth!  Prince Edward Island, famous for red sand beaches and Anne of Green Gables.  Hardly any people, sunny and 75-ish degrees, perfectly amazing.

For four peaceful days, we marveled at God's gorgeous creation and soaked in the beautiful weather.  We enjoyed lobster, raspberry cordial, and delicious breakfasts at our B&B (called "Kindred Spirits" of course),  We also learned a lot about LM Montgomery (author of the Anne books).  It was a very relaxing trip.  Rather than ramble on about it, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Lisa

“A death in the family”. That's a phrase I've never had to use before. Our family has never experienced the sadness of losing anyone. Until now. Other than my great-grandparents (whom I didn't know very well) I've never lost a close friend or family member. I've never had to say, “My ________ died.” Until now.

The last time I saw my aunt Lisa was April 2011 on one of our huge family trips to the Outer Banks. We had a nice, long conversation on the beach—the first time the two of us had ever had such a “real” conversation. Amidst all the chaos of our big family gatherings, I remember thinking how nice it was to talk with her one-on-one, and I was looking forward to the next time we could do that. But I guess that next time will have to wait until Heaven. Last August she was diagnosed with cancer, at the age of only 44. I was scared, but I thought, “Today's medical technology and doctors will fix her.” But they couldn't. As it got more serious I thought, “God's just using this as a trial to draw us all closer to Him. He will heal her.” But He didn't. And now, I keep wishing I'd committed every word of that last conversation to memory. With all her treatments and surgeries and all the family taking turns visiting her, I never got a chance to see her again. We kept in touch by email, but that talk on the beach and the good-bye hug a few hours later, are the last memories I have of her.

What do we do with this? How does a family ever go on without one of its members? Will we ever be the same again? In one way, I know we won't. In this lifetime, we'll never hear Lisa's contagious laugh or see her beautiful smile again. She won't be there adding life to our beach trips and love to our Christmases. We won't have her around to talk with, joke with, laugh with. There will always be something missing when we get together.

And yet I know that our family WILL be the same in some ways. I know we won't lose all the precious memories we have of Lisa. I know we won't lose the connection we all share. I know we won't lose our ability to have fun, even though we've faced grief. And I know we won't lose our faith. Though God didn't answer the way we wanted Him to, He is still good, He is still in control, and He still desperately loves us and will carry each of us through this time of grieving.

Lisa has been an inspiration and an example to many. Her faith was strong, and now her faith and hope have been realized in meeting her Savior face to face. She persevered through suffering, and now her suffering is over. I know she has touched many lives and that God will use this for good. But it hurts. Saying goodbye is always hard, and saying goodbye for a lifetime is so painful. But on the other hand it is just that—a lifetime. And a lifetime is so short compared to eternity. Because of Jesus we'll have all eternity to spend with Lisa, and with Him. Because of Jesus we can grieve without being hopeless. Our hope is fulfilled in Christ, and we will see Lisa again; we just have to wait a little longer than we'd like.

Lisa, we love you and miss you so much. Can't wait until we're together again.

Our Road Trip

Well, we survived.  2300 miles, 2 adults, 4 kids, 1 pick-up truck (with 6 seats and 4 doors thankfully), 1 bathroom remodel, 4 doctor appointments, 2 hotels, 1 former roommate and her 3 family members, 2 parents, 1 brother, 1 sister, 1 brother-in-law, 1 nephew, and about 38 hours of driving not counting stops = one tired family!

We just got back from our summer "vacation."  Part of it was Tabitha's appointments, and most of it was work for Heath, but nonetheless, it still had some vacation aspects to it.  :)  We went out to my parents' house in Omaha, NE, with a dual purpose:  Heath could remodel a bathroom for my sister and her husband, and the rest of us could have fun visiting!  I feel a little bad for Heath, but mostly thankful that I have such a wonderful husband.  :)

We got to meet up with my freshman-year roommate, Rachael and her family.  The kids had a blast swimming in the hotel pool, and Rachael and I really enjoyed catching up after 10 2/3 years!

Rachael and her girls with me and half my kids

Tabitha's appointments went fine.  She still has kidney reflux, worse than before.  So her urologist has increased her medication for that.  We're working on scheduling, but sometime in the next 3-6 months or so she'll be going back for kidney surgery and Malone surgery.  The extent of the kidney surgery will depend on how this medication affects things.  They'll do more testing when we get there--hopefully things will be good enough that she'll only need the kidney adjustment and not bladder reconstruction.  So pray with us for that!  Also, she'll be having a "Malone" put in her belly button.  This is a little opening, via the appendix, that will enable her to have her enemas that way.  She'll also be able to do it herself eventually, which will be very important as she gets older!  At this point it looks like she'll need catheters for life, and probably enemas too.  But they do say sometimes kids in her situation will be able to manage without enemas when they're older, but there's no way of telling whether or not she will be able to.  I'm trying to just take it a day at a time.  She isn't bothered much by any of it, but I get easily overwhelmed when I think of this going on forever.  Pray for me to walk step by step, without trying to figure out the future!

After the medical stuff we continued our drive all the way to Omaha.  It was wonderful to see my family!  Well, half of my siblings were away (Jeremy--working at a camp, Ashley--teaching in Korea, Michael--stationed in Alaska), but we got to see Stephen and Carrie and Lcas (her husband), plus Mom & Dad, and Michael's son Aidan.  We also got to meet Mom & Dad's baby foster daughter.  We did a lot of fun stuff with them, and it's always good to see everybody.

such cute sisters

Rayanna with Grandpa & Grandma

the boys with Uncle Stephen

Aren't we cute?

 . . . or maybe not.

Heath & Lcas

Grandma and the boys put on a magic show for us!

Heath spent the whole week working on Carrie & Lcas' bathroom.  It was a big project, but they were able to get it done on time.  Then we drove back over 2 days.  The trip went astonishingly well until the last couple hours, when we had all had enough and I lost my temper and let everyone have it!  Such a nice way to end a trip!  >:-P  But we're home now and resettled.  I'm very thankful for the chance to go and for the safe and (almost) problem-free trip!

A Plant Mystery

Plants.  They're really an amazing part of creation!  We spent this year studying just plants in science, and it's been fascinating.  In my imagination, I have a beautiful vegetable garden, an orchard of the finest fruits, gorgeous flowers, delicious berries, and lovely house plants too.  But in real life, it's not quite like that.  Most plants that I attempt to grow end up having a short life span.  I even killed a Bonsai tree . . . you know those trees that are supposed to last for hundreds of years?  Yeah, one of those.  But my lack of gardening ability is not the point of this post.  The reason I'm writing is because we have a strange situation going on with one of the trees in front of our house.

It's a Japanese maple that we planted shortly after moving here, so about 8 years ago.  It's always been a pretty tree...nice red leaves, dwarf size, very lovely.  Well, remember the blizzards of 2010 here in Maryland?  We got seriously dumped on that year!  The snow was so heavy that it broke one of the main branches off our Japanese maple.  When the snow melted, we had a very dilapidated tree.  But it survived, and new growth started to show where it had been injured.  So far, nothing too mysterious about that.  But the new growth started to look rather strange, and this spring it really took off and grew fast--much faster than the little dwarf maple tree had ever grown!  But the weirdest part is that it looks like a completely different type of tree!  See for yourself!

The red and light green sections are part of the same tree, and the green part is as big as the red but it's only been growing for 2 years, and the red has been growing for 8+!

How can these leaves be growing from the same tree?

I cannot figure this out, so I thought I'd post it publicly in hopes that a botanically-inclined friend might be able to explain it.  (Hey--does having a really cool 2-in-1 tree make up for all the plants I've killed?)

Velo . . . pharyn . . .geal . . .what?

Velopharyngeal insufficiency.  I'd never heard of it either.  But it turns out that is what was causing Tabitha's voice to sound like "The Nanny" (remember that show)?  Her speech teacher last year recommended that we have her checked out, so the ENT sent us to the cleft clinic who diagnosed her with this Velo-thingy, and we finally had the surgery this week.  In normal-people terms VPI means that the part of the soft palate that's supposed to close off when we talk (preventing air from going out your nose) doesn't do that on Tabitha's.  So that's why her voice sounded so nasally.

She had surgery on Tuesday.  I'd put it off for awhile basically because it seemed like such a petty thing to have surgery for.  Since her last surgery totally rebuilt her uri-gyno-colo-nephro-rectal-ogical system, this seemed kind of silly.  It's especially funny how they go over the anesthesia and pre-op questions every time.  The first few times it was reassuring.  Now it's just humorous.  Has she had anesthesia before?  Um, yes, at least 9 times on our watch.  Has she had any surgeries before?  Yes, 8 at last count.  Can we explain how the PCA pump works?  This was explained by at least 3 different people on Tuesday, even though Tabitha probably could've explained it better herself.    Anyway, we made it through all the pre-op stuff.  She did great with not being able to eat.  Her surgery wasn't until 1:30 pm....I would've been no one to mess with after that long without food!  But she was great.

The doctor ended up being able to do a less-invasive version of the surgery than he'd originally planned.  That meant she didn't have to stay a night in the ICU, and her healing was much faster and without risks of causing sleep apnea, etc.  So we were very thankful for that!  Everything went well.  She spent one night at the hospital (my turn to stay with her), and other than some nausea Tuesday evening, everything was easy!  By Wednesday she was feeling fine and eating fine, so we went home.  They gave us a 10-day supply of oxycodone, but by Wednesday afternoon she was feeling fine and hasn't needed it.  She has to eat only soft foods for another 10 days, and that'll be it for this round.

Her voice right now sounds stuffy.  They said there'd be some swelling, so we think it's mainly due to that.  We also think she's going to have to learn how to use her newly-shaped mouth/throat a little differently since she's used to talking through her nose.  The sounds you make in the back of the throat (k, g) are a little weird right now.  But her overall voice quality is much better already.  I feel like, even with the stuffiness, her voice has a more pleasant sound to it.  So I'm really glad we did this.

Next, it's onto her Cincinnati urologist to find out what's next in that department.  She'll be having some bladder and kidney tests on June 21-22, and hopefully we'll have a plan after that.  She's quite a little trooper, that's for sure!