Breakfast

For those of you who don't know, Kenzie has limited cooking skills. She may complain that her cookies never turn out right and stuff like that but don't listen to her. When it comes to food it isn't looks that really count deep down. It's always taste. She may not be able to cook Easy Mac, mac 'n cheese in the microwave, without forgetting the water but look at her Breakfast Casserole. She can definitely cook.

Merry Christmas

This year it was only the five of us, plus Nico. We changed things up a little bit this year; I played Santa. For us we get one present from mom and dad and the other sisters; everything else comes from "Santa". Most of the Christmas shopping this year happened to be done with me along, hence the reason I was Santa. Please enjoy the pictures.

Nico

Dad's Stuff

Mom's Stuff

Jessi's Stuff

My Stuff

Kenzie's Stuff

Happy Late Halloween

By: Jessica Christensen

Once again this year everyone made the journey to my house! It is a long five hours of nothingness, but what can I say my family has fun when they come to visit me. As with every visit we were constantly busy this weekend. My family helped finish putting up my Halloween decorations. I had some of it put up, just not the lights. Also they brought down tons of great Halloween decorations that they found for a steal. Dad had to get a new costume this year, he is really just a big kid at heart! He loves teasing and scaring people. This year instead of him sitting on the porch and handing out candy he snuck around the yard and came up behind groups of people!

It was so fun to watch, who wouldn’t be laughing at three high school senior boys who were so scared they wouldn’t leave the porch for ten minutes and then they ran to the car. Compare that to the little kids that said “HI” to him or, him opening the door for a little girl to climb back into her brother’s truck, or when he climbed into someone’s car and just sat cause the side door was open on the van.Mom even got into the action this year. She revived the grim reaper costume and handed out candy and scared people as they backed away from my dad. We added the hair so people could tell she was a girl instead of a guy this year, it started out as Kenzie’s idea. Needless to say the kids came laughing, had a couple of good screams and left laughing.

Plus then I was dressed up as a witch cause that is what my students think I am some days! Gotta love kids!

Plus the girls found a huge spider to add to the excitement of Halloween, they affectionately named it Herman! This spider has a body that is about 10 inches big and then legs that are almost 20 inches long. Dad hooked the spider up to fishing line so that we could move it away from the house when people weren’t there and then swing it into their faces when they turned to leave. This was the girls job this year! They were really good at it. Sam and Kenzie decided not to dress up this year, though Kenzie did sport the wig for a little while.

They did have fun painting pumpkins and playing with dry ice.

Sam's First Pumpkin

Second Pumpkin

Kenzie's First Pumpkin

Second Pumpkin

Kenzie just loved mixing water with the dry ice to create a fog, although it didn’t work like we had hoped. She just cracked us up cause she was so excited to see what the dry ice and water does. One of the goodies they found was motion activated musical lights. We were all so sick of the lights from decorating that by the time trick or treaters showed up we were just hoping people wouldn’t move and set off the lights, While they were fun, they got annoying so we turned off the music and just left the lights on. All in all it was a fun night to be had by all.

The only damper on the fun night was then next day I found out one of my students, who had been stuck on the front porch, had been in a serious car wreck on Halloween night. He was going too fast and hit the soft shoulder and flipped his car. He was ejected from the truck and is lucky to be alive. Thankfully he only suffered a broken shoulder, broken cheek bone and both bones in his one leg fractured behind the knee cap.

Plus besides all of the fun we had dad took out a window for me and turned in into a pass through window. Don’t ask me why the people left the window there in the first place.

Then

Now

Also his wood working skills were put to use making me a new lecture for my classroom. Although he left me the job of staining and sealing it. I am sure this wasn’t the best idea, since I am not as good as him at doing this stuff. I just hope I don’t ruin it!)

The Cat in the Hat

Thank you Dad! I think this says it all.

All Clear!

Dad was scheduled for a colonoscopy on Friday, the 6. Thursday he had to clean out. To do this meant that he had to do a clear liquid diet on Thursday and fast Friday until the procedure was done. He had also done this fast for his surgery in July. He said the difference between this clean out and the first is he was in pain the first time and just wanted to get it over. He didn't quite follow the clear liquid diet. He ate a few tootsie pop's not meaning to actually eat the tootie part and a small smear of frosting. After his procedure on Friday he was starving. He ate popcorn shrimp, General Soe's Chicken and McDonalds potato cakes and sausage egg mcmuffin in 30 minutes or so. The results came back clear meaning he has to have another one in 10 years.

Dad's Story

On Friday, July 3rd after baling hay Dad started to pass blood. Mom figured it was just a bladder infection. Later that night he was in pain, causing them to wonder if it was kidney stones. The pain got worse enough that they went to the emergency room. They did a cat scan to find the stones and discovered a mass on his left kidney. He was sent home on pain pills with a doctors appointment scheduled for the following Monday. Dad spent the rest of the weekend on the couch asleep.

On Monday when they went to see Dr. Tall he confirmed that it was cancer. They would have to go back in the following day for a contrast CT scan to see the full size of the mass. That night they were back in they emergency room for a couple of hours because of the pain. When they went on Tuesday the results came back that it was approximately the size of a tennis ball. Dad was scheduled for surgery on Wednesday, July 8.

His surgery was scheduled for 11 meaning we had to be there by 9. Dad had just climbed in the shower to get ready to go when the hospital called to tell them they wanted to take him into surgery earlier. Dad has remarked may times, "I didn't really care cause I was starting to hurt again." Dr. Tall figured the surgery would last about 2 hours. It would be done laparoscopicly meaning one incision by the belly button big enough for the doctors hand and three smaller incisions approximately 2 inches long for the tools.

When they got in there they discovered that the tumor wouldn't be quite as easy to remove; they would have to dissect it piece by piece. While dissecting they cut the main artery to the bowel. This caused them to call in a specialist to put the pieces back together again. To get to the other end of the artery the had to remove one of the floating ribs just like they would have had they done it the old fashion way. In the end the 2 hour surgery was 8 hours. Dad was supposed to be in the hospital for 5 to 7 days but from start to finish was in for 11.

Dad lives in his chair now but it is driving him crazy. He may be seen on his bed just for different scenery or to stretch differently.

He is used to being active so this is driving him crazy. He still sleeps most of the time even though he is only on pain pills when he goes to bed. He is starting to do more active things, or at least telling us how to do it while he supervises.