2nd day/3rd night and we're doing well

Our standby seats were exchanged for boarding passes even though the flight was full. Phew! Karis did pretty well. My perspective is a bit different than Lena's as Lena was holding Karis while she was crying. Lena thinks we were one of "those" families... while I think Karis cried very little. A few times she did from lack of a good place to sleep but no lengthy tantrums with non-stop crying.

Tonight all the sisters will be in one house with their dad (and all 8 cousins together for the first time)... so it'll be special. We'll be celebrating at least 4 June birthdays tonight. Since Lena was buying dessert and today is actually my birthday, I'm thinking she played favorites and got one of my favorite desserts - fruit tart. YUMMY!

We're driving to sister Patty's in Harrisburg tomorrow for a change of scenery. Maybe we'll be able to visit some of my camping/canoeing friends from 15 years ago that live about 1/2 hour from Patty.

Sunday we're going to the church in which Lena grew up and then sharing a meal with some of her close friends and families.

Karis is eating really well. Now if she's only nap better. =)

Until the next report...

And so we're off!

Our first flight with Karis is tomorrow. We're hoping and praying she flies well.

We're gone two weeks to visit Lena's family and friends in DC/VA/MD/PA area and then mine in IL/IN/WI area. We're looking forward to Karis meeting those closest to us.

I'm sure this will be a learning lesson on how much we did not pack that we could have used as well as how much we could have left at home (Karis namely as I will never pack appropriately).

Need to finish my packing....

Happy Father's Day

Derek spent most of the day at church. Our church moved to a new location so it was a busy day for him. Hopefully in the midst of the busyness he felt loved and appreciated! Karis wore her new "Daddy's Lil Princess" shirt for the occasion.

JACK IN THE BOX

Karis has been laughing a lot more.  She most often laughs when she is tickled or scared -- like if you pretend like you're going to drop her or if you startle her.  I figured the perfect toy for her would be a jack-in-the-box.  The toy would make a cute noise and then out jumps "jack" to scare her.  Well, it's hard to find a jack-in-the-box nowadays, so I made my own version.  Here is a video of Karis' reaction.  

Another Rough Week

As if having my car die on me last week on the freeway wasn't bad enough! =)

On Sunday morning, I was in a rush to get to church. I hit the back of my head against the car when I was getting into the back seat to put the baby’s car seat in. I guess I didn’t duck low enough. The blow hurt pretty badly, but I shook it off and felt fine the rest of the day.

Derek remembers me telling him in passing that I had a headache on Monday evening. It must not have been that bad because I don’t remember telling him that. I woke up Tuesday morning at 7 am with a headache right behind my eyes. I took a Tylenol capsule (I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and I hate taking medications. The fact that I even popped one pill is an indication that I was experiencing a significant amount of pain). The pain progressively got worse as the day went on. The back of my head began to throb and then my whole head was in pain. It hurt to move my eyes and turn my head. Even walking increased the pain each time my foot hit the ground. I took a couple more Tylenol pills and a short nap but nothing changed.

By around 3 pm, Derek convinced me to call the doctor’s office. It was too late in the day to visit the office so they recommended that I go to the ER. As I waited in the waiting room, the tears began to flow. They were not only from the pain I was in, but from the fear of the unknown. I had never felt so much pain in my head and my mind wandered to the worst case scenarios.

Once I made it past the triage, they gave me a shot to relieve the pain. At that point, I ranked my pain an 8 or 9 on a 10-point scale (for me, a “10” would be a hot knife jabbed in my brain). The painkiller only reduced the pain to about a “7” and it made me so nauseous – not something I needed with all the pain.

They ran a CT scan and everything looked fine. They concluded it was a concussion. There was nothing more they could do so they discharged me. Again, tears started rolling down. I almost wanted something to be wrong so that I didn't have to go home in so much pain, especially not knowing how long it would last.

Getting up from the bed was excruciating. Sitting up in the wheelchair was painful. When I got to the lobby, I got really cold and my teeth started chattering. By the time I got into the car, I was in bad shape. Derek went back into the hospital and told them what was going on. I was re-admitted.

I had the chills and a low grade fever which are not symptoms of a concussion. They wanted to rule out everything deadly, so they ran some blood tests and did a lumbar puncture (similar to an epidural but instead of injecting, they extracted fluid to test for a brain hemorrhage and meningitis).

The lumbar puncture did not go very smoothly. The physician’s assistant couldn’t get the right spot so he had to poke me three times along with giving me three shots of local anesthesia. Then he called for the doctor. I kept praying that God would give this man wisdom as I continued to wiggle my toes to make sure I wasn’t getting paralyzed through this. The doctor came in and reinserted the needle for the fourth time which sent a shock wave down my left leg. So scary! But it worked and they were able to get the four viles of fluid they needed.

The results were good and they figured that the chills and fever were probably due to a viral infection. They discharged me again. I still wasn’t feeling well but by this time it was almost midnight and I was ready to go home. It took awhile for me to be able to put my clothes back on and get in the wheelchair. The journey from that bed to my bed was long and painful. My head was throbbing and I was extremely nauseous (and vomiting). We made it home and I was finally in bed at 12:30 am.

The pain was much better the next day. I was still hurting, but it was nothing like what I experienced the day I went to the ER. It took about two full days before I could be up and about. Lots of pain medication and TLC from my husband surely helped!

I have to say, God’s timing is perfect. Derek’s mom’s visit couldn’t have been timelier. She arrived on Tuesday and ten minutes after she walked in our front door, we were off to the emergency room. She has been taking care of Karis ever since. It has been such a huge help to have her with us, and I don’t know what we would have done without her.

Our friends from our small group came to the hospital to bring us dinner that night. They dropped it off just as I was being discharged the first time. When I was shaking in the car, Derek called them to see if they would come back to stay with me while he went back into the hospital. They came back immediately. They, along with many others, have been praying for me. I am so thankful!

I’m glad to have this all behind me and to be on the mends. Even as I type this, my bottles of Advil and Tylenol are close by and I can still feel a slight pain in my head. But, I know the worst is behind me and I’m thankful it was nothing more than a concussion and a viral infection.

Crazy end to the week....

Car trouble reared its ugly head this week. See earlier post about what happened to the car. I made 15-20 calls to salvage yards on Friday. Most offered $100-200 if they offered a bid at all. The highest offer was $600. I was awaiting return calls at the end of the day Friday when Lena suggested I put it on Craigslist.org. I hadn't considered that but it was a great suggestion. I decided to shoot high and price the car at $1,000. I knew it had to be worth more than $600. We had 4 emails in 30 minutes and I started lining up appointments for this morning. The first viewer bought it for the full asking price.

I've purchased many items on Craigslist, but that was the first item I've sold. I was impressed. I was actually pretty excited that it sold so quickly and for what we were asking.

The flipside is that I wonder if I should have asked for more... ha ha. Nah, actually I think that was a fair price. Through family, vacation, and friends we should have access to a 2nd car should we need one. That'll buy us some time to process what to do now.

As much as I'd like to be a motorcycle commuter, it isn't fair to put all the daycare drop-off and pick-up on Lena. Nor the grocery shopping and Costco runs. And, we have to put the stroller in the front passenger seat of my car because it doesn't fit in the trunk. Do we buy a large sedan? a small SUV? New? 3-yr old? Well-used? We don't know. But the cool part is that neither of us are stressing about it.

We are blessed to be in the position we are in to be able to have time to make decisions, both be employed, and have the luxury of a 2nd car.

- Derek

Already Making Trouble

I hope she's not always this cute when she gets into trouble.  If so, we sure are going to have a hard time disciplining her!

Take II -- 6 Months Later

Some of you will remember this first photo.  We took it about a week after Karis was born and put it on our Christmas card.

I re-enacted the photo for a fun comparison.  Same hat.  But same baby??

The day I hoped would be a 1-1.5 yrs away came today

No, we're not pregnant with another child.

I had dreams of getting another 50,000 miles from the Passat with only oil and oil filter changes. I would have been happy with another 18 months... even just 12.

I had a terrific lunch today. I had a lunch date with Lena and Karis. Truly the highlight of my day - scratch that - highlight of my week. The food was only average. But the company great. =)

I was floating into the office telling my co-workers how happy I was. Only moments later I received a call from Lena.

"The car died."

My heart stopped. "Are you okay? Where are you? (side street? freeway?) Where are you? (Which lane of the freeway?) Where are you? (inside/outside of the car?)"

Thankfully California provides free towing off of the freeway and a tow truck was there in about 5 minutes. I arriving shortly thereafter having borrowed Kerr's car (I had ridden motorcycle to work). I put Karis in the borrowed car and followed them off the freeway. I had never been stopped on the freeway before. Not a safe feeling I tell you.

Our insurance will cover $100 towards a tow. The referral tow from our insurance agent hung up on Lena when she said she was going to call around on pricing. Nice. The relationship between our mechanic and a towing company he uses provided nice savings. $45 with 5 miles free and then $5 per mile thereafter. Google maps says it was 16 miles. For you non-mathematicians... that's $100. Cool, huh?

I dropped Lena and Karis at home. When I walked in the door at work, the mechanic called. I thought this was good news that he called so quickly. He said he thinks it's the timing belt (which I thought was bad - thinking not expensive part but lots of labor to change). He said that the timing belt replacement was very reasonable. Phew! Then there was the "But...."

Apparently, the 1.8L Turbo 4 cylinder VW engine is a unique construction with timing belt. If it goes out, it leaves the top of the engine separate with the bottom. In our case when the car "died," the pistons kept moving while the 20 valves did not. This means (in my inexperienced explanation) that the pistons beat the heck out of the valves.

Bottom line, we're looking at minimum of $2,500 to repair. The Passat isn't worth too much more than that. Bummer.

What to do? What to do? Mechanic asked us to let him know by Friday.

I'm leaning towards one car right now. It's not rainy season. My mother is visiting for 10 or so days starting next week. Then we're gone on vacation for two weeks. Take time and let our heads settle.

The best part, for me, is that through this I am not getting stressed. Normally anything financial freaks me out. I'm thankful for a safe wife and child.

Please be praying for wisdom and good options regarding a 2nd vehicle.

Thanks.

The Many Faces Of Karis

 ... worried ...

!! shocked !!

{ content }

++ comforted ++

~ scared ~

** happy **

I think she has an acting career ahead of her.