Slow Road to Recovery

Well miracles of miracles everything went well. The only Mary-esque thing that happened was a nurse pricked herself during the surgery so they had to do the whole battery of tests to make sure I wasn't going to give her AIDS or hepatitis. And of course the hospital billed us for the tests. Stinking medical system. I don't even know why I'm surprised. We're also the proud owners of a $65 ACE bandage.

The first week post surgery is just a haze of pain and a nice Oxycodone induced high. I was really out of it. Which is a good thing considering this ranks right on up there on the pain scale, coming in between childbirth and having my spleen removed. The worst part for me was that Addy was terrified of the full leg brace and crutches. She wouldn't come near me for days and screamed when anyone would try to bring her over for cuddles. Thankfully she got over it and now considers a Mommy stuck on the couch a good thing as I'm always available to read books.

Now I've started physical therapy and while excruciating its going quite well. I've re-gained about 80 degrees of flexion and already have almost total extension. I'm still on crutches of course, and will be for several more weeks. I should be able to drive in 2 to 4 weeks and be back to normal in about 6 months. It's a long rehab but thankfully the crutches are giving me a great arm workout. Everything has a silver lining!!

I appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers while I was out.

ACL Reconstruction

The day I've hinted at several times is upon us. The day I've been dreading and looking forward to since March. The day of ACL reconstruction surgery. And it's tomorrow.

You might not know but I don't have the best track record medically. In fact if there is a one in a million chance of something going wrong it will happen to me. I'm going in for an ACL reconstruction but I've prepared myself for possible amputation, surgery on the wrong knee, even the wrong medical procedure altogether. Prostate exam anyone? I believe in preparing for the worst and being pleasantly surprised.

I've got the best man in the world taking care of me at home, some incredible pain pills and a baby girl who can cuddle when I'm feeling really bad so everything should be all right. It will just be a long and painful week. So for those of you who's sites I visit on a daily basis (ok twice a day) that's where I am. Stuck at home, hopped up on pain killers with a wireless router that just gave out and no internet. I'll be back in a couple of weeks! I promise! With an play by play of what went wrong and hopefully a quickly recovering knee :)

No Pictures for Awhile

Sadly while we were in North Carolina at the beach Addy got ahold of my camera. Apparently opening and retracting the zoom lens while burying the camera in the sand messes them up? Who knew. Anyway we were lucky to get the pictures out of the camera but that was all she wrote. Thankfully we have this wonderful thing at Dell called airpoints. Sell specific items = earn more airpoints = trade those airpoints in for prizes. We already have a TV and a vacuum from airpoints and if Nate can just sell a few more printers I'll have a new Nikon D60. The big daddy of digital camera's. The camera I've been coveting for some time now.

I hate that there will be this gap in Addy's life with no pictures. Especially since she is now WALKING! That's right, walking like a fiend and Mommy has no photographic evidence.

So if anyone needs a couple of server switches......... :)

The Beach

It's starting to seem like all we do is go on vacation! I swear most of the time we're boring homebodies immersed in chores, work and the daily grind. There have just been several "too good to pass up" opportunities this year. The latest was a week in the Outer Banks of NC with our 4 best friends and a house right on the water. The 6 of us have done everything together the last three years except go on vacation so who could pass that up!

I am posting these in no particular order since blogger and me have issues with posting pictures. One of these days I'll figure out how to cut and paste them in the order I actually want but until then....

This is the view off our back deck, and the beach was that secluded almost all the time. We were really lucky to have the last house on the street with an abandoned golf course on the other side so we really enjoyed the "private beach".

The nice thing about being that close to the water was coming back to the house for naps while everyone else could stay out. Well that and getting to snuggle and fall asleep to the sound of the waves.

Addy and Aunt Kristen, the worst spoiler of the bunch :)

Most of the week saw Addy in nothing but a diaper and a head full of tousled beach hair. It's a good look for her!

Loving the sand.

The funny thing is we put her down on the sand the night we got there and she screamed bloody murder. But then for the rest of the week we couldn't keep her out of it. A lot of us got a mouthful of sand thanks to Addy's exuberant throwing and a good stiff wind.

Playing with Uncle Lance...

And then crawling like heck when a wave would come in.

By the end of the week she was letting waves wash up to her neck and over her head a couple of times but that first day she was pretty cautious.

The first morning she was so excited she threw herself off our bed and got a wicked rug burn by her eye. That was actually the first of three times that she jumped off the bed. Some people just never learn

Her favorite place in the world. Anything is better if you're on Daddy's shoulders

You cannot imagine how many shots I had to take before I got one of her wearing sunglasses. She can whip those things off her head faster than you can say "take the picture"

Uncle JJ cheesing

Daddy looking stern and failing miserably

Mommy and Addy. You can tell who the picture taker in our relationship is since this is one of perhaps 12 of the two of us.

Such a beach bum

I just fell in love with her beach hair.

Daddy and Uncle Lance cheesing as well. Sadly a whole week away and no pictures of Aunt Jess. I don't know how that happened since she's normally more than happy to pose for a picture. I promise she was there and even uttered the funniest line of the week

"I hate the kite, the kite is dead to me now" And trust me, she meant it :)

Daddy and Uncle Lance buried and then made a sand car around Addy. You can kind of see one of the "wheels" in this picture. It was quite creative but Addy was "helping" so it lost it's car shape pretty quickly

Taking a walk and no one to disturb us as far as the eye can see.

It's incredibly hard to sit back and let your kids eat it in front of you. I know it's part of the whole parenting process, and letting them figure things out for themselves but still. Thankfully I think she learned her lesson about crawling full speed down a slight incline.

And she's a tough kid. After we washed all the sand out of her mouth and ear she was raring to go again

Who needs toys when you have Uncle JJ's blackberry?

One last "cheesing it" picture of Addy, Daddy and Aunt Kristen in the car.

I wish we had gotten a picture of everyone together but it's tough to get three couples and a toddler to stay in the same place long enough much less find someone brave enough to suffer the 37 false starts while one or all of us makes a goofy face. One of these days we'll grow up but not anytime soon

As always you can see a lot more pictures if you click on the link "Ayden's Pictures" I just didn't feel like captioning 15 pictures of Addy throwing sand, no matter how cute they all were.

A good cause

I don't normally push products but this was to good not to share. By buying one t-shirt you can feed a child in the Buduburam Refegee Camp in Ghana for a year. Whenever possible Nate and I buy products in which a portion of the proceeds will benefit someone else and this one is so close to home since I spent most of high school driving through and visiting Ghana.

Obviously the baby in the picture ISN'T Addy but you can be assured she'll be sporting her own version soon. That and the "War is Poop" shirt :)

http://www.tinyrevolutionary.com/this-shirt-child.html

Photo Dump

I'm just going to do a photo dump. We leave for a week at the beach tomorrow and frankly I am to lazy to come up with post theme's and title's

Addy is pulling up and creeping on anything and everything. She'll stand unassisted too, but not on purpose. She'll get involved with something and not even realize that she's not holding onto anything. As soon as she does she sits down with a sign of relief that she didn't die. She's cautious like her Daddy!

See she'll pull up on anything. Even Mommy's knee. Notice the attractive blue knee brace? That's right, the fall while skiing resulted in a detached ACL. So guess who gets to look forward to knee surgery in July!

G'day Mate

As much as we miss Wednesday there's one thing that we could have lived without. Every time we turned around Addy would make a break for the kitchen.

Why you ask?

To eat dog food out of the bowl of course!!

At least she was polite and waited till Wednesday was done.

She was so proud of her pigtails that day. It was the first time I could scrape enough hair together to make two and she spent all day checking herself out in the mirror and fiddling with her hair

These USED to be put away in a basket. Once again you can't turn your back! She is quick!

Uncle John this is just for you. Our best friends, JJ and Kristin, got her a bunch of balls for her birthday. Out of a volleyball, basketball, softball and tennis balls my baby wanted to play with the soccer ball most

GOOOOAAAAAAALLLLL

We've been spending a lot of time outside while Nate works on the yard. Not that nature particularly appeals to Addy. She is more of a techie.

Cameras, phones, remotes, keyboards. That's more her style right now.

She's actually called several people AND taken a couple of pictures already. But strangely enough she only takes pictures of herself. Vain little toot :)

Just a cute little girl, slathered in sunscreen, posing yet again. She's started putting her hand on her cheek and tilting her head to the side when she wants something. It's literally impossible to resist!!

San Diego

In March, after several months of good luck at work, I won the Dell Circle of Excellence Trip. Since we had JUST gotten back from the ski trip Nate couldn't get off of work. So my best friend Jess and I got to have a nice, all expense paid, girls week to San Diego! This was the view of the skyline as seen from our balcony. You can't actually see much since the blue water, blue ski and blue haze over the city all blend together.

This is directly below our balcony. All throughout the grounds were these beautiful hidden gardens.

Once again I forgot to take the camera charger and was only able to take a few pictures before it died. This parrot at the San Diego zoo was one of them. He was loose and flying around. I thought it was the coolest thing I had seen until....

We got off the tram tour and this guy was standing it front of the stroller parking. There was no zoom on this. I was literally standing three feet away. Jess and I were dancing around, screeching "Do your tail! Do your tail" People were starting to stare (as often happens when we hang out) but who cares. Our antics were rewarded....

By THIS!! So cool :)

We also had an amazing run in with a koala eating bamboo but the camera had died by then. Bottom line - San Diego is awesome. I could move there in a heartbeat. The weather, the people, the flowers and trees, the hot beach stone massage AHHHHHHHH