Memorial Day Weekend

We were up to the cabin over Memorial Day weekend and had an absolute blast. It was a little quiet at first because Papa and Nana decided to stay home, since Dad just arrived home from Cleaveland Thursday night. All the neighbors had a bunch of kids and friends up and Emma was just in heavan- once again, the runt of the litter, but had so much fun nonetheless. All the big girls were so, so sweet to her, asking her to play, letting her tag along and dealing with her nonstop requests to play mermaids or hide and seek. On Saturday, they broke out the 3 seater tube- it is kind of like a big loveseat with 3 chairs in it. All the girls were going and so Emma wanted to go. I was a little nervous because it was the first time she had been on a tube with no adults, and the water was still really cold, but they all insisted they would be going so slow they wouldn't even get wet! Emma was all for it and I wanted to encourage her bravery so I said ok. I stayed back with Abby and Mike rode along in the boat. I was playing with Abby on the beach when I heard the girls screaming. I looked up and saw the 4 heads bobbing in the water in the middle of the lake! I had ran inside for the binoculars. Yep, they were all in the water. Apparantely they were going so slow that the tube could not level out, so they were all leaning forward. Then they sped up and the girls all fell off. Emma does know how to swim in a pool, but in the middle of a freezing cold lake after just being dumped off a tube- I knew she was panicking and so was I. Thank god Mike was on the boat- he dove in the minute he saw Emma fall off. He was swam to her and the rest of the girls and helped them back in the boat. They were all fine- just a little cold once they came back. Emma loves to tell this story now. Ijust hope we can get her back on the tube this summer.

Other than that, Abby just loved the sand. We filled up a little rubbermaid bucket with water and she loved splashing in that- with a whole lake and she was just as happy with her little bucket of water. Mike and Emma spent a lot of time fishing, we had cookouts, bonfires and smores, and one killer whiffle ball game that started off to be for the kids, but lasted into the later hours when we realized it was just us adults playing! We took the girls for a lot of speed boat and paddle boat rides. I was lucky enough to spend some solo time kayaking around the lake. It was a great weekend to break us all in for summer!

Busy May

I can't believe half of May is over already. What a busy month it has been. I just returned from OH for my dad's open heart surgery. It was an amazing experience. Dad always knew he had a heart murmur, it actually kept him out of the war. However, they found out kind of accidentally that it had caused him to to need a valve replacement as well as repair of an aortic anurism. So, true to my dad, when he found out he needed heart surgery, he needed to be at the best facility in the country, so off we went to the Cleveland Clinic. Actually, his insurance covered it and did not cover the Mayo Clinic here, so it really was an easy choice. His surgery was scheduled for 10am on Friday the 15th, however, after a LONG day of waiting, he was bumped to the last surgery of the day, because a heart transplant came in. Finially mom and I got the news that they had started surgery and he was on bypass. That was a really hard hour of waiting, pacing, praying, etc. The the surgeon called to say all had gone very, very well. Instead of a tri-cuspid valve (3 flaps) dad's was a uni-cuspid (one flap). He was surprised he did not have more symptoms and told us we were going to have a really hard time keeping up with him now. Mom and I were so relieved, this is when a few tears came. We did get to see him in ICU that night and it was a little hard for mom because he was still intubated and totally out. The next day they finally started taking all the tubes out and later that day moved him to the step down unit. From there he has been working on walking a little at a time, eating, going to the bathroom, and just recovering in general. He will be released today or tomorrow to the hotel attached to the hospital, and then they fly home on Thursday. He received the minimally invasive surgery so his incision is only 2 1/2 inches which drastically reduces his recovery time. Cleaveland Clinic is one of the only places in the country that does the surgery that way. I was so interested in all the parts of this process, it was just amazing to me how quickly the surgery and recovery time was and just how seamless this process was, just like he was having his tonsils out or something. Anyway, thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. Mom and I were saying as we were sitting there waiting that we could almost FEEL the energy of people thinking and praying for dad. I came home and filled up on cuddles with girls, and enjoyed a great summer dinner of steaks on the grill and corn on the cob. The girls are really glad corn on the cob season is here!

The week before, my best bud Ann Marie, her mom kathy, and baby Nora came to visit. It was such a great, great time to see them. Nora remains the sweetest, cutest little thing and was in awe (or shock) from all the noise and commotion of my crazy girls all day long. Nora just watched Emma and Abby all day, while I must have said 100 times a day, "don't touch the baby, give her space!" I don't know if it was because I was trying to keep them a little more quiet, or keep their hands off the baby, but they were NOT on their best behavior that weekend. We did get a lot of girl time in, some great sushi, a bbq at Kate's, and a fun ocho de mayo party. On Saturday night (right afer I got in from Kate's) Emma got up to go to the bathroom and tripped on an empty rubbermaid bin we had in the hallway. Shortly after she was screaming that her eye hurt and she could not open it. The rest of the night she was crying and upset and would not open her eye. In the morning, I took her to urgent care, and even there they could not get her to open her eye, she was screaming it was so painful. So off we went to Children's Hospital. They needed to get drops in her eyes to numb the pain so she could open them. It took 3 200plus pound EMT's to hold her down and even then she fought it so hard the drops just rolled down her face. It was really hard to watch. They had to get the board and velcro her down like a little straight-jacket before they could get the drops in. Emma was screaming, "your making me upset, stop pushing me down!" It was so sad. They finially got the drops in, and then some dye. The shined a black light on her eye, and you could see the bright yellow where she had scratched the heck out of her cornea. They gave us a bunch of drops and told us to follow up the next day with her ped. Once the numbing drops got in, Emma was out of pain. The doctors gave her a goody bag for being a good patient (ha!, not really) and she was so excited about that, she forgot about what we just put her through. As we left she said to the nurses, "thanks, what a great day I'm having!" becuase she was so excited about the gift bag! Kids are so resilant. So that was my mothers day! I was just happy to see her out of pain and opening her eyes. Sometime during the weekend, Mike took Emma to make me a mothers day cake. It was very sweet (no pun intended!)

So Emma is now done with school and our summer acitivites start soon. We are looking forward to getting up the cabin this weekend and also seeing papa come home with his "fixed heart." What a busy couple weeks!