ER Visit x2, Answer, Conference, Pumpkin Walk, Pedicures, Day Off, Band Concert

Here’s a two week update from our family.  Sarah got her answer back for the Sadie Hawkins dance. Wahoo!  She is excited to go!

Two weekends ago it was General Conference where we get to hear from our church leaders. One of Josh’s friends, Rico, that he was able to teach on his mission in Chicago likes to come out to visit the temple and listen to/attend Conference in person once or twice a year. Josh got to go to the Syracuse Temple with him at his last visit. It was pretty great.

Sunday before Conference started Aaron made a huge traditional breakfast. The kids look forward to this every Conference. We had biscuits and gravy, bacon, and hash browns with chocolate milk.

Sophie just loved that everyone was around during Conference. She curled up in the blankets and slept all morning.

Later that day we got to have the local missionaries over for dinner. I had only planned for two missionaries, so when three showed up we were scrambling to get another seat and place setting put out. It was fun to visit with them. I think they enjoyed dinner--we didn’t have very many leftovers--haha! I know people have done the same for both my missionaries which I am so grateful for so I want to pay it forward.

The City Youth Council helped with the City’s annual Pumpkin Walk last week. There were a bunch of donated carved pumpkins you could walk around to see. There were also a bunch of booths set up by local business intermixed with the Youth Council themed booths. Noah’s CCYC booth theme was ‘Underwater’. They had someone dressed as a mermaid, shark, and Noah dressed up as Mermaid Man from SpongeBob. He was a bit disappointed that not many people recognized his costume. Regardless of whether you recognized his costume or not it was still a funny costume.

Here’s what Mermaid Man looks like:

This is a family oriented activity that was pretty big. Everyone was invited to come dressed up in costumes and look at all the carved pumpkins and visit all the booths. The City Youth Council handed out candy to everyone that stopped by. This used to be a smaller event, but in the last few years it has grown quite a bit. It is fun to visit. Here’s Noah handing out candy in front of his ‘Underwater’ decorated tent:

Sarah is Co-Mayor so she didn’t have an assigned booth. She was a floater and walked around helping out anyone or booth that needed help. She did get to dress up as a penguin, though:

She still got to hand out some candy, too:

I had to work until right before the event was supposed to end. After work I rushed over to see if I could still get a chance to see the kids. I got there in enough time which I was thankful for. Afterward we did get a chance to spin the wheel of prizes. Sarah, Noah and Josh all won a $5 Arcade card to Fat Cats which was pretty great. I am just glad I made it!

Josh is busy in school. He is learning all kinds of things. He got to learn about and experiment with electrophoresis gel recently. I don’t know exactly what this picture is showing, but it was something Josh was working on at school.

Josh also had to attend a performance of some kind for one of his classes. He went to a play. He has been pretty busy between school, work, volunteering and church. We only see him in the evenings most days. I hadn’t seen him one day and texted him that needed proof of life so he sent me this picture--haha!

Sophie’s favorite thing is snuggling with her humans. Since everyone goes to school or work early I am usually the last one left at home. She knows when I am getting ready for work. She will come and lay on the bathroom rug and stare at me like this the whole time I am getting ready. It makes me feel guilty for leaving her to go to work. She has that sad puppy eye stare down pretty well I would say--haha!

This year for Grandma T’s birthday we did a pedicure appointment this past Saturday morning with Sarah, Grandma T and me. It was fun and nice to be pampered.

Afterward we grabbed some lunch together. It was a fun morning. I did remember to grab a picture of our toenails, but it was after we had dropped Grandma off so it was just Sarah and my painted toes:

Last weekend Sarah, Josh and Noah all decided to go and see the new Tron movie. They got the tickets and then used their $5 arcade gift card they had all won for some fun. Here they are before the movie started:

They said it was a pretty good movie.

Here’s another picture of Sophie burrowed in the blankets. One of these times she is going to get accidentally stepped on because you don’t know she is inside all the blankets...

We got some unpleasant excitement happen on Sunday. Sunday afternoon we got a Messenger Call from Daniel. Right away I knew something was off since he only calls on his P-Day. As soon as I answered the call Daniel let us know that he had accidentally eaten a cashew that was in a cookie. He is highly allergic to cashews so this was not good news. He called saying that he was having tingling, numbing, swelling in his lips/cheeks and they were continuing to swelling. I told him he needed to find his Epi-Pen, take some liquid Allegra, Zyrtec and find his rescue inhaler. I stayed on the phone with him and symptoms were getting worse. I told him to go the ER. He had to call the mission nurse to let her know what was going on and she told him to go to the ER, too. He got another set of missionaries to drive him to the ER since his companion can’t drive. He was supposed to bring his Epi Pen with him on the drive. He is SO AFRAID of needles that he didn’t want to give himself the Epi Pen until he absolutely needed it. On the drive over he was so anxious that he accidentally LEFT his Epi Pen home and accidentally brought along his Epi Trainer instead. The Epi Trainer is the practice pen you can practice with, but it does not contain any medication since it is just a practice pen. DOH! I stayed on the call with him while he was at the ER. They got him back to be seen and gave him a large dose of steroids to stop the reaction and then watched him. The mega dose of Allegra (which is part of the allergists emergency exposure plan) had started kicking in and knowing that Daniel was super afraid of any needles they watched him. Ultimately they didn’t give him any Epi, but the Decadron seemed to be kicking in so they sent him home.  Poor guy!

Unfortunately, as the day went on he started throwing up, wheezing and having intense stomach pain. He went back to the ER where they gave him some Pepcid and Zofran to help with the continued reaction. That seemed to finally kick in, but didn’t take away the stomach pain. He was then sent home again.

This time he seemed to be doing better. We Door Dashed him some Pepcid, Gatorade and crackers. I checked in with him the next morning and he was doing a lot better. Before this experience he didn’t usually carry his Epi Pen with him while he was out of the apartment, but he now knows that he needs to bring it along with him everywhere. That was a bit scary. I don’t know why they didn’t just give him a dose of Epi when he first went to the ER, but thankfully everything turned out okay.

The next morning was Columbus Day. I made sure I didn’t pick up any shifts that day because Aaron had the day off from work. That way we could spend the day together. We had an old gift card to Top Golf so we went to spend some time there. 

I lost horribly as always, but it was still fun.

I did manage to win one game, but that was it.

We then went grocery shopping and came home. We know how to keep the romance alive--haha! It was just fun spending the day together. I have been working like crazy. I have gone up to Logan and down to Salt Lake in one week between clinics. It really has been busy in addition to my doctor’s office job three days a week, too. I am gone so much....Oh well I do like the paychecks, though, especially with a looming possibility of a furlough for Aaron in November. Ugh!! Adulting stinks sometimes. To add to the fun it has been raining a lot here in the last week. We have had a big leak around two of our windows. Ugh!! There is a small crazk in the stucco which we think is the issue. Once everything dries out Aaron will patch that and we will hope for the best. Keep your fingers crossed for us. In the meantime this is what the windows will look like with the towel, rug, and bowls to catch the water as it leaks inside.  Did I mention adulting stinks?!

Anyway, Josh had his YSA Stake Conference. He did seem to nod off during one of the talks. His friend took this picture, poor guy!!

Daniel is doing well. He ended up staying in his area for another transfer which is wild. He was ready for a change and was a bit disappointed he didn’t get transferred, but is has come to terms. He does enjoy the area and works well with his companion so it is a good thing. The Mission President’s companion posts pictures and it is fun to see Daniel in some of the pictures:

Noah had a Band Bash Concert last night. It was a bunch of bands from different schools that got together to play. Noah’s band only played one song which is dumb, but what can you do?!

We did get this picture of Noah as he was getting set up for his band to play:

Aaron picked the last of the tomatoes from our garden. We didn’t get too many, but enough to do a small batch of spaghetti sauce. We did eat spaghetti for dinner last night--haha!