The Halloween Party season......

Wednesday--Ward Trunk or Treat

 

 

 

Friday--UDSF-Best Buddies Halloween Dance in Provo

Saturday--Special Olympics Comet Party

You can see that Jena has already started the Halloween celebrating and she has three more parties this week.

She was actually invited to another one on Tuesday put on by a ward in Syracuse.  I had gotten the invite by email at the first of the month and in the middle of my very sick time and decided not to worry about it since it was going to be on Tuesday.  At that time, Jena was working on Tuesdays and I had class.  I didn't even open the invite attachment.  I found out last night that it was one of the wards in my stake.  Darn, Jena would have loved that so much and she could have gone because she is working on Thursday nights now.  I was so disappointed that I hadn't followed through on that.

Simple experience but it reminded me of something that Bishop Watson used to talk about--As we make choices to do things and choices not to do other things, we need to make sure we are doing the right things.  We can't go back and attend or do something that we missed.  How true that is.  Life matches forward without stopping and we need to make careful choices of what we do with our time.

Have a Happy Halloween, my family and friends.  Boo, from Syracuse!

Fall Leaves revisited

Wednesday Gary blew up all of our leaves from our two maple trees in front of our house into a huge pile and asked me to invite a neighborhood friends down for some leaf fun.  We also called Aliyah and Halle (my niece's children who live around the corner from us).

They had a great time.  Leaves were flying everywhere as they ran and jumped and kicked the leaves.  From time to time Gary would blow the leaves back into a pile so they could start the process all over again.

Halle and Aliyah

Halle, Aliyah, Brody and Jared

Scarlett got to watch for a little bit.  Next year at this time, she can kick some leaves herself.  That's why I planted maple trees--for my grandchildren.  I hope one day they are big enough to support a swing.  I think tree swings are awesome.

Wednesday was the big day this week...

Chantel started back to work and Scarlett got to spend her day at our house with Grandma Hall (and Grandpa, Uncle Ben and Aunt Jena were there for parts of the time too.)  This was the first time that she was here without her parents (who we love dearly, too, of course).  It was so fun.

In getting ready for Scarlett's arrival, I had gotten a changing pad and diaper wipes and a couple of new rattles.  In addition, I washed these toys which I have been saving since Jena was a baby (Gary teased me about cleaning so many toys). No, we didn't have a chance to play with all of them.

But Scarlett loved looking at herself in the mirror...


Tummy Time

Uncle Ben played with her for about 25 minutes before her first nap and kept checking on her all day.

 

We played with toys, we read books including her new "Mouse's First Halloween", and rocked on the rocking chair outside on the deck.

Scarlett is one sweet baby and when it was time for her first nap, I wrapped her in her swaddle cloth, tucked her in our play-pak crib, gave her the binky and she went right to sleep.  About 30 minutes later, she started fussing so I went in to put her binky back in like Chantel had told me.  Scarlett was supposed to sleep about an hour.  However when  I walked in, she flashed the biggest smile ever at me.  She was cooing and smiling so much that there was no way to put the binky back in.  Nap over! I put her on the twin bed and she kept babbling and smiling away.

Would you put this baby back to sleep?
I don't think so.

Later in the day she went down for her afternoon nap.  Around that time I got a text from Chantel to see if she was doing okay and sleeping for me.  I sent her this cute picture of a sleeping baby.

 

Jena was excited that Scarlett was still there when she got home from school.  Jena took the picture of me with Jena and I took the one of her.

We loved spending our day with you, Scarlett, and we can't wait for you to come back again next Wednesday.  Scarlett has been having a special week as her Great-Grandparent Berenyi flew in to town from Florida for their first visit with Scarlett.  They are having lots of fun.

Hall Family Bowling and Pool Party and the rest of the week

Here is Jena one of the last Hall swimmers in the pool at the Syracuse Funplex.  All five of the Page cousins were in town last weekend so we planned a bowling/pizza/swimming party for the Hall Family on Monday night.  We had about 50 people there and every family represented except for Tosha. Austen and Niki.  We missed them.  Other people took pictures--I felt good about just being there.  It was a fun time to be together as a family.

Tuesday was the day that I had the stent removed.  That was good and I hope up excited that finally I was going to feel better.  It didn't happened immediately but finally yesterday I had the first day without major pain in my kidney area.  Today was a bit better so I am excited that this experience is just about over.  I won't get the results of what type of kidney stone it was for another 2 weeks.

Tuesday Jena dropped off her invitation to Clarence Park for Sadies' Dance which is the girls' choice dance for Clearfield High.  This is the first year that she had expressed an interest in going. 

Clarence is one of the young men within our stake that Jena has known for awhile.  She is very excited.  More details as the event gets closer.

And number #3 is on their way........

........while at our family lunch on September 28, Jessica and Elessia handed me this cute book:

 And they asked me to read it.  I thought that was odd as we were in the middle of lunch but I love books and I thought it was nice that they got me a book to read to Scarlett and Niki.  I loved the book and the illustrations.....then I noticed that Elessia was filming me.  That seemed even odder, but I am slow...

Jessica said, You skipped the first page."  I turned to the front cover and read this inscription:

I knew that Jessica and Elessia had been trying to get pregnant through donor sperm for most of the last year.  It had been a challenging experience for them while Scott and Tosha were having babies when that is what they wanted as well.  I know that that feels like.  They had just discovered that Jessica was pregnant earlier that week and were so excited to share.  I still forget that I am the Grandma Hall. They gave Great-Grandma Hall her own book as well. Excited to have number #3 on his/her way!.  Fun to have them be part of the crop of grandchildren. (Delayed posting this as they haven't told Elessia's parents until October 13 when they have their first formal ultrasound. )

They had some excitement this week when Jessica started bleeding but the doctor found the heartbeat and things looked fine with the baby.  It was some type of hematoma that shouldn't impact the baby.  She has to take it easy for a couple of days.

Baby #3 ultrasound

Grandchildren wall on the fridge

Grandbabies---they are the best!

Birthday week

We had barely slipped in Ben's birthday late on Wednesday the week before with a small ice cream cake. 

Love this picture of Ben
He looks great in green.
He is 26 years old.

We started off this week by go to see "She Love Me" at the Hale Theatre, the early show on Monday morning.  It was a very fun show which many remakes have been done including "You got Mail".  Afterwards, the four of us (Gary, Jena, and Gary's mom, and I) went to the "Brio" which is a Tuscan Grill that Dad and Karla had taken Valerie and I.  We all had the steak and flat bread like I had had last time.  It was yummy and fun to share with them.  Jena had pizza which turned out to be quite big so she had leftovers for a couple of days.

Gary's birthday fell on Tuesday which means that we hardly saw each other between our running around and our normal school-bowling-work schedule in the evening. Jena's birthday was the next day and she was very excited to be 18 years old.  It is so hard to imagine that she is really that old. 

New suitcases for traveling

The Hall "Bump on the Head" birthday tradition

We had made arrangements to gather for birthday celebrations on Saturday for lunch and afternoon games.  That is what you have to do when people are all working different schedules. Grandma Hall was able to join us as well so that was fun. We had lunch at the Golden Corral and then headed to our house to play games. (Ben did go on a quick side street to Scott and Chantel's to see their new aquarium.)  It was so fun to have everyone together except for Tosha, Austen, and Niki.

Fall Leaves....

we planted two maple trees in our front yard because I love fall leaves.  They are slow growing but I love watching the leaves fall.  I love the look of leaves on the green grass although in our neighborhood people seem to pick up their leaves up daily.  Not like us....

Saturday morning, Gary noticed this action in our front yard:

Our two young neighborhood boys came down with a friend and started scooping up our leaves to make a pile to run in.  They played for at least an hour.  It was so fun.  It reminded me of doing the same thing as a child and also as a mom.  Our house in Plano had three great trees along the side yard and I could watch the kids playing in the leaves out my kitchen window.  It is the perfect fall activity.
We told them they are welcome to play in our leaves anytime.

My brothers Todd and Mike

I have been very blessed to see all of my seven siblings except for Mike in the past month.  That is a great thing for me as often it is only every three years when I see many of my siblings at our Giberson reunions.  I love them all and am so grateful that we have shared life together as siblings.  Although this post is dedicated to Todd and to Mike, I love all of my siblings and love our relationships as individuals and as a group (does that make sense?).

When we were in Texas, we picked up Todd to take him with us to Scott's for the Monday Game Day.  When we walked in to get him, he was gathering game pieces for the game they were going to play.  I recognized it immediately: "Win, Place and Show".

This was a game that we played when we were kids.  I am not sure how many times we actually played it but as soon as I saw it, it just reminded me of growing up.  It is a horse racing game.  My brother had gone on line and gotten rules and then developed all of the needed playing pieces (horses) and betting sheets for them to play.  Isn't he amazing! It seriously brought tears in my eyes when I saw it on his table.

When ever I am around Todd and Mike, I so appreciate how much our childhood memories are similar yet different.  They remember the same vacations, the same family events, at some what the same time period of their lives.  They loved Richland and went to the same schools that I did..in the same buildings (our elementary school was rebuilt when my sisters were going there so although they still went to Marcus Whitman Elementary, it was not the same.).  I am the only one who can remember Grandpa Owen, but the three of us were loved and cuddled by him.


Todd and I
All of our Owen relatives had these two pictures
somewhere in their houses until we were teenagers,
it seemed like it.

Mike

They were  the ones who sat in the peach trees in our prefab out on Longfitt and ate peaches with me.  My first spiritual experience occurred because of them.  We walked to George Pratt Memorial Pool together and swam the hot afternoon days away. 

I am sure we fought but I only remember one time.  When I was 16 and in charge of the younger kids when Mom and Dad were gone--Todd was teasing Robin and causing problems.  I can remember sitting on top of him and yelling at him to leave Robin alone and stop causing problems.  To his credit, he didn't get mad at me and left Robin alone.  That was not one of my better moments and I am grateful that Todd just let it all go.

In our family, we were the big kids (my three sisters were "the three little girls" and then Rick and Scott were the "little boys").  As big kids, we did things with my dad like go to baseball games or play ping pong together.  We were the right number to play lots of games together.  My dad taught the three of us how to swing a bat and throw a ball.  I didn't know I was good at sports until I was in 7th grade because my brothers were just better than me (and I do not throw a baseball well even now--my sport skills were in other sports than baseball) and we did it together as kids. 

They became more Texan than I as they both attended college in Texas and now they are both working there in their chosen professions (although Mike did spend 20 years in Virginia in the middle of his life.) The times we are together are very important to me and I hope as we grow older that we will have more times to be together in the future.

Todd

Mike

This is their birthday month.  Happy birthday to my brothers, Todd and Mike!  I love you and am proud to be your sister.

How many days can one kidney stone ruin?

Well, for me it has been 14 days and counting.  All for one kidney stone.

I was glad that I had cleaned the house on Saturday.  I actually didn't feel great throughout the night but I assumed it was something that I had eaten.  I went to Church and subbed in Primary and felt okay.  However throughout the afternoon, I was beginning to feel sick.

I headed downstairs to take a nap while Jena and Ben watched shows upstairs and Gary was at Church.  Then I had my first experience with a kidney stone pain (much worse than natural childbirth in my experience).  It only lasted about 30 minutes but it was not good.  I spent the rest of the evening laying around and wondering what was going on.  Mostly I was just glad to not feel that pain.

As we headed for bed that night, Gary mentioned that he thought he would take Monday off to get some errands done which had been piling up.  Sounded like a good plan so he sent off an email to his boss and we both headed off to sleep with our Monday to-do lists ready to go.

Didn't have the best night of sleep but got Jena off to school and headed back to bed hoping to get some good rest.  That lasted until about 8:30 when the pain hit again.  Gary took one look at me and said he was taking me to the doctor.  I agreed but the first appointment was not until 2:30.  Gary said no thanks and we headed to the ER.

It was there that they discovered the kidney stone (the ER nurses/staff knew right away by the way I was walking and where the pain was).  I never even though about it being a kidney stone but it made sense when they said it.  They gave me medication and told me to see a specialist within 24 hours.  All of that took Gary's Monday day off and he decided to take Tuesday off to take me to the specialist and then do his errands.

It end up that he took 4 1/2 days off work as he ran me here and there and tried to take care of me and everyone else.

Tuesday:  Specialist who said that we can sit and wait or try to break it up.  Voted for breaking it up.
Wednesday:  Although it is only a procedure, it is done under general anesthetic so it was done at the hospital.  They thought that the stone had responded and broken up. 
Thursday:  Severe unlivable pain again so back to the specialist.  Shot for pain and nausea but they also redid the CAT scan.  The stone was a bit smaller but the tube had swollen around it and it wasn't moving anywhere.  Continue pressure on the kidney on that side.
Friday:  Surgery to remove the stone again at the hospital for the day.  Things went fine.  They left behind some tubing to allow the tube to heal and not close on itself.  Apparently my tube was extremely smaller than normal so they were even more concerned about the tube.

I expected to feel so much better after the surgery but it has been a slow process.  It is likely due to my body's reaction to the tubing which affects some people.  I feel like I have a constant UTI.  It is very hard to sit in a chair for any length of time (which makes things like school, blogging, and UDSF very difficult.)  Everything just feel off and very uncomfortable with periods of bad pain. Ice and heating pads are my new best friends and I have watched a lot of TV.  It seems ridiculous that I am still feeling sick after two weeks and the kidney stone is gone. 

I went to my family practice doctor on Friday because I had to get a refill on another medication so I talked to him about my issues.  He changed the pain medication and double checked to make sure there was no infection.  My urine was clean from infection but still contains a lot of blood so healing is still going on.  Hopefully on Tuesday when they remove the tubing at the office, I will really start to get better.  We should also find out what kind of stone it was and what I can do to make sure that it doesn't ever happen again.

All I can say is that I did not have two weeks to do nothing--Life, it just keeps happening.

The nurse in the ER told me that I can now cross "Have a kidney stone" off my bucket list.  I didn't have it on my list but if crossing it off means that I never have to do this again, I will be adding it immediately.  And my wish is for none of you to ever have one either!

Umm...

I didn't realize how behind I am in the blog.  That can be discouraging but I guess I just need to plow forward and see what I can do today to catch up.  The last post was the ending of our fun trip to Texas for the football games.

We got back and certainly hit the floor running as they say:

We got back Tuesday afternoon in time to start some laundry and head off to school for me and dinner and bowling (Gary) and work (Jena).

Then UDSF stuff just started rolling in:

Friday was the 8th annual Cooper Bowden Memorial Golf Tournament.  It was a beautiful day.
I was mostly indoors and didn't get any pictures.  It went great and raised @$10,000 for the foundation.

I got home and grabbed Jena and headed back to Centerpoint Theatre in Centerville.  She is part of the Friend to Friend class which is specifically for people with special needs 15 years and old.  We would have loved to have kept her in the teen class she was in last year but Tuesday is not workable with my school on that day.  She knew several kids already from Special Olympics which makes it fun as well.  In addition, a new friend, Emily who lives near us is going with her which is working out great.

It turned out that the first day they actually did a public performance on the stairs as part of the Fairy Tale Weekend at the theatre.  I gave Jena a choice where she wanted to perform as they were singing a song from last year.  She was willing to give it a go so here she is:

Hairpiece

 

They sang a song for the Little Mermaid

 

A knight in shining armor

 Then Saturday we were up and headed down to the UDSF Davis County Buddy Walk.  Jena and I were the only ones who went this year together.  She couldn't go the next weekend when the State Buddy Walk that I was involved in planning so we came to this one.  It was held in Centerville and had about 350 people.  It was a great event, the weather was fun and they had some fun things to do.

The following week was spent getting ready for the Statewide Buddy Walk which also turned out awesome.  We were planning on 1200 people and ended up with almost 1500--very crazy but very fun.  No pictures yet but I will post some when we get the professional pictures from our photographers.  Our theme was "Everyday Heroes" and we had lots of Law Enforcement displays and also costumes Super Heroes. It was a lot of fun, but I was exhausted by the time we got home.  Thanks to Gary, Jessica, Elessia, Scott, Chantel and Scarlett who all came and helped out with things.

While we were all down in West Jordan, Jena had met the YW and YM from our ward at 6:45 a.m. and headed up to the Dee Events Center at Weber State for the final dress rehearsal and then the performance for the Cultural Day of Celebration for the rededication of the Ogden Temple.  They performed at 1:00.  We were so sad that we had to miss it and hope to see the taped version at some point.  She had a wonderful time.  Pres. Monson was there although he didn't speak. 

Then it was the perfect end of the weekend to go to our Stake Center and take part in the second session of the Temple Rededication.  It was so great to share that with Jena as well. She got to attend the Open House twice, then the Cultural Celebration, and then the Rededication.  Now I am excited for her first time to go do baptisms.

Afterwards Gary and I came home and I think I took a five hour nap--it had been very fast pace every since getting back from Texas.  That is why I didn't write on the blog that Sunday for sure.