Week 1:
This week kind of starts in a weird place, but let's just skip to Saturday, November 5. Melia had been asking us for ages to go ice skating and so we decided we would take her! It was way more fun than I anticipated and Melia had a blast! She took to the ice really well, actually, and she could have gone all night if we had let her. She did fall a couple times, but got right up, brushed the ice off, and kept going at lightning speed. We were there for probably an hour letting her skate and taking turns with her (since Ellie is too little to be allowed on the ice). Even when we left, she kept asking to go back to skate some more! So that's definitely something we can keep doing with her because she really loved it!
The rest of this week was super busy and we had something every night. Monday night, I guess we planned for week prep and cleaned the house, so not super fun but still something. Ellie also started babbling "Mama" on Monday!! We aren't entirely sure if she is associating it with me yet, but I've taken time every day practicing "Mama" with her so I'm pretty excited about it!
On Tuesday, I had lifelong friends, Jason and Cory come over for dinner. We have been friends ever since I can remember and we grew up together in Harrisburg, PA. Cory brought a date, Jackie with him as well. Funny enough, Jackie and I knew each other from Women's Chorus! It was a lot of fun. I made burgers and we sat around afterwards and just chated for a couple hours. I really love hosting things and it is always nice to catch up with old friends. And new friends like Jackie! Melia really loves having people over too. She loves to get the attention and she's pretty dang cute, so it works out haha. With Tuesday being election night, we also tapped in as polls were being counted. It was an interesting election for sure.
Wednesday was a lot of fun. In the morning, I took Melia over to a family in our ward and she and their little girl made mini apple pies. Oh my gosh did Melia love that so much. She had so much fun and she was so proud of herself for making a pie! The first thing she wanted to do when we got home
Thursday, I spent the afternoon in a doctor's office. With all the knee pain I've been experiencing for a couple months now, I figured it was time to finally take the last step and see a surgeon. Turns out, I tore my meniscus in my left knee and we planned an MRI to confirm. Luckily, meniscus tears are pretty easy to clean up and recover from, so there's that. Thursday night, we met up with Preston and Liz Reynolds for dinner! We haven't seen them since they moved and that was over a year ago! It was a lot of fun to see them again and finally introduce them to Ellie! Melia had a blast, of course, talking to new friends and we went to Braza Grill in Lehi and just hung out. Can't beat a night like that.
Friday and Saturday were busy and filled with swimming for me. I was up in Kearns for a weekend meet Friday night. Friday night was great, a lot of fun. And again, we had a pretty good looking team. Unfortuately, we also had a lot of swimmers not show up for the meet and that was frustrating. We still preformed well though. Saturday, I didn't end up going to the meet because it was like a six hour thing and that is a long time for me to be away from Ellie still while she's nursing. We were able to snag my parents BYU football tickets for the afternoon though and that was fun. Beforehand, we met up with Daniel and Camille and their son, Gabe. We brought both our girls with us to an early lunch with them and enjoyed each others company for an hour or so. After we finished, we dropped Melia off at Gigi and PopPop's for Uncle Dallin and Uncle Matty to watch her, and Scott, Ellie and I headed over to the football stadium. We sure love our BYU Cougars and going to the games. We don't have that opportunity very often, but we are grateful for those who let us use their tickets! When the game was over, we went to pick Melia up and to our amazement, she was NAPPING! Dallin said she just kind of climbed up onto his chest, said she was tired, and zonked. It was crazy, especially considering the last time she volunterily took a nap was when she was about 6 months old! That's hardly an exageration. We woke the sleepy girly after a few minutes and went home.
Week 2:
This week was a lot of fun. I had work on MWF and Tuesday and Thursday I had plans already set in place.
Tuesday I had my MRI for my knee that took practically my whole day. I was in the machine for a little less than an hour, and the office is down in Provo so I really was gone for a little over 2 hours. I got to watch most of "The Man Who Knew Too Little" while they scanned my knee. That is a pretty funny movie. I would definitely recommend it if you haven't already watched it. Bill Murray. We like Bill Murry.
On Thursday, November 17th, it was Lindsey Swenson's birthday. With this being her first birthday since she's passed, I knew I wanted to spend it with her mom. So in the morning, the girls and I head over the Jeanne's house to play. It was a lot of fun. We kept busy by singing to nursery songs, playing with a train track set, instrusments and puzzels. Melia certainly kept Jeanne busy by her constant energy. Ellie was very good, too. She played, she ate, she napped, she played some more! We were there for a few hours and Jeanne and I were able to talk some. About our families, about my girls, about Lindsey. We looked through the scrapbooks of Lindsey that were done a few years ago. It was really nice to be able to see Lindsey, remember her. I loved it. At the end of the day, I took Melia with me to see Lindsey's grave and to talk to her a little bit. Since it was her birthday, Melia insisted that we sing her "Happy Birthday!" So we did, and I cried. We sang to her a couple times, said goodbye a couple times, and even after I had packed Melia back into her seat, she wanted to tell Lindsey some more stories about our morning with her mom. It was really sweet and I actually really loved that I chose to bring Melia with me. Initally, I wasn't going to, but it turned out to be a really great thing for me.
Friday was crazy busy. Swim practice was early because the school had a football game or an assembly or something that shifted the entire school schedule for the day, then I went out with my mom and my girlie's and when we got home, we got ready to go to my long time friend, Melanie's wedding! The wedding was a lot of fun! She married Starva Pulla, who is Indian and his family lives in India. So the wedding was mixed with traditional American and traditional Indian. The food was fantastic! Oh my goodness, curry is delicious. They had music playing and Melia had a ton of fun. Melanie was beautiful and happy, radiant and I loved it. I just love friends and weddings and babies and happiness!
On Saturday, we spent the morning kind of cleaning, kind of watching BYU football and kind of not all at the same time. After the game, my mom and I went shopping for my birthday. I desperately needed new Chacos since mine broke a couple years ago. So sad. We tried a few different stores, eventually ended up at REI and found a pair. They were literally the last pair in my size, the only women's cut and the exact lacing that I wanted. So, I mean, fate. They are way nice! I haven't had much of a chance to break them in yet, with it being winter and all that, but I am super stoked for summer and to use them! We browsed around a little more, I love browsing and plus it was an
Week 3:
I TURNED 25 THIS WEEK! And it was all I could think about. I love my birthday. It's a big deal to me. I think part of that might be that it's always so close to Thanksgiving and every few years, it is on Thanksgiving. So I make it a big deal because it's kind of a shared holiday, and I like my birthday to be MY day. On Sunday, we decided to open presents since the rest of the week would be busy with work and Thanksgiving. Everyone had work on Wednesday, my actual birthday, so it just made the most sense. I got a lot of fun stuff. Mostly clothes, which I love, and Scott did an awesome job picking them out. I got a few new dress shirts, another hoodie, some skirts and Donna sent over some underwater headphones and an underwater iPod. SO STOKED to use that when I start swimming again. On Monday, Avonlea came over in the morning to play with Melia for a little while. I didn't get to visit much, unfortunately, because Ellie was super stubborn and sleepy and I spent most of my time trying to get her to sleep in her crib. But she and Melia read some books and played for the time she
was here and it was a lot of fun for her. Melia really loves Avonlea and I like to see her when she comes.
On Wednesday, I woke, went to work, came home and was surprised again by my mom and Melia making me my most favorite cupcakes EVER, and then got ready to go out to dinner and movie when Scott got home. Our birthday plans had been set for awhile; go to dinner at Chedda Burger in Salt Lake, take Melia to see the new Disney movie Moana (which we really enjoyed) and head home. My parents came up with us to dinner. We drove separately so they could take Ellie home after dinner. On the way there, it was blizzardy and it made the drive pretty scary. The roads were slick, it was windy, visual wasn't great. But we all made it there, we all survived. Dinner was super yummy, too. Ooooh I love Chedda. They had a food truck, which is how we got introduced to them, and we LOVE their chedda tots. Their burgers are super delicious too. So if you're ever in SLC and wanna know where to eat, hit up Chedda Burger. You won't be disappointed. Right before we left for the movie, I fed Ellie, we packed her up and sent her on her way with Grandma and Opa. We packed up Melia and went over to the theater in Jordan Commons. Melia was super excited for the movie and she was very good about watching the whole time. She laughed, we laughed, the movie was cute and we had a lot of fun. Before the movie started, Melia had asked if she could have treat. We told her after the movie, on the way home, we would get her a treat. So as we exited the freeway on our way
home, we pulled into the Maverik and all went in to get drinks for Scott and I and Melia picked out a fruit cup. We got back in the car, I poked a hole and stuck a straw in her fruit cup, and we were on our way. Five minutes down the road, after a few sips of her fruit juice, Melia handed it back to me and told me, "My fruit doesn't feel so good." I instantly knew what that mean (from past experience) and told Scott to pull over. He did the best he could, as fast as he could, and we eneded up in the parking lot of Smith's, closest to the Burger King in Lehi. She had already thrown up, but did her best to keep it all in a burp rag. Since Ellie went home with my parents, we didn't have the diaper bag anymore....which meant we didn't have wipes. So Scott ran through the freezing cold (after leaving Melia bundled in his coat) all the way across the huge parking lot to buy baby wipes to clean Melia up, the car, and her carseat. Poor Melia, being soiled in vomit, had to stand in the cold while I tried to clean up what I could and encourage her to get whatever else she needed to out. Eventually, I turned the car off, leaving the heat on, and tried to warm Melia up. Scott got back, we cleaned her up (she was an EXTREMELY good sport, didn't cry at all) with ice cold baby wipes, in the middle of the night (10:30pm), changed her into her pj's, (that I gratefully forgot to change her into at the movie theater), cleaned her seat the best we could, snuggled her for a few minutes, strapped her back into her seat, bundled her up with all our coats and started the car. Oh wait, TRIED to start the car. The battery had died. GREAT! I called my parents, who had already been informed that Melia had thrown up, and let them know that we were now dealing with a dead car battery. I said that if we didn't find someone in the next five minutes, I'd call again and my dad would come jump us. I tired to flag down SEVERAL cars with no luck, and just as I told myself, "Ok, last attempt, and I'm calling my dad," the next car stopped. THANK YOU! It was a man, probably about in his late 40's to mid 50's. He asked what happened, we explained the situation and thanked him several times. Told him we just wanted |
| Melia with Moana! |
Thursday, Thanksgiving day, we spent with some of Scott's family this year at Aunt Shelly's. I made my "famous" green bean casserole that Scott loves so much, and spent the day with family. It was a lot of fun, it's Thanksgiving so of course there was delicious food and it was just a good, family, lazy, chatty day. Melia got to play with some second cousins she had never met, we got to chat with no pressure on getting home for anything, and I got to talk to Uncle Scott about how his meniscus surgery went and how well the recovery was for him. That was very helpful for me since I would be getting the same surgery in a few days. After my chat with Uncle Scott, we went home to laze around there and then basically waited out the weekend.
Week 4:
This was a crazy week as well. It started Sunday morning. We got up, same time as usual for church (which is 9:00) and got everyone ready, but instead of heading to church, we went to the airport to pick up Dallin and Matt from their Thanksgiving break. We had both girls with us, Melia very excited to see her Uncles, and as we were slowing down from the freeway to the pickup lane, our car started jolting and then suddenly stopped. In the middle of ongoing traffic. With our girls in the car. MOMENTS AFTER GETTING OFF THE FREEWAY. Talk about blessings, first and foremost, that this happened in a 10mph zone rather than the freeway. So, there we sat. Our hazards were on, we were stuck in ongoing traffic, I had called my parents to come and pick us up, AAA to send a tow and airport police to escort traffic around us. Dallin and Matt came and waited in the back of the car with us, Melia was very good and extremely patient while we waited for everyone and despite it feeling like forever, my parents and the tow truck got there pretty quickly. Kevin, our tow guy, took a look at the car and pretty immediately found the problem. While we had waited our back passenger tire had gone flat. It went flat because the bolt had sheered off, allowing the caliper to hang loose on the rim, eventually jamming into and puncturing the rim and flattening the tire. Dallin and Matt got in my dad's truck while the girls, Scott and I got in my mom's car and we headed home. We let the boys change into their Sunday clothes and the six of us went to church up at Matterhorn to listen to Sister Tate Stewart-Chester give her homecoming talk. Kevin, the tow truck guy, called me after church to let me know that he had delivered the Suburban to the same place we had our brakes done (a month ago...mind you), left the keys in their drop box and wished us well.
 |
| Broken down car |
Monday morning was the day of my surgery and while I had my surgery done, Scott was sitting in a car shop all morning getting our car fixed. Count your blessings. Our car repairs SHOULD have cost us well over $700, but the rear brakes were repaired under warranty, and the total repair for our front brakes, for which he included new rotor's for free, safety and admissions, registering our car, and fixing our broken DVD player, cost us just over $300. The manager of the shop felt awful about what had happened, especially realizing where the accident happened and that our family of four could have been seriously injured, or killed on the freeway. The car was fixed up by the manager himself and Scott went to work around the same time I came out of surgery.
My knee surgery went well enough. Dr. Poulsen cleaned up my torn meniscus and found that my plica band (described to me as the "appendix of the knee") was also swollen and causing the obnoxious, loud and painful popping in my knee. So he removed that as well. I woke up pretty well, my mom and I went home, I had a ginormous knee and pain meds that made me super dizzy and loopy. I crashed upstairs and basically slept for two days (pain meds...) while my mom watched the girls and helped me hobble around. By Thursday, three days post surgery, I was walking around okay-ish and I went to physical therapy. All the exercises I was given were really intimidating at first, but wasn't actually as bad as I thought they were going to be. I was able to do all they had set up for me that day and even though the bike seemed awful, I was able to do full rotations in both directions on the bike. Progress looked promising and I was told I'd be walking normally again by Christmas. Awesome! Three week recovery, ease myself back into exercise, I was feeling great. Friday was Ellie's 7 month birthday. She has been eating like a champ, sleeping awfully and waking up pretty close to hourly at night, and babbling away. She loves to snack on her snack puffs, cheerios, and basically anything I allow her to snack on. Ellie laughs at Melia's every attempt to make her laugh, loves to crawl all over Melia and she can't wait to get walking on her own. She has started to couch cruise pretty gracefully, she loves bath time and she loves my cat, Pharaoh. At every open opportunity, Ellie b-line's it to the Christmas tree to try and eat the ornaments and she insists on playing with Melia's toys instead of her own. Ellie loves to snuggle, loves her "magic blanket" and LOVES listening to Michael Buble (thanks man). I call her my bouncy babe since she loves to jump, bounce on her bum, and just generally be in some sort of up and down motion. She giggles at herself in the mirror, flirts with everyone and has the sweetest, toothless smile you ever did see on a babe.
Melia amazes us every day with what she learns and how well she treats her sister. Melia loves to spell her name, and she loves letting everyone know how. She sings 24/7, until you ask her to sing a song, and she has energy to last for days. Melia tests herself every day by trying new things, she loves to cut paper, color her friends and play imaginary. She has so many creative juices flowing, I don't know how she contains it all. She reads books every day, does somersaults, colors, loves on her little sister and has a heart of gold. This month, I was talking to Melia about why Ellie needs to nap; "She naps, hunny, so she can grow big and strong just like you." With tears in her eyes, Melia whimpered to me, "But I don't want her to grow big! I want her to stay my baby forever!" Melia loves Ellie, in more ways that I can possibly describe in words. I tear up daily seeing the love these two have for each other and I know they will accomplish wonderful things together.
Now, for the reason this is so late. I know, you thought I forgot. Technically, TECHNICALLY this happened after my "monthly post date" but since it directly influenced my blogging, here it is. On Saturday, January 3, Scott, the girls and I went Christmas shopping. Melia needed snow gear and we decided to make a day of it. We ended up spending the entire day out and about shopping, found Melia the cutest snow outfit ever, got the rest of our Christmas shopping done and headed home. We were met up by Elise Six who had offered to make dinner and Becca and Emmy (her roommates and also friends of ours) joined in to play with the girls. We had a lot of fun together, I was able to ice my leg and rest after a long day on my feet, and it was great! We got Melia ready for bed at the end of the evening and took her upstairs for kisses, as usual. Scott was holding Ellie, I was holding Melia's hand as she and I led the way back downstairs to go to bed. I have no clue how it happened, but somehow I slipped and fell partway down the stairs. On my left knee. My recovering knee. And it bent all the way. I screamed, Melia cried, and Elise came to gather the girls while Scott and my Mom helped me up. It took me a few minutes as I laid there, crying in pain, knowing I had done something to my knee. It hurt too bad to have just been a fall. I iced it, took my pain meds (that I hadn't taken in three days) and just was mad. Sunday, despite being in so much pain, I decided to go to church because one my instructions was to "walk off the stiffness" post surgery and I thought that maybe it would help. It definitely didn't. I called my surgeon and explained what happened. He told me the odds of me re-injuring my knee were so small, but he would check it out on Tuesday when I came in for my follow up. Obviously, since it's me, once he told me the chances of hurting myself were small, I figured "I'll be the one that hurts myself again, just because those are my odds." Encouraged by my surgeon, I went to physical therapy on Monday where they did a few tests and figured I tore my MCL.
Before I went to my follow up at my surgeon's office, I told Scott how miserable I felt and that I just wanted him to be there with me. I was grateful for that because I needed him there. Ellie stayed home with my dad, but Melia and my mom came with us. We went to my surgeon on Tuesday, I told him what I was told by the physical therapist. He looked at my knee, did some poking around on my knee, made me cry, and confirmed that I did indeed tear my MCL and recovery is now started over and extended to 6-8 weeks. Scott came into the room with me and held my hand as I was being reevaluated. The swelling and pain in my knee hadn't gone down since my fall so Dr. Poulsen said he was going to drain the fluid. Scott went out to give my mom and Melia the update and Melia wanted to come watch as I had my knee drained. Silly girl. They drained my knee of 50cc's excess fluid. I felt immediate relief. Melia was very interested the entire time and watched it all. Apparently, she's going to be a doctor when she grows up. They gave me a knee brace to wear and told me to continue physical therapy and come back in three weeks. Because the MCL in such a high blood flow ligament, it can usually heal itself. But it has to not be completely torn; hence why I did not immediately go back into surgery to get it fixed. I went back to physical therapy the next day, started my exercises all over again. I cannot bend my knee as far as I could even the first day I went to physical therapy post op. I cannot do a full rotation on the bike after three visits back, nor can I walk gracefully at all. Overall, it is extremely frustrating. I am barely able to walk, and just yesterday stopped using my crutches, a full week after I slipped. I can bend my knee 90 degrees and anything more than that causing a tight strain. BUT! Despite all the setbacks, I do believe it is healing. The constant heat and pain isn't so constant anymore or dramatic. I can walk without a crutch now and sometimes give myself a break from my knee brace. So I am optimistic. I don't know what it is I am supposed to get from all this, but it is something. And even though it feels like I have taken several steps backwards, I know that I can Keep Moving Forward
 |
| Melia and her "scary" monster mask |
 |
| My knee post op, pre MCL tear. IT LOOKED NORMAL |
 |
| Fist real snowfall of the season! |
 |
| Ellie at her favorite place in the house |
 |
| Melia got to help Mama coach and met Santa at the AFFC |
 |
| Melia with Lo the Lion on Lindsey's birthday |
 |
| Spontaneous trip to the aquarium 11/15/16 |
 |
| Melia wanted to walk into church with her new friend |
No comments:
Post a Comment