Happy Birthday

Tiki is 3 years old now. Here's a video we took when she was a new born. She was a very vocal eater!

Surgery update

Surgery went well. Here's a picture of the screws and plates they took out. 4 of the screws broke off when they were being removed but the surgeon said it's no big deal to leave those in the bone.

I took the bandages off this morning and my hand is really swollen (and sore). I tried washing off the 'yes' they wrote on my hand but they used a permanent marker so it wont budge. It's kind of unnerving that they need to actually write yes on the hand that needs the procedure done to keep things straight. Anyway, I'll be popping percocet and keeping it iced up for the next few days! -Eric

Surgery tomorrow

For any of you unfamiliar with my hand problems I'll give you a quick history....

It all began late one night in the summer of 2006. I just got home from work and I had a bunch of things I needed to take upstairs from my car and I new it would take several trips. I opened the door and was greeted by the usual craziness that ensues every time I get home from work. (see our post "happy to be inside" in our January archives). Wanting to get this stuff hauled in, I gave each of the kids a quick pat on the head (they normally won't let me get away with giving them such a little amount of attention) and carried the first load up stairs. As I hurried back down the stairs Kailee ran down right behind me and slammed right into the back of my legs. She took my feet right out from under me and I landed awkwardly on my hand.
I knew it was broken right away because I heard the bones crunch. I've never heard the sound of them breaking when I've broken bones before, it was creepy.

We hopped in the car and headed to the hospital. The pain was pretty intense and I passed out on the way. It was kind of funny to wake up to Melissa slapping me and yelling "Eric! Eric! Eric! I guess it was the first time she had seen someone faint so it freaked her out.

They referred me to a surgeon and he put the bones back together with 6 screws.
As time went on it was becoming clear that my hand wasn't set right. My fingers started to close over on each other when I would close my hand. Apparently if those bones aren't set just right when they're broken it really effects the way your fingers close.

I went to see a different specialist who recommended breaking one of the bones and rotating it to make them line up better. When he started to remove the screws he was able to pluck 5 out of the 6 by just using tweezers! The previous surgeon did a terrible job. Any way he broke the bone and put in the plates and pins that you can see in the picture. He had to do bone graphs on the bone to the right of the one that has the plates to fill in where some of the loose screws were.

My hand still doesn't close the same as it used to but it has been a big improvement. I have had a lot of pain lately and they think the plates are causing some irritation so tomorrow those will be coming out. I'll have Melissa post an update tomorrow afternoon. -Eric

Happy Birthday Kailee Girl

So first off I should fill everyone in on previous stuff that has happened. Easter was a lot of fun. My family came over for brunch, and we drew on the driveway with chalk, played trivia, and proved that 6 saltine crackers could not be eaten in 1 minute. Then we went over to Eric's side and enjoyed a very good dinner with everyone and hung out and had a good time. This is a month of birthday's for us. Emily's was on the 5th. We are going out to dinner tomorrow for Jill and Mekell's, and Marie's is on Tuesday. I can't forget about Kailee's birthday. She would have been 5 today. We got Kailee when a new owner adopted a chocolate lab and wanted to have her spayed not knowing she was pregnant. We ended up doing a c-section as well, and the employee's took care of the puppies. I literally held on to her the moment she was born. There were 7 puppies in her litter and only 3 survived. She was our first baby. Eric was in Denver at the time doing training for Ultimate. I remember being so excited to show him my 'surprise.' Lucky for me, he fell in love with her right off too. Needless to say she was a hellion as a puppy (think Marley & Me.) She loved rawhide bones, and was very affectionate! She mellowed and became our best and most mellow dog (at least around family!) Vinnie depended on her to be his ears, and they quickly became friends. We had a lot of good times with her. We miss her very much, and know that across rainbow bridge and in heaven that she's happy. Happy Birthday Kailee, we love you!

Back from Moab

I'm back from our bi-annual trip to Moab. As always I had an great time. One of the trails we rode was called "Top of the world", it had some amazing views. My dad was creeped out by how high these cliffs were.

On the way down one of the guys in our group wanted to stop at "Ray's Tavern" in Green river. It smelled so bad inside that I couldn't bring myself to eating anything. Thank goodness I made a lot of beef jerky for the trip before hand so I had plenty to hold me over until we got to Moab so I could get some real food.

We got my dad a helmet camera for Christmas. This trip was our first time using it so when I figure out how to edit the video I will get some posted.

A Day at the Gateway

Today we had a really fun day. Eric took a nap with Tiki and Vinnie this morning while I got ready. As you can tell there's not much room left on the bed once the dogs get settled. We decided to go to the Gateway. While we were there, we did a little browsing in stores, and walked around as the day got colder and colder. We ate at a new restaurant called Tuscano's Brazilian Grill. It was excellent and strongly recommend it to anyone. We ate way too much, and wanted to eat more because the food was so good! Then we went and saw the movie 'I Love You, Man.' While we were there we saw Mehmet Okur (a Jazz basketball player) at the theater. He is very tall! The movie was hilarious! We both laughed really hard through the whole thing! It was somewhat crude, so if you're not into that, then you would not like it. Otherwise, prepare to laugh your butt off! Usually we like going to the Clark Planetarium as well, but none of the shows worked out for us as we had already seen them all. On the way home we got ice cream at Coldstone Creamery, very tasty.