Weekend with Em!

When my parents came up to help for the weekend, they brought along a straggler -- my eldest niece Emily (almost 9 years old)! They left her behind, giving her time for her special visit.  It was a sort of last minute plan, but we made the best of the time with lots of aunt-niece bonding.

(While surveying the outdoor work with my mom, Emily came outside without shoes on and couldn't make it back to the door on the hot black asphalt.  I obligingly carried her to the door -- this won't be able to happen too much longer!)

She played a little bit on the slip-n-slide; although the ground was a little hard and the grass was pokey making it hard to actual slide.  She also helped with some outside work like pulling weeds and watering plants while the adults worked on the various yard work.  Once my parents left, we pulled out Lego Harry Potter on the Xbox, which we played tons of!  She has the game on her DS so she knew the basics.  We got to work together as a team and made through almost 10 levels in 3 days!

(When my parents were here to work, Emily got a little bored with all the "grown-up" talk as she deemed it.  So she decided to nap with Reese.)

When we weren't playing video games, we were working on crafts.  We went shopping where I bough her a sock monkey kit and a bird house to paint.  She had some money of her own which she spent on a baby Fijit.  The best way to describe it was as a modern-day Ferbie.  She and I both thought that the sock monkey kit would include the doll already sewn together and you just had to stuff.  OOhhhhhh was I wrong. The kit included 2 socks and some various trimmings.  We (well I) spent 3 hours sewing that *special* monkey together.  I did make her stuff the limbs and body while I did all the sewing both with a machine and by hand.  She made some design changes which made my job a little easier.

(Working on the sock monkey she affectionately named "Socky".  I made her do the stuffing part while I was working on making all the different limbs and attaching them to the body.  She got bored with stuffing the tail -- it was very long and required lots of stuffing.  She was a trooper --which is a good thing -- otherwise, she wouldn't have a new sock monkey.)

Steve and I got the pleasure of introducing Emily to Jumanji.  She had never heard of it and was skeptical of there being both a movie and game of the same name.  We started her out first with the movie, which she immediately fell in love with.  We managed to watch it 2 times.  We also spent an evening playing 3 different rounds of the board game (the game was a Goodwill find for $2 that we found awhile back).  Emily especially liked the fact that the card riddles from the game matched the riddles from the movie.

We also introduced her to the simple life of 6 tv channels -- 2 of which played some educational shows.  She fell in love with Wild Kratts (animal show with live people and animation) and Hey Kids Let's Cook.  On the cooking show, we watched how to make Jajik -- a cucumber yogurt salad.  She thought the recipe looked good (especially the fresh mint) and asked if I had the ingredients.  I had the yogurt, garlic, and salt, but we needed the cucumber and mint.  We got these ingredients while on our shopping trip and made the Jajik to go with dinner.  We both thought the recipe was a success!

(Emily peeled the cucumber, used the garlic press, measured the ingredients, and did all the mixing.  The only part I did was dice the cucumber up.  Good job Emily!  If you're interested, you can get the recipe here.)

(Our spoils from our day, a new sock monkey with its own blanket, and Jajik!  During dinner, Em was so cute.  She would made a place setting for Socky and would put food down for him to eat.  She would sneak the food and pretend that Socky would eat it.  I got a very heartfelt "I have had a really good special visit with you."  Me too Em <3 )

It's so crazy for me to see how much she has grown and changed.  She is becoming quite the little lady.  I still remember her as the little toddler that would run around and play chase, blocks, and dolls with me.  It was hard to interact with her as a little adult.  Growing old is so crazy!

Storm Clean-up

Over the weekend, my AWESOME parents came to visit.  They braved the 100+ degree hit and helped us clean up our yard, cut down and trim tress, and haul all the debris to the edge of our yard for city pick-up.

Because of the storms that went through a couple of weeks ago, the city of Lima decided to do a debris pick-up free of charge.  We wanted to take advantage of the offer and clean up some of our trees to be hauled away.  We knew the pickup was this week, and only had one weekend to get the stuff done.  We were in need of supplies (and muscle power, especially since I am not allowed to get sweat or dirt in my eyes) and my parents came up with tools in hand.

They brought a wheelbarrow, chainsaw, pole saw, rakes, clippers, my sister Sara, my niece Emily, and my brother's dog Reese.  My parents' were dog-sitting for my brother and if we wanted their help, the dog came as a stipulation.  Ha ha, even though we are not pet (Ramses doesn't count as a pet, he's a family member) we enjoyed Reese's company.  She's a really good dog and just laid around most of the time.

Their visit also happened to correspond during a very busy time for Steve.  He had to work 12 hours on July 4th, 14 hours on the 5th, and he did 9 hours on the 6th.  My parents arrived early afternoon on the 6th and got to work before Steve came home.  Once Steve came home, he took over the pole saw while my dad prepared the chainsaw to cut down a dead tree in the back yard.  The tree had 2 trunks not a whole lot of space to fall down. My dad (who is an engineer) knew which direction to make the cuts to cut the trees down.  They didn't fall exactly where he had planned, but it worked.  Mom and I watched with our hands over our eyes as we were predicting all that could go wrong.  But luckily, things went smoothly.  The tree got cut down and hauled to the debris pile out front.

We (by we, my parents and Steve) would only work a few hours outside at a time.  We worked a few hours Friday late afternoon and then a few hours Saturday morning.  My parents were the first to wake up on Saturday and went out to work without letting us know.  Did I tell you how AWESOME my parents are?  We all went outside soon after they did and got busy.

We weren't sure if there were restrictions to the city clean-up, but figured we might as well put it all out there and then we'd take care of whatever they didn't take.  This morning, as Steve was getting ready for work, I heard a truck outside.  I got up and called Steve over to the window where we watched the cleanup.  A dump truck and a backhoe showed up and went to work.  The dump truck driver parked the truck in our driveway and then he went and dragged the limbs and such into the road where the backhoe picked the stuff up, drove to the dump truck, and dumped it in.  Our pile filled up an entire dump truck!  As soon as they were done with our pile, an empty dump truck showed up and the full one went on it's way.  Thanks City of Lima for taking care of our debris (Steve thought it was pretty cool we got a bunch of trees trimmed and hauled away for free, but then I reminded him it wasn't free, it's what our taxes went towards -- ha!).

(The 2 trees in the background have been dead since we moved here.  We have a couple more trees that are dead, but this is the only one that is in a safe enough area to be chopped down by ourselves.  My dad mastered the chainsaw and took them down.)

(First tree fell a little more to the left than planned, but it worked.  When he cut the second part, it fell straight into the evergreen trees.  He had to make a few more cuts, and then he and Steve were able to pull it away from the evergreen trees without harming them.  Whew.  Thanks dad!)

(No more tree(s)!!  The stumps are still there, but we'll deal with that at another time.  Next on the backyard list is trimming all those bushes -- which are thorn bushes-- as well as clean up around the garage.  We predict the backyard will gain almost another 1/3 of the area once the weeds and such are cleaned out.  We plan on focusing on that in the fall when everything is dead and comes out easy.)

(Debris pile in the front.  Most of the limbs were from Steve trimming the trees with a pole saw.  Then we had a couple limbs fall from the storm.  My mom also went crazy raking all the small twigs from around the entire yard.  All we knew was to put "storm debris" on the curb and the city would take care of it.  We weren't sure if it was supposed to be chopped up, tied together, so we just threw it all out.  Our pile was the biggest on the street.  There were just a couple of neighbors who had small piles.)

(The pile grew after we added the chopped down trees.)

(Backhoe dropping limbs into the dump truck.  Steve was a creeper and would place the camera so that they couldn't see him watching through the window.  The guy in the lawn was the dump truck driver.  He pulled the stuff towards the road so the back hoe didn't have to go into the yard.)

(The pile is all gone!!  They did a really good job and I don't think they damaged the yard at all -- which wouldn't be a big lost seeing as how the rest of the yard is dead.  We will just have to rake the edge and can put the stuff in our yard waste container for next week's trash pickup.)

Deja Vu

In exactly one month from now, Steve and I will be headed on our next European adventure!  We are still in shock that we have this opportunity and it hasn't hit us yet that we're going overseas again, and so soon!  Steve is definitely the one investing lots of time and energy into creating the new itinerary.

The reason we are headed back over to Europe is for Steve's business.  He is being sent to a P&G plant in Belgium to undergo a week long leadership training school (or something like that).  We will be flying into Brussels but will be staying in Mechelen for the week of his training.  On the weekend before and after we will be taking day trips to Bruges & Brussels.  After he's done with the business portion of the trip, we will be adding some vacation days and going to visit Paris!  We were originally going to go to Amsterdam, but after some research and site options, we decided we'd rather hit Paris this trip.

In total, we will be gone for 2 weeks, just like our previous Europe trip.  This week we finally booked our apartment (we got a sweet "penthouse suite") for the week in Mechelen and bought our plane tickets.  Getting the tickets were kind of a fiasco since Steve's tickets are bought through P&G while mine are out of our own pocket.  It took forever to find the best deal and then to arrange it to get seats together.  But Steve pulled through with all his hard research and we are set to go!

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the trip, but I'm sure in a couple weeks it'll really hit that we're going.  I think we waited so long to really prepare for this trip (even though we've only known for about a month) is that we were both holding our breath for it to be canceled.  But it's really happening.  AAAHHHH -- we'll soon be classified as "world travelers".

Trees and Wind Don't Mix

The afternoon of my LASIK surgery will not be forgotten.  As I lay on the couch with my eyes closed (per doctor's orders), I could hear a storm brewing outside and my mother watching what was going on through the windows and on the radar.

After it had calmed down and moved on, my neighbor rang the doorbell to check if we were alright.  My mom went outside with her to survey the damage -- a section of a tree down in our front yard; sticks and branches down everywhere; and a large limb down that fell in the neighbor's driveway, feet from her van!  After I hit 4 hours with my eyes closed, I got to go outside (with my awesome wrap around sunglasses) to see what all I had missed.

Thank goodness for God's protection!  My parents' brand new Prius (by new, I mean 2 weeks old!) was outside in our driveway under a tree, but there were no limbs anywhere near the car!  WHEW!  We had thought about pulling it into the garage but that was after the rain had started and I couldn't go outside and my mom didn't want to go outside.

With the help of our neighbor's son, we got the limbs all cut up, piled up, and put on the edge of the road in hopes of the city picking them up.  We got mixed information as to whether or not the city takes care of it.  We'll find out soon enough.

(Limb down in the front yard)

(Same limb down in the front yard)

(Neighbor's son helping with a chainsaw -- thanks Jon!)

(We didn't take pictures of the limbs down all throughout the yard, but I took pictures of the piles.  This pile is on the back patio.)

(Here's another pile form the backyard.)

(Here is another pile next to the garage.  This is also where the big limb fell close to our neighbor's van, but we didn't get a picture of the crime scene.  We have a green garbage can provided by the city that we can fill with sticks, leaves, weeds, grass, etc.  Steve did break up some of the branches and filled the can quickly with them.  The rest we will just pile up next to the cans in hopes of the city picking it up -- and not fining us!)

(Another wind fatality.  This tree in the middle of the rose bushes had a wood stake helping to hold it up, but it hasn't fared well over the years and the stake broke in the wind.  We will be re-staking it in hopes of saving the tree, but it may be too late.)

LASIK

It has been a lifelong dream of mine to undergo LASIK eye surgery.  Growing up, I would joke that it would be a college graduation present to myself.  However, life happened.  I met and married Steve, we graduated, moved to TN, looked into buying a home, moved to Ohio, went to Europe, and finally I had LASIK!

I was absolutely TERRIFIED of going through with it.  I was a bundle of nerves the day of, and thank goodness my mom went with me.  She knew just what to say and do to help calm me down.  Even though I had paid the morning of, there was a part of me that just kept saying "back out now".  But, I did it and I think I'm glad I did it - ha ha.  I'm still dealing with post-surgery symptoms like itchiness, dry eyes, tired eyes, goopy medicine around the eyes, and such.

The surgery itself probably took less than 5 minutes.  Before going into the laser room, I had to undergo a bunch of numbing drops (the night before, I had to start doing my own antibiotic drops).  I had a little melt down after they took these foam wedges soaked in numbing drops and placed them under my eyelids for a 10 seconds.  Have you ever had foam wedges placed under your eyelids???  Even though I couldn't feel it from the previous drops, it sort of got to me in my head, but my mom was able to sit with me through all this and she got me focused onto other things.  My eyes started stinging while I was waiting and I had these visions of the numbing drops not working and feeling the whole laser process, but the assistants put more drops in and assured me there would be continual drops throughout the process -- whew!

**Disclaimer -- the next two paragraphs do describe the LASIK process, read at your own risk -- hahahaha!  Just keep in mind, if I could go through it, you can read it!**

I was then walked into the laser room (my mom had to wait outside) where I laid on this swiveling bed that could be moved to both lasers.   After being swiveled a coupld of times to make sure everything was lined up, they taped down my right eye and placed a "ring" over my left eye that suctioned to me eye (my vision went grey).  I was swiveled to the left laser that created a flap in the cornea, opening up my eye.  I was then swiveled back to the middle, ring taken off (vision was blurry), that eye was taped closed and they did the same process to the right eye.  Only when they were done creating the flap with the right eye, I was swiveled over to the right laser which actually did the correcting of the vision.  After the right eye was done with the laser, I was swiveled back to the middle where they flushed out the eye, placed the flap back over and then taped my right eye shut.  They then un-taped my left eye, opened the flap, swiveled to the right, used the laser, swiveled back to the middle, flushed the eye, closed the flap, and I was done!!

Like I said, I was in the laser room for under 5 minutes.  They had a tight schedule and an assembly line of patients so they had it down to a science.  The whole thing was really bizarre because I was able to see things but not feel it.  I had a light that I had to stare at during both lasers to make sure I didn't move my eye (which I was assured if I did, the laser did track the eye movement).  The absolute WORSE part was when they were closing the flap, they had this little instrument that I could see move back and forth over the eye, and there was pressure so I know it was touching the eye, but I couldn't feel it. It was very disorienting and I got all light headed from the process (just me freaking out).

When they had finished, they helped me sit up and I was rejoined with my mom in an exam room.  Now that it was all done, and I was over my nerves, I did get faint.  They had to lay back the exam chair, open some smelling salts (which is horrible to do to somebody), and give me some juice.  I was feeling better and they sat the chair back up and examined the eyes to make sure everything closed smoothly and properly.  They said everything looked excellent and I had done a great job despite my explaining how nervous I was beforehand.  I got a little dizzy again, but I had a granola bar that they let me eat which solved the problem.  I hadn't eaten in like 4 hours which did not help the whole dizziness.  (I had to be at the office in Columbus -1.5 hr drive- at 10am, but I didn't get called back for surgery until noon.)

After they saw I was okay and that my eyes looked great, they sent us on our way.  I just had to keep my eyes closed for at least 4 hours after the procedure (sleeping encouraged) in order to kick start the healing process.  I also was given a pair of sunglasses that wrapped completely around the eyes which I had to wear on the way home (I even wore them in the house because of the sensitivity).  I fell asleep in the car for the first hour, then we stopped and ate some lunch (which I did have my eyes open for that).  I kept my eyes closed for the last half hour in the car, but I was awake.  When we got back home, I fell asleep again.  Somehow, I slept through a crazy storm with 65+ mph winds.  There's more on the storm portion of the day's events in the next post.

I have 3 different eye drops that I have to use on a pretty strict schedule.  I have "tears" to use every half hour, a steroid every 2 hours, and an antibiotic every 4 hours.  After day 3 (today!), the steroid changed to every 4 hours along with the antibiotic.  I am also restricted on different things for the next week -- no makeup, dirty/dusty environments, or strenuous activities, and no swimming for 2 weeks.  I can't rub my eyes, and even have a special pair of goggles to wear while sleeping.

The day after surgery, I had to return to the office for an appointment to make sure things still looked good.  They did an eye exam and said I have 20/20 vision already in my right eye, but the left eye is weaker (which is normal, and that my eyes will change over the next week on a daily basis).  They also cleared me to drive.  I go back for another appointment this week.  Everything looked great with the eyes, except for that my left eye has a hemorrhage (blood vessels broke) from the ring they used in making the flap.  They said that's normal and that can take up to a month to disappear.

People have asked if it's worth it, and I think it's too soon for me to answer that.  Right now, I'm frustrated with all the drops -- they leak through my eyes into my sinuses and I taste it in my throat, which is gross; the steroid is really goopy and makes the area around my eyes sticky, especially in the lashes; and my eyes feel very tired.  But I will say, it's nice to lay on a pillow and not have my glasses get in the way.  It's also weird not to reach for my glasses in the morning or after showering.  Totally bizarre.  It's also weird to wear sunglasses again!

(The night before surgery and my last picture wearing glasses!  I know you can't tell, but I was completely freaking out from this point on.  I didn't even sleep the greatest because I just kept thinking about what could go wrong.  You have to read through a consent from that releases them from liability on certain situations and I definitely should have read way sooner -- the night before just added to my nerves._

(My mother snapped a picture of me rocking out the wrap-around sunglasses while napping.)

(HAHAHA, these are my awesome sleeping goggles!  They aren't as bad as they seem, but they do make my face hot -- which may be more form the high heat and minimal AC.  I only have to sleep in these for a week and then I should be cleared to go without them.)

(Yay!!  No more glasses.  Can you see the hemorrhage??)

(Here's a clearer pictures with the hemorrhage.  It's the red spot on the right eye -- well, really it's my left eye, but the right eye in the picture.  I was told that the red will fade and it'll turn yellow.  They said it's just like a bruise only on your eye.  It throws me off when I look in the mirror, and I know Steve isn't used to it either.  Although, he's not used to me not having glasses on either -- even though I remind him that when we met and got married I rarely wore my glasses and just relied on my contacts.  I got rid of my contacts in November of last year, so I guess I'll give him a few more days to get used to no glasses.)

Highly Anticipated

Back in the middle of May, Steve and I noticed these weird plants poking up out of the ground in random locations in the backyard.  We weren't sure what they were (I thought they were weeds and was going to pull them up), but we decided to wait it out (or maybe just too lazy to do something about it).  Finally, some pods started to form and after some research online, we discovered they were lilies.

Since before memorial day, we've been pampering them with lots of water and checking their growth.  We (Steve more-so) have been highly anticipating the day that they would bloom.  Lo & behold, they finally bloomed over the weekend!  In fact, the first one popped upon the morning of my LASIK surgery.  That afternoon, there was a terrible storm and we were afraid we'd lost them, but they are good and strong and are continuing to bloom into big lilies.

(This picture is actually a bonus picture.  I was really taking a picture of the mulching job and new pavers in the back of the house -- more on that in another post-- but you can see the lilies on the left.  They are located to the right of the garage as you pass through the brick wall into the backyard.  The bushes on the right of the picture are on the backside of the house.  We just began mulching the backyard and laid the pavers to keep the mulch form falling onto the sidewalk -- we are mulching pros!)

(On the morning of my LASIK surgery, I happened to spot that one of the pods had finally opened up!)

(After a crazy storm that knocked down some big limbs -- more on that in another post, ha!-- the first lily was opened more and they were doing great!)

(The blooms are bigger than your hand!  We are thoroughly enjoying seeing them through our side kitchen window.  All the anticipation finally paid off!)

(The next pictures were taken today, so you are all up to speed on our lilies.)

(Now that they've bloomed, they've become top heavy.  We will be purchasing some stakes to help support the lilies! But for now, our bags of mulch are doing a great job.)

(Next on our anticipation list is my tomatoes!  On a Menard's trip, I got a hanging tomato plant as a bonus item --Thanks Steve!!  I'm a little skeptical of how it will work out, but we'll see soon enough!  The hardest part was finding a location that it could hang without squirrels being able to get to it.  For now, it's hanging on our arch in the backyard, but it's not permanent (as you can't walk under the arch now). Before purchasing a better stand, we wanted to make sure the plant produces.)

(There's 2 green tomatoes in the center that I can't wait to turn red!  There are several blooms on the plant, too, so I anticipate a lot more tomatoes!)

Where did June go?

I'm still trying to play catch up on blog posts for the month of June.  Maybe it was having 2 procedures in the middle of June, but for some reason June just flew by!  So here's wrapping up a quick month:

My birthday falls right in the middle of June on the 17th, which just so happened to be Father's Day this year!  We were able to spend the weekend with my parents and got to celebrate all weekend long.  After a bridal shower for my bestest friend, we went to dinner for my birthday on Saturday evening (bestest friend included -- thanks Meg!).  We wrapped up the celebratory weekend with a cookout for Father's Day after church on Sunday.

(Even after 25 years, I'm still a Daddy's Girl.  I don't know if that is because my birthday always falls around father's day, or if it's the fact that I have an AWESOME dad.)

(Let me tell you what, this guy earned HUGE points for my birthday.  Not only did he surprise me with a gardening bucket as a gift (which I had mentioned I needed but had completely forgot about), but he organized my birthday dinner to Chili's & he surprised me with a homemade Red Velvet Cake (which is my favorite!).  He and my dad went to great lengths to make the cake while I was at the bridal shower.  Their tactics included hiding all the dishes and ingredients so I didn't see them in the sink or trash, febreezing the house so I didn't smell the cake, and hiding the cake until late in the evening (building up my frustration without a cake).  I have deemed him the official cake maker in the family.  Thanks Dear!)

(I had to throw this picture in, I know it's not the best, but one can never get a dog and baby to both cooperate in a picture.  While we were home for my birthday weekend, my parents were dog-sitting for my sister Amber while they were on vacation and they were babysitting for my brother's daughter Charlotte.)

I should also share that in the month of June I got to have 2 special visits with my Mom!  She came for both of my procedures and took care of me just like when I was little.  Not only did she take care of me, but she helped out around the house with dishes and dinner.  But the best part of her coming, was just being able to hang out with my best friend.  We snuck in some shopping trips (thanks for the swimsuit mom!), saw a movie (in the theater!), lunch date with the neighbor, and lots of talking and shenanigans.  Thanks mom for coming and taking care of me, but I agree, the next visit should not coincide with me having procedures.