Joely Bear

It's been so long since I've been on my blog, but thought I should update after my trip to St.Louis, especially since there are many of you who aren't on facebook and don't see what's going on. I can also ramble on, on my blog here.



In case some of you may not know, our 11 month old grandson Joel, Jason's son was in the hospital last week. On Wed July 8th Joel was brought to Children's hospital in St louis after having a choking episode. While he was there they discovered that he had swallowed a battery from a remote {one of the round batteries about the size of a quarter}. They took him to surgery and removed it as quickly as possible but not before it had burned an area of his esophagus. He was put in ICU and had an NG tube and IVS. Had to go back to surgery again to put NG tube in after getting pulled out by mistake a few days later.



Karen and Mike sped down there on Thurs 7/9 and helped out for a couple days, both with Boaz and with Joel.



I was able to get a leave from work and drove down on Monday 7/13. It was a whirlwind time of going back and forth to the hospital, watching Bo and helping around the home. I was SO happy to be able to be there! I got some good one-on-one with Bo and LOTS of good "Hold Yous" with Joel, as he was of course needing that alot. It was a long haul waiting for him to be able to go home but he was finally discharged on Fri 7/17. Since then we got him settled at home and spent alot of time figuring out how to get him to drink: giving pain meds first and then trying to get him to drink. Doctor wanted everything recorded, so we started a notebook to record every drink, med, pee and poop. He can only drink formula for now, possibly pureed food at some point before too long, but no solids for awhile. Will see md on Friday and at some point they will do a scope to check out the burn/scars, but not for awhile.



I left St louis on Tues 7/21, getting home Wed, Mike wanting me to take 2 days for the way home. It was a good idea as I was a little worn out. Before I left, Joel was drinking a little more each day, taking a little less narcotics/and pain meds, but it will take awhile to bounce back all the way. But, he has gotten his smiles and giggles back again, SO good to see that!



Thanks to the many, many friends and relatives and many church small groups who have been praying for Joel, his family and my trip down there. Prayers were definitely answered!

Praise the Lord!

We had a party today to celebrate both Rog's 80th birthday and Roger and Wilma's 60th anniversary....Had a great time at Old Country Buffet.

Mike, Karen, and Grandpa and Grandma had a little party for my 55th. Karen made me this amazing cake, her first layered cake....chocoloate of course.

Susan Boyle

This is such an amazing video....just made me cry!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

And he's off again! Brian left today for a couple months. He is on his way to Barbados,
St.Lucius and Antigua. he will be back in about 2 months unless they get called to haiti d/t some
possible anticipated problems there. Prayers for him would be appreciated. Before he left he said I'll probably be calling you from Puerto Rico, Mom. Thanks to Kelly he got his phone fixed before he left.

More pics from the "Visit"

Andrea and the boys came and stayed almost a week. We had a wonderful time with all of them.
Missed Jason, as he has a hard time getting away...hope he'll be home again before too long, but we understand his job. Took the boys to Nickolodean land at the MOA. Bo really liked his rides, especially the truck.

More pics from the

A Visit from Andrea and the kids.

It's been a long time since I've been on my blog, so many things going on! We took a quick trip to St Louis in march. Were able to celebrate Bo's birthday....a great "Mickey Mouse" birthday, Bo's favorite! It was a great visit.

Yes! It is official as you may already know, Brian is engaged to the "Love of his Life",
Kelly Bradshaw. It was good to get to know Kelly when we were in Florida and really think she will make a good wife for Brian. A small September 19th wedding is planned in Topsail Beach, NC which is near Wilmington where Brian lives. It will be on the Beach which will really be special. And Brian says that his ship WILL be in port....wouldnt be good if it wasnt.

We have been back a week now, so thought I'd better be gettin busy showing some pictures!
We spent 2 weeks in Florida, going to Fort meyers briefly, spending a wonderful 5 days on
St Petes beach with Brian and kelly...going to Busch gardens among other things. Mike, Kelly and brian went fishing in the gulf, me and the waves dont do well as you may know.
Then Mike and I went through the everglades to the Keys where we spent 3 days at Islamorada where we had been before. Then we headed back up to Orlando where we flew out of and spent the day at Epcot. We had a great time...but it is good to be home, too.

Message from John Piper

This is an amazing video....must see this, it is very important!

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1605_be_courageous_mr_president/

Goodbye

'Had some sad news today. Some of you may remember a patient I took care of for almost
7 years, Jeffery. Well, today after a short stay in the hospital with a brain absess...the family made the difficult decision to turn the Vent off. Jeffery died today at 2am. Please pray for their family, a very hard time, a very hard decision, but they are happy to think of Jeff in no more pain, in heaven with a new body!

What an AMAZING, CRAZY winter! Snow, snow, snow, snow and more snow and now today my thermometer measured almost 20 below...not even the windchill. But then us Minnesotans love to brag don't we! Yesterday I was driving east on crosstown 62 and the little car ahead of me did a spin out! She ended up about 2 car lengths ahead of me, facing me. Fortunately, we all were safe....but you should have seen the look on her face! I thought you might like to see Mike and his new toy, especially the boys. What a year for him to have decided to get the skid loader.
He's using it at least every week to do 4 driveways. This morning after working till midnight last night he woke up at 7am, couldn't sleep....just had to get out and play with his skid loader.
The big problem is trying to find places to put all the snow, alot is going in the backyard...wow!
you boys could have really built a big snow cave there!
Doesn't this make you boys want to come home? Yeah right! The snow really is pretty though.

Winter in Minnesota

We hope everyone has had a great Christmas season and look forward to a wonderful New Year.l For our family scattered across the country, here is a little bit of Minnesota! Although, you guys in Oregon have pictures to rival this. The first, just to show you the "snow level" at home, although we have had more snow since then. Then, Mike and I did some hard-core ice fishing on Mille Lacs this week. The picture of the ice houses is the day we were fishing all day.

Extremely blizzardy/windy, windchills down in the 2o/30 belows....are we crazy or what.

Note the out house on the middle of the lake.....don't want to drink too much fluids as this isnt something you want to have to do. Just showed a picture of the fish hole for Kelly Bradshaw as she couldnt believe we actually drove out on and were sitting on the lake. Then, for you boys.....dad's new toy....his ice auger. Didn't get alot of fish, but enjoyed watching them in the camera playing with the bait. I did get 2 perch, too small to keep.

A "Brian" quilt

I finally had enough time to create a new quilt! It was a "Brian" quilt. I had a good time collecting outdoor/woodsy/animal life prints throughout the summer on trips up north.