Tonsillectomy & Adenoidectomy

For years I have had ongoing problems with my tonsils.  Even when they weren't infected, they were unusually large and looked as though 2 globulous alien creatures had taken up residence on either side of my throat.  In recent years, if a case of tonsillitis got bad enough, my throat would be almost swollen shut.  Yeah, not fun.  Back in 2006 I was actually scheduled to have a tonsillectomy, but then surprise! We found out I was pregnant with Savannah, and so the surgery was canceled.  Fast forward 4+ years and here we are today.  During the time since that canceled surgery, I've had 2 kids and lived in Japan--all conditions which were prohibitive in me moving forward with any plans to eradicate the little suckers.  Finally, when I stopped nursing Ella, I talked to my general physician who agreed it was time to move forward with our tonsil war plans.  She referred me to an ENT, who I saw in July.  He asked me a couple of questions, took one look at my tonsils, and immediately decided to schedule me for surgery.  Unfortunately he's a very busy guy, and was booked 2 months out, so I was given a surgery date of September 3.  On August 19th, just 15 days before my surgery date, I came down with a nasty case of tonsillitis and a sinus infection.  Is it just me, or does it seem like those suckers were determined that they weren't going anywhere?  Luckily, I got in to see my general physician the next day who put me on antibiotics and I narrowly missed having to call my surgeon to reschedule my surgery.  So finally, THE BIG DAY rolled around.  I've never been so excited to be in pain in my entire life.

From everything I've read, and from everyone I've talked to who has had this done as an adult, life is 100 times better once you have recovered from surgery.  The surgery went well and I had a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy (lucky me).  Once I got home I was definitely not feeling so excited about things because it hurt like the dickens.

I just have to keep reminding myself that the end result is very worth it!  WARNING: If you have a weak stomach, I suggest stopping here, because I'm about to show you a small glimpse of why I'm so uncomfortable right now.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
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TONSILLECTOMY CARNAGE: You can't see, because I just can't open my mouth wide enough, but my uvula is so swollen that it actually rests on my tongue.  That makes swallowing interesting!

Children Are A Gift

Such a pretty little package!

The Princess & the Frog??

No, that is NOT a plastic lizard that Savannah is holding, it's a living breathing lizard.  Would it surprise you if I told you she was at her Papa's house (my dad) when this occurred?

Travel Insanity

Things have been a whirlwind of activity for our family over the past month!  On June 26th, the girls and I drove up from Corona to Draper, UT by ourselves.  We made great time (we left at 4:30 am PST and arrived at 4:30 pm MT) and the girls were really well behaved.  We spent the rest of the day and the next day recovering.  Then at 6:00am on Monday, June28th, a car picked us up at Nathan's mom's house to take us to the SLC Airport.  The girls and I flew to NYC for an event to raise awareness and money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.  (If you want to hear more about our trip, you can see pictures and read all about it in my 2 posts I wrote about the event: Post #1, Post #2.) 

We stayed for one night and left for the airport immediately after the event at 2:30 pm the next day, exactly 23 hours after we had arrived in NYC!  The girls had a predictably rough flight home, but we all survived to tell about it.  This is what a 3.5 year old looks like after attending the funnest party on Earth, and then spending multiple hours in the Newark Airport and 5 hours on an airplane:

We got back to Nathan's mom's house at about 10pm on Tuesday, June 29th, and then I spent June 30th recovering and repacking.  On Thursday, July 1st, I left for the SLC airport again, flew to San Francisco where I had a quick layover and switched from Delta to Japan Airlines and discovered I had been upgraded to business class for my flight from San Francisco to Tokyo.  It was the best surprise ever.  I figure it was karma repaying me for having so calmly survived the 11-hour drive from California to Utah, the two 5-hour flights to and from NYC, and staying in a small hotel room with the girls, all by myself.

I arrived in Tokyo at about 3:45pm on Friday, July 2nd, and took the Airport Limousine bus into the city where I met up with Nathan.  We spent that evening in a hotel and then moved to our friends', the Smith's, home for the remaining 4 nights of our stay.  We had an amazing visit in Tokyo.  It was so nice to go back.  We both have missed Japan a lot, but realized being there that we had missed it even more than we had realized!  Despite the fact that many of our friends were out of town, we still managed to see quite a few dear friends, have tons of fun, eat tons of our favorite yummy foods, and generally take advantage of our short time in Tokyo.

On Wednesday, July 7th, we left to return to the US on separate flights.  Nathan was lucky and had a direct flight, getting back in the early afternoon.  I flew to LAX where I had a 5-hour layover in the horrible Delta domestic terminal, and then flew the rest of the way to SLC, getting in that evening.  We spent the next 5 days enjoying time with Nathan's family.  Nathan's sister Misha was in town with her 2 little ones, which was really fun because we got to meet her new beautiful baby boy! 

We drove back to Corona on Tuesday, July 13th, and have spent the past week and a half trying to catch up and recover from the insane amount of travel we have all done.

Savvy-isms

Last night when I put Savannah to bed we were talking about me being gone and then coming back from Japan.  She said, "Did you miss me a lot?"  When I said yes, she said, "You're so glad you came home."

Tonight when I put her to bed she said, "Give me a magic kiss that will help me sleep."

Single Parenting and Sick Kids

Nathan left on a business trip to Japan a week ago.  The morning that we drove him to the airport Ella woke up with a fever.  A couple of days earlier, Savvy threw up all over the parking lot of a grocery store, ran a brief low fever, but then seemed fine.  Ella's fever disappeared within 24 hours and I didn't think much of either of the girls illness after that.  Then on Sunday after church Savvy complained that her neck was hurting, so I took a look in her throat and it was obvious that she had strep throat.  Her throat was red and swollen and there were white blisters all over it.

So we made a trip to urgent care and got her a nice 10-day course of antibiotics.  Luckily Ella has stayed healthy, despite the 24-hour fever, and Savvy is seeming much more like herself.  We've spent the past week recovering and trying to stay sane while Nate has been gone.  The next few weeks are going to be really insane though, as tomorrow I am driving the girls and I to Utah.  Then on Monday the girls and I will be flying to NYC to make banana splits with Kelly Ripa tohelp kick off a new virtual campaign to support the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. We will return to SLC Tuesday night, and then I'll leave for Tokyo to meet up with Nathan on Thursday!  Crazy?  Definitely.  Will I survive?  Maybe.  Fun? For sure!

Gotta love those smiles!

Kidless Trip to Cancun

I am FINALLY getting around to posting pictures from our trip to Cancun!  It's not like we've been back that long...only about uhhhhh, 3 weeks...  The past few weeks have been so insanely busy that I've barely had time to take a breath!

Nate and I left the girls with my incredibly sweet parents, who I'm sure didn't realize what they were really getting themselves into.  We stayed at the beautiful Excellence Playa Mujeres resort, just north of Cancun city.  We loved the resort and enjoyed getting some much needed R & R next to the pool and on the beach.

 One of the days we took a day trip out to Chichen Itza.  We stopped at the Cenote Ik Kil, or the “Sacred Blue Cenote.”  A cenote is a naturally formed water-filled sinkhole.  This particular cenote is perfectly round, 196 feet wide and about 130 feet deep.  The water is about 82 feet from the surface, which you reach by walking down a large stone stairway along the outer edge.  It was beautiful, with tree roots hanging down from the walls and edges of the sinkhole and beautiful clear blue water.

 Then we went on to see the ruins of Chichen Itza which were every bit as spectacular as I expected them to be!

On two of the other days we did some scuba diving.   Nathan and I went through a scuba certification program when we were engaged, but have never had the chance to scuba diving since!  We did a refresher course followed by a 30-foot dive the first day.  Then, on our second day of diving we did an 80-foot shipwreck dive and a 50-foot reef dive. 

The water was very choppy on the 2nd day of diving and a bunch of people got sea sick.  It’s amazing how calm the ocean is though, once you get below the surface!  The sea life was stunning and we enjoyed seeing lots of coral, angelfish, barracuda, a huge moray eel, and a variety of other things.

 It was a wonderful trip!  We were very sad to leave, but happy to be home with our girls again!

Hair-rific

Hooray for Pre-K!

One of the things we have been especially grateful for this year is that our friends, the Mylroies, moved into our ward at the beginning of January.  They were some of our closest friends in our ward in Tokyo, and so it has been wonderful to have them close again.  Savannah would be the only girl her age in her Primary class if it wasn't for the Mylroie's daughter Isabel.  We're grateful to have another girl her age, and they have been having a blast being back together, including going to Pre-K together!

This past Wednesday was Savannah's last day of school in her Pre-K class.  They put on a little program where they said the Pledge of Allegiance

and sang some songs.

Then their teacher, Miss Mandy, presented them with books filled with their projects from the semester.

They were rewarded with a special lunch at the end.

What a fun day!