A Nice Little Visit

My mom brought Autumn and Austin over this evening after they had a little dinner treat at McDonalds with Grandma. Bob (our dog) gets REALLY excited when we have company over and the kids kinda get scared when this 75 pound Bassett Hound is trying to show them how excited he is to see them! So we decided to have them take him for a walk. Although sometimes it was Bob taking them for a walk - lol.

This is Austin trying to tell Bob to come. But sometimes (ok most of the time) Bob has a mind of his own and will go his own way!



After Austin gets over his initial intimidation of Bob he really loves him. He loves taking him for a walk.









Austin climbing with Uncle Rob's help.


The tree outside our house is a pine tree which where we live is not as common as in Florida. So it's very exciting when you can pick your very own pine cone right off the tree!! This is Autumn showing Uncle Rob her precious pine cone.

Right by our condo Austin found this awesome tree!! It's the perfect height for him to climb on and it makes a great photo opportunity. So I took the chance to take some pictures of the kids.
































My brother and my dad would be proud of my photographer's eye.......lol









Thanks for coming over guys! It was fun!!

Happy Birthday Deanna!!

Even though there are so many *pros* about my chosen profession, there are also some *cons*. One of which being that we don't get to see our teacher friends very much during the summer.

We are all busy with our projects, vacations, and visiting with our family members from out of town. Since the end to our summer is fast approaching, some of us decided to get together to celebrate Deanna's birthday. Her birthday was actually a couple of weeks ago but this has been this first chance we've had see each other.

Here are some snapshots of our fun dinner:

Deanna, Tammy, and Missy's daughter Kyla

Missy and Deanna......I think that they are laughing because Missy asked the waitress if she could split the check but we all thought she wanted the waitress to split the cheesecake!! LOL!! It's probably a moment that you would have had to have been there....but trust me it was funny!
This is Missy and Greg's cute little daughter Kyla. We couldn't believe how much she's grown since the last time we had seen her.


We were teaching her the importance of girlfriends!

And this is our friend Melanie holding Kyla.

We were both sitting on the same side of the table so I wasn't very good at snapping her picture.

Isn't summertime great?!?

You've just got to love the summertime!! Since we are both teachers and have the summer off my husband and I get to spend some precious time together (I say precious because during the school year my schedule gets pretty crazy with everything going on....) and we get to spend time with friends and family. We had the pleasure of hosting Rob's niece Tessica, her boyfriend Marty, and her roommate Jennifer for a night. They are on a road trip down the coast of California and crashed here for the evening before going to Vegas and back home to Idaho Falls. We loved having them here. They are a fun bunch. It would have only been better if they could have stayed a little longer so we could have gone to do something with them.
Oh well. Maybe next time!!

Rob and Tessica

Jennifer, Marty, and Tessica

Dinner with Friends

My friend Wendy (third one from the left) teaches in Japan. She's in town for a couple of weeks so we got the opportunity to meet up for a little catching up with friends! We all met at Las Casuelas for a little Mexican food. Something she doesn't get a chance to have in Japan. A great time was had by all!

Scripps

Many of you know that Rob has struggled with his knee for many years. Three years ago he had his last surgery but it hasn't seemed to have helped much. Really to the contrary his knee is the worst it has ever been. But that surgery wasn't an easy recovery process and Rob has made it very clear that he won't ever go through that again.

A couple of years ago we were able to change his insurance from HMO just in case he changed his mind. This would give him the option to go to an incredible orthopedic center here in the desert to see if anything else could be done for him and his knee if anything.

Through a series of events, thankfully, that opportunity came a couple of months ago. Rob decided to explore his options. We went to DOC (Desert Orthopedic Center) and basically they told him there really wasn't anymore they could do for him. He is not a candidate for knee replacement because of his age, but they did suggest he make an appointment to see a doctor in San Diego, Dr. Bugbee. We were told by the doctor at DOC that the procedure that this Doctor does requires one year of non-weight bearing and one year rehab. That was daunting to say the least and Rob wanted nothing to do with that idea for many reasons. One being that we live in a two story condo where both the bedroom AND the bathroom are upstairs!!

We talked about it....the pros and the cons and we decided we weren't losing anything by just going to talk to the doctor. He made the appointment (the earliest they could see him was three months out!) and that brings us to yesterday.

The appointment just happened to work out with the conference that he was to attend in San Diego. So that was nice. The only bad part is that same weekend was his oldest brother Frank's 40th birthday. We really wanted to go up and surprise him for his birthday. Rob went back and forth trying to decide what to do (it was a hard call). But we decided to keep the appointment and see what this doctor had to say.

Dr. Bugbee was really nice. He took his time and listened to Rob and the steps he's taken to aliviate his pain. Then he explained our options. He told us about a procedure he does where he takes tissue from a donor cadaver and implants it into the knee. He of course cleans out all the bad parts of the knee before implanting the new tissue. It's a little more of an aggressive surgery as he opens up the knee (the other surgeries have been orthroscopic) and would require a couple nights stay in the hospital. He would also need to take about a month off of work. And now you aren't allowed to be on crutches at school so he would need to be in a wheelchair. We all know how yucky that would be. All in all though it looks like a 6month recovery process. That sounded WAY better than two years!! The other option the doctor gave his was to leave it like it was and his pain would continue and would just keep getting worse.

The doctor gave us a pamphlet explaining everything and told us that we could go home and think about it. My brave husband's mind doesn't really work like that. He doesn't much like to prolong things so he bravely said "Where do I sign up?!"

The next step and where we're at now is that they contact the insurance for approval and then he gets put on a waiting list. They give us about a 2-3 day notice to have everything in order and come down to San Diego for the surgery. It could be anywhere from a couple of days after the approval to a couple of months. It just depends on when a donor becomes available and the availablity of others on the list before Rob.

Please keep us in your prayers and this was not an easy decision for Rob to make. Recovery is not an easy thing and on top of everything else Rob is starting a new program this year at his school and he's the only one trained to facilitate the program at his school. He has some great colleages and I'm sure that Michele and Kelly May will be there to support him all the way. Stay tuned and I'll keep you up-to-date on the latest! (At least my wonderful husband gave me something to blog about!! Thanks honey! I love you!!)

Sea World

One of my Christmas gifts from Rob was tickets to Sea World. I've wanted to go so bad! So since we were already in San Diego for his conference and had to stay through the weekend for his doctor appointment, we decided that it was the perfect opportunity for us to go. I was so excited! We had a great day! It wasn't very crowded (considering it was a weekend during the summer). We went to all of the shows which to me is by far the highlight of the park. I wasnt really impressed with the exhibits. One day I would love to take a behind the scenes tour.

Here's some pictures of our day:

Our self taken picture to commorate our day.

The Shamu show was INCREDIBLE! It truly brought tears to my eyes. I loved seeing how much these trainers love what they do and love the animals they work with. It really touched my heart. We can't even get our dog Bob to come! And these animals obey hand signals!!

These sea lions were Rob's favorite. He wanted to take them home with us!!

It was a wonderful day spent with my amazing husband. He isn't really fond of sea life or sea animals but I think even if you ask him he'll tell you that he had a good time! He was amazed just like me about what these animals can do!

Seaport Village

Poor Rob finally got a little break on Friday night so we walked down behind our hotel to Seaport Village for dinner and walked down the warf. It was a nice romantic evening just spent with the two of us which was really nice. There was a BEAUTIFUL sunset but my camera didn't capture it. I guess I have to upgrade my camera!



This was a HUGE statue right on the warf in honor of Bob Hope. It was amazing so I had to get a picture!