Eerika's Surgery

This past week has been exciting and exhausting. 

Eerika had a her tonsillectomy. I was naive going into the surgery. I didn't realize how much pain she would be in and how the recovery would really take more than a week to get back into semi-normal life. 

Eerika was so brave on her surgery day. Her surgery was delayed for four hours, which was painful for Eerika as she was hungry and thirsty. A huge blessing was that she napped for two and half hours of that time on the hospital chairs. Troy gave her a blessing in the bathroom as I was worried that we would be rushed once we got to the pre-op area. Eerika was so calm while she was being taken to the O.R. She just laid on the O.R table and inhaled strawberry nitrogen oxide before getting the gas that made her sleepy. She was so calm that it was almost unnerving to me. The surgery was less than an hour and the PACU nurse was nice and Eerika woke up nicely from the anesthesia and had two slushees (sprite and orange popsicle). 

The boys were at the Barker's and Nicole said they had a great and were very sweet.

Eerika was a model patient at the hospital.She took her medicine easily every three hours when the nurses brought it in. The nurses were nice and Eerika and I snuggled through the night.

Steve discharged us early in the morning and we were home around 10 am.

The recover was hard. There were days when Eerika was in a lot of pain and nights were hard as I would wake up with her every 3-6 hours and give her medications. She only wanted me to give her the medication because I am a nurse. But there were nights when it hurt to swallow and she fought me about taking the medication.

I miss Eerika's snoring. It is weird to have her fall asleep and not hear that sound.

When she was finally well enough to do something other than sleep or watch movies. Maybe day 8 after surgery?

Legos for everyone

Saku has loved legos for years. Now Eerika loves them as well and Aleksi is addicted to building as well. He will go upstairs and build on his own. And he is so happy when he gets to build with the big kids. 

 He is also excited to do selfies. 

South Dakota

Our summer was spent with my family, with Troy's family, in the process of moving or recovering from Eerika's surgery, so over Labor Day weekend I suggested that we go camping as a family vacation. 

We spontaneously decided to go to South Dakota to Mt. Rushmore and to camp since it is only 6.5 hours away. New possibliities have opened to us since moving to Colorado and being at a different geographic location. 

Troy scored a great camping site for the three nights that we were there and we enjoyed our new family tent. 

On Saturday morning we went to check out Mt. Rushmore. The picture of the kids and I makes it look like the kids were unhappy to be there but they had a great time. We hiked along the path that had different viewing decks. 

On Saturday morning we went to check out Mt. Rushmore. The picture of the kids and I makes it look like the kids were unhappy to be there but they had a great time. We hiked along the path that had different viewing decks. 

Aleksi didn't sleep well. He had a cough on the first night which kept him up and the other two nights while he wasn't coughing, he was up and wanted to sleep with me. I didn't get great sleep on any of those nights. However, I was able to not get worked up about it.

One of the awesome thing about this trip was the wild life we able to see. There were huge herds of buffalo. 

We fed burros (wild donkeys), saw antelope and prairie dogs. 

We had hot dogs, green chile chicken casserole, smores, peach cobbler, eggs and sausage and cereal for our meals. 

Our tent was awesome. It rained on one of the nights and we stayed dry and everyone had plenty of room. 

 Aleksi was a tired boy and sweetly fell asleep on Troy's lap while we were at the Bear USA park. We saw

We visited Sylvan Lake. There was a mile long hike around the lake. Saku and I did it together at first and then we picked up the rest of the crew and hiked around it again.  I enjoyed spending some one on one time with Saku. Usually Troy goes on the big kid adventure so it was nice to get my turn.

Aleksi was excited to see himself on the selfie image.