Parker's Science Fair Project

Oh how I loathe school projects, but Parker was determined.

The Power of Mentos:

Where in the World are We Going?

Jeremy's work has an extensive moving system, annually.

1. They move employees in groups (i.e., heads of offices, supervisors, regular folks going overseas, regular folks coming from overseas going stateside and last regular folks going stateside to stateside)

2.  When it's your group, they post what is available and you have two weeks to "bid"

1. First, you enter in to the computer the location and job description you want (there could be two San Diego's--one as one type of a job and the other as a different type)
2. Second, you send off/attach a one page "resume" outlining why you are qualified for that type of job at that location
3. Third, your immediate supervisor and your office head have to "sign off" on your requests

3.  After the bidding closes you wait the obligatory two weeks, and sometimes longer, during which a team of upper employees discuss, evaluate, and decide on everyone within the group followed by an e-mail announcement (usually at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday, Washington, D.C. time--because they probably run for the exit door so as to not field or have to return any phone calls...well, that's the "story")

We looked only at a certain type of job, which gave us 15-20 location choices.  We whittled away offices that we did not want and then cost of living or school districts we did not want.  After that, we placed a bid for about 9-10 locations.

We got our #1 choice (mostly because other people don't want the location):  China Lake, California!  China Lake is a Naval Base, has one of the highest per capita of Master and Doctorate degree population, sits in the middle of the desert (aka Death Valley), and is surrounded by a civilian population/city of about 27,000 called Ridge Crest (and the next city is more than an hour)...where we will own our next house.  We will arrive mid-July.

Sri Lanka

Jeremy had the fortune of traveling to Sri Lanka for the first time recently for a port visit (Navy ship coming in).  He visited Colombo for two weeks and rather enjoyed it.  He thought it was a lot nicer than India.  He re-formatted the work camera SD card before sharing the photos with me (why are we surprised?) and this is all I have.

Where he stayed, the Cinnamon Grand:

And this is one thing that he bought:

Allison's Birthday Party

At the end of the second week after Allison's surgery, she held a party at our house for a group of her closest friends.  It was a pizza, popcorn, and movie kind of a night.  Here's a little look:

Pattaya

Jeremy went to Pattaya, Thailand.  He was supposed to go for three weeks.  Instead, he ended going for two weeks, coming home for a couple days (by chance during Allison's surgery), and left again then for two weeks to Sri Lanka.

He took a few pictures while in Pattaya.  Not necessarily OF Pattaya.  Jeremy refers to the city as the modern biblical "Sodom and Gomorrah."  You wouldn't go there for the beach or a family vacation.  He spent the last 3-4 days of that trip on a ship out at sea. Here are his interesting pictures of the flight experience:

McKenna

Allison has been in a photography class this semester and learning lots of new functions.  I really like this photo she captured of McKenna.  She also has a very, very nice camera on loan from the school for this class!  McKenna was twirling in the street in front of our house.

I am not in a photography class and do not own a camera quite as nice.  However, I did capture this moment as well...

Allison's surgery

Allison had surgery on her right knee, originally to shave down the plica that we thought was giving her trouble over the past year.  Plica is tissue and when you look at it in an MRI, it looks like a ligament.  Some people are born with them, others are not.  It did turn out that the plica was the problem, but it was quite a bit tight (rubbing against her knee cap) and had a tear in it (she'll tell you it wasn't from the rock climbing injury when she hit it a year ago--so I have been ignoring her on that account lately).  It had led to some inflammation and what they call "moving pain."  We seemed to get all the explanations we were looking for in the surgery and they ended up removing the whole plica.

It was a full surgery and she and I spent the night at the hospital.  She was unable to bend her knee for almost a week.  She had two crutches for a little more than two weeks and now has one.  She is progressing well.  Total recovery is 6-8 months.  She has physical therapy appointments and exercises.

Not everything went perfect.  She did lose feeling and taste in part of her tongue.  This is very, very rare (in 2015 the hospital we were at performed 6,000 surgeries where they intubated and only 2 had this result).  Cause for concern was that it did not return quickly/initially.  What happened was that they tube in her mouth and throat ended up cutting off the nerve signal by resting on it.  Sometimes the "damage" is permanent.  We were fortunate that about a week later she began to slowly recover from that as well.

Additionally, she was a bit emotional after coming out of anesthesia.  At first we all attributed this to the opposite "effect" of the drug, where people are overly "happy", until it continued on to the next day.  It did begin subsiding day by day and we attributed it to being overwhelmed (just coming in from another time zone, realized the full scope of the recovery, and having to deal with a lot longer time off school than had hoped for).

One funny:  the first time she spoke in the recovery room, was to answer a question that the nurse had asked her.  Unfortunately, for the nurse, she replied in Spanish!

Allison had some wonderful friends stop by the hospital, and again when she got home.  What a huge help that was to cheer her up.

We were glad that they marked the knee before she went it.  They wouldn't draw a happy face and didn't necessarily appreciate my humor in asking.