Tilley Family Christmas Party

So, as usual, I was the only person to represent our family at the Tilley Family Christmas party. I was there for hours and hours, and I didn't think to take a single picture.



It was nice to chat with everyone. Michelle and Nick were visiting, and so were Dave and Bree. Cameron and Austin were very busy chasing Michelle's dog Soba around with a squirt bottle. Apparently they were told that they could squirt her if she barked. The only real news from the party is that Jared and his girlfriend Julie will be getting married on January 31st.



I gave our blog addresses to Dave, Michelle, and Debbie, so there may be a few new readers for the blogs this coming year.

Christmas in Kaysville

We were able to leave the hospital at noon, so we threw together a family get together later that afternoon.

Denise did a lot of sleeping.

Of course, the little girls were the most excited about Christmas.

I gave them some crafts, so they immediately had to strip down and paint.

As soon as the painting was done, they had to hop into the tub.
Then after dinner the adults got to open their presents.
The highlight of my evening was that Keaton got a plastic electric saw for Christmas, and he spent the evening chasing the girls through the house with it. You can't get more Christmasy than that!

Update

As for the broken bone....sorry. I got it wrong. It is the bone above her eye. However, the scan was done last night and the plastic surgeon never got back to us, so apparently it isn't a big deal.

She has been moved out of ICU and she can have visitors. She is in the IMCU unit on the fifth floor, room number one. She is mostly sleeping, but I know she will appreciate any and all visitors. We didn't speak to a doctor after they moved her from ICU, so we have no idea how long she is going to have to stay there. My guess is that she won't be leaving tomorrow.

The scan this morning showed no changes, which is a good thing. There is really nothing they can do for her other than give her pain and nausea medication and monitor her condition.

And yes, Nate, this whole ordeal doesn't build character for anyone, it just reveals it!

TRAUMA: Life in the E.R.

At about 4 pm on Tuesday I was at the high school feeding my fish when JoLyn called. She had received a message that Denise had been thrown from her horse and was being taken to Lakeview with a possible concussion. She couldn't get off work, so she asked if I would go. I drove to the hospital thinking that the best case scenario was that I would wait with her for a couple of hours then drive her home, and that the worst case scenario would be that I would have to take her to my house to keep an eye on her over night.

When I got to Lakeview I found Denise waiting to be taken for a CT scan of her head. She slept for a while, then they came to take her for the CT scan, then she slept again while we waited for the results. Sometime around 6 pm the doctor came in and announced that Denise had a small bleed on her brain (basically a bruise under the skull) and a possible fracture of her occipital bone (just above her eye). They decided that they should send her to the University Hospital where they had a more experienced neurosurgery department in case things worsened. Jo arrived just after that and for about the next 20 or 30 minutes they prepped her for the move. It got a little nerve wracking at that point as 5 paramedics came into the room to get a briefing on her and strap her down to a back board.

I followed the ambulance and arrived at the hospital just in time to walk in with her, but then I was whisked away by a social worker as someone yelled, "Incoming trauma!" Jo arrived about 10 minutes later, and about 10 minutes after that they allowed us to go back to see Denise. They had treated her as though she had not been at another hospital and they gave her a full trauma work-up.

Here Denise is resting uncomfortably in the E.R. at the U. The neurosurgeon was happy with the scan that had been done at Lakeview, so he decided that he did not want another one done right away. Then the plastic surgeon came in to consult with her about the possible fracture. The scan at Lakeview had been done on the back of her head, so the view of her occipital bone was not really clear. They arranged for another scan of her face to be done later that night.

We waited in the E.R. for about an hour before moving her to I.C.U. We had time to take some pictures while we were there. Did Denise tell the nurse that she was injured on the job? Could she even read the sign while she was strapped to a gurney with a cervical collar on?

Everything on the monitors is looking good, I guess.

This doesn't inspire confidence. I was going to snap a picture of the sign next to this which said something to the effect that any trauma resuscitation with burns needed to be videotaped for teaching purposes, but the nurse walked in just then and I kind of felt like a jerk.
Here we are going up to the I.C.U. to get Denise settled in for the night. Watch out for the blind corner!
Here is Denise all settled in for the night. They were planning to keep her here for the night and do another CT scan this morning, then reassess her condition and assign her to a regular room if all went well. The doctor said that she should plan on staying for at least two days, so Denise may spend Christmas in the hospital.

The doctors all seemed fairly confident that her codition wasn't serious, but they wanted to take every precaution. Denise may not feel very lucky right now, but I saw and heard things both in the E.R. and in the I.C.U. that made me feel like she is very lucky. Hopefully in the future she will never get on a horse again without her helmet! As long as she is in the I.C.U. she is only allowed to have family members visit, and only two at a time. Once she is moved to a regular room she can have more visitors. The hospital also doesn't want to be innundated with a bunch of calls, so call me 660-5367 or my mom 499-7050 or Jo 499-9053 for information. I will be picking up my mom and Rick at 9:30 and we will go straight to the hospital. We don't get good cell coverage there, so leave a message if you can't get through and we will call you back.

Paging Dr. Barnes!

I think it was three years ago now that Steph made me sign-up for bootcamp at Weber State with her, and I hated everything about it. While doing crunches one day I developed a sharp pain in my lower right abdomen and it hasn't ever completely gone away. When it first started I talked to both my regular doctor and my gynecologist, and neither of them could figure out what the problem might be, so I've just been living with low grade pain. Last week it was hurting more than usual, so I decided to go back in and see if we could figure out what the problem might be.

I made an appointment last Friday and my doctor took blood and urine samples to rule out some sort of infection or kidney stones. He said that it could be a pinched nerve or some sort of musculoskeletal abnormality, and he prescribed an anti-inflammatory to see if that would help.

I took the anti-inflammatory Friday night and Saturday morning. I was blow drying my hair Saturday morning when suddenly I felt like I was having a hard time breathing. By the time I finished drying my hair I was dizzy and shaking and I felt like I was going to pass out. Luckily the clinic is just a few blocks from my house, so I made it there in one piece and got an epinephrine shot and a handful of antihistamine samples. I was told to throw away my anti-inflammatory medication and take it easy for the rest of the day.

On Monday I returned to my doctor's office to get the results of my test, which were perfectly normal. My doctor decided to schedule me for an abdominal CT to see if that would show any problem.

On Tuesday I went in for my CT scan. By Tuesday night I was really sick. I had a severe headache, sharp stabbing pains in my chest that felt like the pleurisy I had last summer, and unpleasant gastrointestinal upset.

By Wednesday I was feeling even worse. I really didn't want to go in for the fifth time in six days, but I was so sick I decided that I'd better do it. My doctor looked me over and said, "Well, it looks like you've got some sort of virus". At least he already had the results of my CT scan so it wasn't a completely wasted visit. Fortunately or unfortunately, the CT scan showed all of my internal organs to be perfectly normal, so I still have no answer as to what might be causing the abdominal pain. I promised my doctor that, no matter what happened, I would not return to see him this month, and hopefully I won't have to go in for at least another six months. I spent $140 in copays in one week in order to find out that my doctor can't find anything wrong with me.

On Thursday I woke up with a rash all over my neck and face, but I am sticking to my promise. I still have the rash and some discomfort in my chest, but my other symptoms have gone away. I can't tell you how glad I am to have two weeks off to just recuperate!

Winter Has Arrived

Although technically the first day of winter is still one day away, winter arrived in Utah with a bang this weekend.

Yesterday I recieved four inches of snow in my yard, I received an additional 7 inches over night for a total of 11 inches, and it is still snowing lightly. Since both of my next-door neighbors are elderly, and since no one had come to shovel their yards by the time I finished mine, I spent an hour and a half shoveling driveways and sidewalks this morning. I am ready for a break in the snow and a hot beverage.

Moon

The moon looked really cool last night, and I wanted to take a picture of it but I knew that my camera wouldn't work in the dark. I was pleased this morning to find that the DHS photography teacher had been appreciating the moon last night as well, and he e-mailed this picture to everyone. Unfortunately you can't see from the photograph how big it looked, but the halo around the moon is still cool.

Exploding Fish

I've been having a little trouble with my aquarium lately. My guppies died off a while ago, so about 2 weeks ago I decided to get some more fish. I picked up three tiny neon (blue and red) tetras, and 2 gold mollies, which look alot like my red fish. Within 2 days all of the tetras disappeared, and I assume that someone ate them. Then a couple of days after that I came home from church to find that one of my new mollies was dead. I fed them just before church, and it looked fine. When I got home it looked like it's head had exploded. There was a gaping hole in the head and the eyes were gone. A few days later the same thing happened to my other molly. I took it's frozen carcass back to the pet store to see if I could get any answers. They seemed stumped, as the fish didn't show any sign of disease, and the other fish in my tank are supposedly peaceful. Their only suggestion was that the fish had died for no apparent reason, and then once they were dead one or more of my supposedly peaceful fish sucked out the eyes and brain. I decided against getting any more mollies, so Ava helped me pick out a blue gourami, and so far it seems to be doing well.

Post Thanksgiving Hike

After Mom left for the airport this afternoon I decided to go on a hike to help counteract all of the feasting and grazing that went on this weekend.

I was planning to go to Farmington Canyon, but I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going and before I knew it I was on Mountain Road headed to Baer Canyon.

Of course at this time of year the major colors are shades of grey and brown, but they are pretty in their own way.

Once you get about a mile up the canyon there are evergreens on the south slope.

This shot was taken just after mile marker three. You should be able to see Francis Peak and the radar station right there, but the clouds were low enough to cover it. My spirit was willing to go on, but my feet were done at this point, so I turned around and headed home.

Thanksgiving Fun

So here are my random, candid photos from Thanksgiving at the Murray's.

This is Steph trying to eat a chip in a seductive manner. I don't think she looks that seductive.
This was supposed to be a photo of Steph slapping Jef away from the chips. They were not cooperating with me.
Matt, Dan and Joann "conversating". Mom was telling us that someone at her work uses the term "conversating" quite often, so Matt looked up the definition on urbandictionary.com. The definition is:

conversate

A word used by backwards, ignorant, illiterate inner city trash who mean to say 'converse'.
"Yo, I just needs to conversate witcha!"

The present and future Thompson family.

Mom and Joyce "conversating".

Jef and Grandpa "conversating".

Grandma and Dick enjoying their feast.

Jo grooming Colton's hair.

I took a picture of Brent and Cindy but it was too dark. Here you can see Cindy and a portion of Brent's head between Jeremy and Karen.

Henry, Matt, and Jef responding to something that was apparently humorous to Henry and Matt, but not to Jef.

The Murray's are the fun grandparents who have purchased a small bounce house for their grandchildren. Mom and I were tempted, but it didn't look quite as heavy-duty as the stuff at Classic Skating.

Afterwards some people congregated at Jo's house for drinks and snacks.

This is a random picture of my dog in a sweater because Ava was thrilled about it.

Nothing Much

I don't really have anything to write about, but since I haven't really had anything to write about for a while now I figured I might as well just check in.

I just finished making roll dough for my ward Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I am hoping that they will rise. Last time I made rolls for myself they didn't rise, so I bought new yeast and I am keeping my fingers crossed. I didn't go to the dinner last year, but the year before they ran out of food and apparently it is such a famous dinner that people who have no connection to the ward have been showing up in droves for the last few years, so this year there will be a bouncer (counsellor in the bishopric) standing at the one unlocked door to let people in. We will see how it goes.

My old Christmas lights were looking kind of sad and the colored coating on the glass was peeling off, so I decided to invest in some new outdoor lights. I decided to go with the Energy Star lights which advertise that they use 98% less energy than traditional lights. I believe the claim because they are certainly not very bright. However, they are supposed to last for up to 20 years, and you can connect up to 87 sets of lights to one outlet, so it's not all bad. If I could afford it I would connect 87 sets of lights to my outlet and light up the giant pine tree in my front yard just like the people who live next to the Farmington cemetary. I tried to take a picture of my lights but since they are not very bright and my camera is not fancy enough to take pictures in the dark it didn't turn out very well.

Cynthia and Alyssa stopped by my house yesterday while I was putting up my Christmas lights. That was a nice surprise.

I checked out the link on Jef's blog where you can go to make snowflakes on the computer and I am now completely obsessed. I may not be able to blog for a while because I will be too busy making snowflakes.

Handiness at Work

Well, aside from my dishwasher disaster last night I have not been doing any home improvement projects lately, so I decided to post some work improvement projects.

We are getting more infants at work, but we also have a lot of 2 and 3 year olds whose parents don't seem to have any interest in potty training their children, so I needed some more diaper storage space. I brought my jigsaw and my drill to work yesterday and the kids were absolutely thrilled. This first shelf was originally twice as long, so I had to cut it in half in order to get it to fit in this space. The kids were most thrilled with this because I let them each have a screwdriver to mess around with while I did the actual work of putting the side piece on. It's not my fault that the shelf was hung crookedly, the custodians put it up.

This is the space underneath the changing table itself. It was just one open space and we were using cardboard boxes to keep things separated. I used some scrap wood in my garage to craft these nifty little dividers. They turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

Good Luck, Steph!

First of all, I have to say good luck to Stephanie tomorrow as she starts her new job. It took a lot of guts to put up with an abusive boss for 5 months, and it took even more guts for her to stand up for herself and walk out on him. I know that she has been anxious, fearful, and depressed for the last few weeks as she struggled first with reduced hours and then without a job entirely, but hopefully her new job will be a much better situation for her. I am keeping my fingers crossed that her new boss does not turn out to be a raving lunatic.

Secondly, I am reporting a brush with disaster. I was just talking with one of the families in my day care this morning about the aftermath of a broken pipe under their sink. They had more than $11,000 worth of damage to their home, and it doesn't look like their insurance is going to cover more than $6,000. I had turned on my dishwasher this evening and I was sitting in my living room reading a book when suddenly the sound of my dishwasher changed and I heard water pouring out all over my kitchen floor. I ran in and turned off the water and mopped up the mess and I discovered that the hose that connects the water to my dishwasher had come loose. Luckily I was in the house when it happened, and it was just a disconnected hose rather than a broken pipe, and I was able to fix it by myself in a matter of minutes. Needless to say I will not be leaveing my dishwasher unattended any time soon.


Why on earth do I keep so much crap under my sink, and how did it ever all fit under there?

Fun In The Yard

While Nate and Liv have been raking leaves I have been trying to clean up my park strip flower bed. Some of the plants are still looking good, so I only filled up two big garbage bags this week. After I cleaned up the bed as much as I could I decided to plant the bulbs that grandma gave me a few weeks ago. As I was walking past my gas meter on my way to the garage I noticed an odor that smelled like when you turn the gas on to a stove burner but don't light the pilot light. I called Questar and about 30 minutes later I had a technician replacing my gas meter while I planted the bulbs. This is the third time that I have smelled a gas leak since I have moved into my home. Luckily I seem to have a pretty good nose for it, and now I have a nice shiny new gas meter.

An Inappropriate Gift

In my opinion the only thing worse than a weiner dog is a slutty-looking weiner dog, and yet the Barnes family managed to find one on a birthday card. I do not approve.

While I do not approve of the subject matter in the picture below, I do enjoy this promising young artist. The picture would have been better if the subject matter had been, say, a majestic boxer.

Thanks for freaking me out with weiner dogs on my birthday!

This is Great

One of my big pet peeves about Single Guy across the street is that he does absolutely nothing to take care of his house or yard. Last year me and several of my neighbors called the city when his "lawn" got to be about waist high, and at that point he finally started mowing it. One summer a group of girls rented the house next door to him, and they came over several times to mow his lawn and spray it for weeds. In the spring it is a field of thousands of dandelions, and in the fall his three horse chestnut trees make a spectacular mess on the sidewalk, which at some point the local boy scouts or young men's class usually comes and cleans up. The other morning while I was getting ready to leave for work I noticed my neighbor Barbara, who is in her mid to late 70's out there sweeping the sidewalk at Single Guy's house. It wouldn't be so bad if the guy were elderly or handicapped, but he is somewhere around my age and he appears to be perfectly healthy. He is apparently just so lazy that he lets his neighbors clean up his yard.

Happy Early Birthday To Me!

Thanks to my mom I can now play DanceDance Revolution to my hearts content. Here is a photo of my mom playing the game when she came for a visit last night. I enjoyed the game for more than an hour tonight, and I am hoping that if I can play on it for about an hour every day I can get into some kind of shape.

Thanks for the birthday present, Mom!

Randomness

I have been tagged by Alyssa, so here goes.

1. I think that my internal thermostat is set at a different point than most other people. I am always warm. I have always hated to wear a coat, even as a small child. I was too warm.

2. I am an incredibly light sleeper. I can't have any light or noise when I am sleeping. When Stephanie lived with me I had to wear ear plugs to bed, and sometimes I have even worn earplugs when I am alone in the house because the sound of the furnace or air conditioner turning on will wake me up.

3. I have an unreasonable fear of my home being damaged by water. Possibly because at my old house the swamp cooler used to leak.

4. I don't like chick flicks. I would rather have a root canal.

5. Stephanie, Ava, and my mom all claim that they have seen ghosts in my house. I have not seen them, and they are welcome to dwell here as long as I don't have to see or hear them.

6. This is related to number 5. I have never seen ghosts in my house, but the scent of bacon and/or maple syrup sometimes moves through my house. I like to think that this might be my dad since he was very fond of bacon and maple syrup.

7. I live 4 blocks away from the cemetary and I enjoy walking though it after dark.

Relief Soceity Retreat

We had our annual Relief Society Retreat last night. I am on the planning comittee and some of you will remember my griping and moaning about the experience last year. We had meetings on almost a weekly basis for 5 months fighting over what to eat, how to decorate, what kind of activities to have, what the theme should be, and anything else that could be fought over. Our ward had two Relief Societies each with about ten members on the committee so we could never come to a consensus on anything. I was all about doing things as quickly, cheaply, and easily as possible, but my vote apparently didn't count. The retreat was held at a cabin at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon. The cabin is huge and beautiful, but it was a really tight fit for the 150 people who showed up. Dinner was absolute chaos and we worked feverishly all night to feed everyone and get the place cleaned up.

This year we had only one meeting, which was fabulous. We now have 3 Relief Societies and basically the presidents got together and planned the whole evening themselves. We were asked to be at the cabin as early as possible to help with set-up and preparation. I chose not to take the day off work and I got up there at 5 p.m. I'm not sure why things were so much easier this year, but everything was done by the time I got there. I asked if there was anything I could do and I was told that I could dump a couple of bags of salad into 2 big salad bowls which took me about one minute to do. Then I made my way over to a corner where two teachers from Davis were sitting in the comfy chairs and we chatted for about 2 hours until dinner started. One of the teachers was freaking out that she had to administer the ACT test this morning and she couldn't find anyone to help her with it. Apparently 2 adults are required to be in the room during testing, so I volunteered.

After dinner and a very short speaker the gathering broke up. I helped with clean up for a few minutes but I felt like I was just in the way. I figured since I spent hours washing dishes last year someone else could do it this year, and I was out of there by 9. This morning I headed over to the high school and got paid $75 to read a book for 4 hours while the students took the test. My only assignment was to gather up and count the 29 booklet when the test concluded, so all in all it hasn't been a bad weekend.

This is a picture of the cabin. It is more impressive from the other side, but it is almost completely obscured by trees. It is probably almost as big as the Heritage, but it only has one big gathering room and more bedrooms. Unlike the Heritage it is absolutely gorgeous. The owners are also the owners of Modern Display, so it is beautifully decorated.

PlayStation2

I have been wanting to find a PlayStation, but as you all know that I am so cheap I had not found one that was inexpensive enough for me to justify the purchase.

Denise was kind enough to give me an old PlayStation that her ex-roommate left behind. Unfortunately it was the PlayStation only - no power cord, no connecters, no joystick - nothing. Luckily for me Colton had an old joystick that he was willing to part with, and after searching a few different stores I was able to find a power cord and the connecter cords. The connecter cords didn't have a price tag, so the guy at Game Stop sold them to me for $1.99. I was thrilled with that price since my three options at Wal-Mart ranged in price from $19.99 to $39.99. So for a mere $7.99 I now have a working PlayStation. The only game that I currently have is The Chronicles of Narnia which Steph gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I had never played it because I was too addicted to X-Men, but I broke it out tonight. It is okay, but I'm still going to need to buy X-Men. I also want to get DanceDance Revolution, since I am justifying having a PlayStation by telling myself that I am going to work out on it regularly. I need to find a dance mat and a memory card so I can save my games, and then I will be all set.

Don't bother me, I'm gaming!

Adams Canyon

Okay, I know you guys are probably all sick of my hiking pictures, but here are some more. Steph ditched me today so with nothing to do I decided to head up Adams Canyon. Apparently most of the people in the Layton area had the same idea because I have never seen the trail that crowded.