Tired!

It seems as though I never get enough sleep but the last few days have been ridiculous!! I inherited a faulty gene that kicks into gear occasionally (okay frequently) when I lay down at night.  My brain switches on and I can't find the "off switch".  I'm pretty sure I got this crappy gene handed down to me through my mothers side of the family because she has often mentioned it and she said her mother used to talk about it as well.  It wouldn't be so bad if I had creative thoughts or "aha" thoughts but NO, I just get random, crazy, think too much thoughts.

Last night was a doozy!  I knew I had to be up early to get Sarah to the hospital by 5:45 AM...Yes, that's AM.  The only problem was that I didn't get to sleep until after midnight and was wide awake at 2:30.  This does nothing for me.  Really, nothing!   Meanwhile, Sarah is tucked comfortably in bed (my bed), peacefully snoozing (with the aid of some good meds) and I can't sleep because the sun is out.  Don't get me wrong. I'm glad she is sleeping.  She needs it to heal faster.  But I don't mind saying I'm just a little jealous.

Her surgery went very well.  It tuned out that the 3 anchor screws that were used in the first surgery, failed.  Plus she had scar tissue that needed to be cleared out.  The Doctor described it like having a piece of gravel in between your joints and it grinding every time you move that joint.  Or like having a pebble in your shoe and not being able to get it out.  He brought me two pieces of them for us to see (and keep) and they are about the size of a piece of rice.  The third one was covered by that scar tissue and when he stated scrapping that away, he found it.

When she woke up, okay she was half awake, I told her what he had done and that he said it would be a much easier recovery than last time, she started to cry.  She has been so freaked out about this one (I think because of the last one) that it was just such a huge relief. 
She said "I love him" meaning the doctor.  "I want to hug him"  So when he came in, she told him that and gave him a kiss on the cheek.  He said he'd never turn down a kiss on the cheek from such a cute girl. 

A little background on this doctor & Sarah.  When we first got in to see him back in December, he was so nice and very friendly.  But the best thing was, well 2 best things...
With just a few arm manipulations, he acknowledged and confirmed there was a problem.  This was a great relief to Sarah because she was feeling like she was crazy and that no one really believed her.  We did of course but not being doctors and having had surgery already, we didn't know what to do.  She had done physical therapy (hating it I might add) but it still felt "wrong".  Now we know why.  The parts were defective and crumbling inside her.  On the bright side, the previous work was still good so he just did some "housekeeping".

The second best thing was that he actually listened to her and when she told him that she lived in Hawaii, that she was 18 and just got married, he didn't blink.  He told her that his oldest daughter (he has 10 kids) did the same thing.  She met her husband her freshman year at BYU and now they have 8 kids of their own.  She has learned to guard herself or re-coil a bit when people ask how old she is and what she is doing with her life, but he made her feel as normal as can be.   Turns out that he a a big sponsor at BYU Hawaii for a program that lets kids from all the islands go to school there and get their education.  Very cool! 


So my wish tonight is for sleep...but I doubt I'll get much with Sarah needing help.  Oh well, I can sleep when I'm dead!  Maybe.

Tight Places

For my Birthday I got a couple of things done around the house, courtesy of Dave and Jeff.
The first one was that I got a canned food roll down shelf that needed to be assembled and placed in our storage room.  The assembly part wasn't too bad but it was a tight squeeze putting it into that room.

This is Jeffrey climbing out of the little corner, up over the shelf and passing by the furnace.

Here's my new shelf.  It holds about 450 cans.  Now I just need to organize the rest of the room.  Jeffrey was in that tiny little corner on the left!

This is what's left of the stuff that still needs to fit onto the wood shelves Dave built.

This is my project for this week.  Not too bad.

More tight places & one more project...

Jeffrey building the pedestal for the washer and dryer.

He's finished!!  Love him!

My two guys...working together.

They called in the reinforcements... turns out they only needed "cheerleaders"

See,  tight places!

Gettin out...

Now I don't have to get on my knees to do laundry!!

Hiawatha!

So a couple of Sundays ago, the kids wanted to play games after church.  So Dave thought he'd teach them how to play Hiawatha.  What is this, you ask?  

Well, let me just remind you that Dave has a plethora of useless knowledge stashed away in his head, that sometimes comes in handy.  He must of learned this game in his childhood at some point.  Either that or he picked it up from his college days.  Or, there is a real possibility that he just made it up, on the fly.  But either way, it goes something like this.  

Each person gets dealt one card which he can't look at.  When everyone is ready, each person lifts their card up to their forehead and holds it there for all to see.  Once everyone takes a good look around, they bid on whether they think their card will beat the others or not.   You might be wondering what they make their bids with since we don't have piles of cash laying around (and we don't gamble).  Becca got the idea that we use the games chips from another game that we have.  Coincidentally, this game is called "Fact or Crap" which I thought was ironic.  Here are some pictures of this intense game...

Becca looking at her dad for inspiration.  She hasn't learned the art of bluffing.

Jeffrey is our talented one.  Look Ma, no hands!

Amanda is pretty good at bluffing. Notice she has the same value card as her dad.

Dave and Amanda went back and forth, trying to bluff and in the end, Dad won!

So, Sunday afternoons at the Petersen home is made for...gambling.  No money was lost is the making of the blog post!

Church Ball Girl Style

Our ward made it to the finals in Girls Basketball.  From what I understand, it's the very first time EVER!!  Here are some pictures of the the fierce team.  

Team photo!

First casualty of "WAR".  She got knocked in the nose!

Begin the "war" with a prayer.

Good job girls!!