July......

Briget with her baby Deklan, Ben, Becca, Me, Leslie, Jenny, Angie, Carrie and my Dad.

We took Caleb and some friends to Classic for his birthday. The little girl in this picture was his best friend through second grade. They got along so well, and both looked out for each other. She doesn't live near us and won't be returning to the charter school this year because of the long drive. She said to me, "Do you know that Caleb has a crush on me?" I thought it was cute.

I must say that it is so much easier to take the kids somewhere for a party. I'm just not the best entertainer.

This last weekend, we had the Marchant family reunion. My mom rented a place called Warm Springs Resort. We had a lot of fun. The cabins were much smaller than we anticipated. Rachel pointed out that the bathrooms were bigger than the cabins. Think of a Tuff shed, and that's about the size of the cabins. But we made do.

There were paddle boats and kayaks. I think kayaks are a little harder than they look. The paddle boats were fun. Jenny had the privilege of pedaling with Anna. She said that Anna was riding the pedals, so she was pedaling both the boat and all of Anna's weight. I bet that was a good workout. Anna threw a major fit because she thought she should be able to go out in a kayak all by herself. Even though she is almost 5, that's not old enough to kayak alone. We let Caleb go out in his own, and he rowed in circles and hit the bank of the pond a lot.

I made all of my siblings get together for a sibling pictures. My mom conveniently left to take grandkids on a hike right as we were taking the picture. She didn't realize we were taking a picture. So, only my dad was in it with us. Its probably not the most flattering picture of all of us. We were sleep-deprived and dirty. And some people weren't happy to be in the picture. But I still wanted a picture of all of us. I don't think I've had a shot of all of us as adults ever. I love all my siblings, and my parents.

No, I'm not the shortest. I'm the second shortest. :) Jenny is a half an inch shorter than me.

Funny Thing.......

Caleb went to his baptism interview with the bishop on Sunday. He talked to Caleb about the Word of Wisdom. He asked Caleb to name some things that were against the Word of Wisdom. Caleb gave all of the usual answers, but with one extra. He told the bishop that it was against the Word of Wisdom to swallow your gum. :)
I think I need to teach my kids that its against the Word of Wisdom to eat boogers too. Not that Caleb or Rachel still eat boogers.

Rambling

About a week ago when I woke up, all of the muscles in my leg were working again. I am thrilled. Before this, I was walking pretty well. But only part of the muscles in my leg were doing all of the work. So my leg felt crappy a lot of the time and stairs were still hard for me.

When I went to PT yesterday, the physical therapists were amazed. Then they gave me quite a workout.

I got to walk 9 minutes on the treadmill. Then I got to jog for 2 minutes. It was so slow I wouldn't even call it a jog. It was about a 15 minute mile. After that, they put me on the excercise bike for 5 minutes. After all of that, and a lot of other exercises, I was exhausted.

I am now allowed to run for 1 minute a day. Woohoo! 1 minute. :) I get to increase to 3 minutes when I can do 3 sets of 10 leg lifts.

Isn't it funny that I am excited about running one minute?

I can't express how thankful I am for being able to walk easily. It is the best thing!

The picture is a picture of all of my parent's grandkids. This was taken July 4th. That's a lot of kids!

Caleb and Dan had birthdays a few days ago. I'm gonna post pics and things about their birthdays--but I have to wait till I get my camera back. I accidentally left it at my in-laws house.

California Trip

We left last Monday for Anaheim and drove the whole way in one day. With a bit of junk food and a DVD player, the drive was pretty good.

We stayed at a hotel called Hilton Homewood Suites. It was about a mile from Disneyland. With 4 kids, we needed a larger hotel room than we've had in the past. We had two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and kitchen. We loved the hotel.

The first night after we went to bed, our bed started moving. Dan said, "Caleb, stop boucing on our bed." When he realized Caleb was asleep, he started saying, "Rachel, stop it!". After a few seconds he realized it wasn't the kids. It was an earthquake. I guess it was a 5.7. Nobody in California even gives it a second thought. But we aren't quite as used to earthquakes. Our kids were disappointed that they slept through it.

We got up and went to Disneyland on Tuesday. Because of my leg issues, I rented an electric wheelchair. My leg is doing very well, and I am walking very well. But I am still not able to walk around and stand in line all day. The good thing was that it got us on most of the rides much faster than usual. We were able to wait ten minutes for one ride that had a 65 minute wait. I would much rather have a normal leg though. We stayed clear until the fireworks ended at about 10:00. Anna and Alex were very tired and crabby by the time we got back to our hotel. We had a lot of fun. Next time we go, we'll go in January when its not so crowded. Anna loved "Its a small world". Alex's favorite was "Dumbo". Rachel loved "Splash Mountain". I'm not sure what Caleb's favorite was.

On Wednesday, we got up and went to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. The kids especially liked the petting zoo.

Thursday, we went on a harbor tour in San Diego. The kids liked it at first, but were a little bored by the end of the ride. If we do this again, we'll try to go during whale watching season, so its a little more exciting.

We spent the rest of the day Thursday and Friday at the beach. We rented a little motel room on the beach. The location was perfect. We were able to walk to the beach from our room. The room was a little cramped, but it was way worth it for the location.

When we first saw the ocean, Alex said, "Mom, its too big for me!". He was a bit scared. He went in the water a little bit, but mostly played in the sand. The older three kids had a blast in the water. Rachel especially.

On Friday we rented a couple of boogie boards (or body boards). Rachel really took to it. She spent hours boarding in the waves. She is quite an adventurer. It didn't bother her if a wave washed over her head. Caleb liked it until he got water up his nose. I thought it was fun too. However, I don't really like waves washing over my head either. I guess I'm a chicken. So Rachel and Dan spent the most time on the boards. I thought it was funny when I was boarding with Rachel. She was instructing me, and saying things like, "Mom, you gotta catch that wave". I would highly recommed renting some boards, if your kids are old enough and adventurous enough.

The drive home was another all-in-one-day drive. It was pretty good until we hit road construction in Lehi. Then we inched along for a half an hour. We made it home, and had a great trip.

My sister Leslie keeps asking me when I'm gonna update my blog with the trip pics. So, here it is Leslie. :)

It was D day

Or doctor day. I had two appointments today.
The first one was with a doctor and University of Utah. I should have just skipped this appointment. First, he asked me if I had an eating disorder because I am thin. I don't! I love food. Then he told me that I was trying to help the weak leg when he was testing my reflexes in that knee. No I wasn't!! Why would I do that? Then came the diagnosis: my brain just forgot how to work my leg. He tried to explain it in technical terms, but he really didn't know what he was talking about.
After that lovely appointment, I met Dan for lunch. I always love to eat lunch with him. That was the highlight of my day.
Then I went back to the neurologist who sent me to the neurosurgeon. My regular dr said I should follow up with him. The neurologist thought the other doctor's explanation was absurd. He said, "You have a spinal lesion at L4". This caused the nerve damage to your leg. There's no damage still occurring, so there's nothing to fix. Work hard in PT to get your leg strength back.
So, back to PT I go.
That's it for the run-around. Hopefully in a few months I'll be running around. :)

Memorial Weekend

We spent a day at Dan's uncle's cabin with some of Dan's family. It is up near the Uintahs.

We roasted marshmallows, stayed up late, got dirty, played in the stream, and had fun.

We saw a moose and lots of squirrels. We saw a lot of cows too.
Anna liked the neighbors moose statue, so I took her picture with it.

Rachel said the cabin was her dream home. I thought that was kind of funny. Its not luxurious and is rather old. Its not my dream home, but it is a fun getaway.

Its amazing how long Alex could be entertained by floating sticks in a stream. Don't worry, we watched him closely. And as you can see, its really not very deep or swift.

The weather was quite cold. It actually snowed a little while we were there. Dan's brother Joe kept the fireplace going nice and hot.

The good old leg update......

Probably most of you are really sick of hearing about my stupid leg (I'm sick of my stupid leg, too). So, you can just skip this post if you're tired of the updates. I find it a lot easier to post things than tell the same thing 20 times to 20 different people.

Last week I went to PT for the first time. Really the first time was just an evaluation. The regular physical therapists weren't in. It was just someone filling in for them. She spent over an hour evaluating me, and then sent me home with a few exercises. When I went back this week, the regular PT looked at my chart. And then he did a lot more evaluating. Then he dragged in the other physical therapist to look at me too. I got a lot of "hmmms" and "this is unusual". They left me for a little while, and of course, I thumbed through my chart that they left sitting by me. (Who wouldn't look at their chart, if they're gonna set it next to you and step out of the room?)

After a lot of discussion, they physical therapists concluded that physical therapy was not going to help me. They think I need to pursue a diagnosis. Now, I have an appointment with another doctor at the U.

I am walking really well these days. I am quite thrilled with that. But I know there's still something wrong with me. My reflexes in my left leg are abnormal. I trip or stumble a few times a day. Luckily I haven't fallen down yet. My chart said "possible MS" on about every other page. It can't be MS though. The MRI of my brain came out fine. I don't know what in the world is wrong with me. I've spent a lot of hours online researching things, and haven't been able to find anything that matches exactly.

So, now I'm just in the wait until I see the next doctor. This makes doctor #5.