This was how February turned out:
Most of you know that Kurt slid down our ice coated steps and landed himself in the hospital with a fractured rib that caused internal bleeding into his pleural cavity (lung cavity). He had the pleasure of having a chest tube inserted to drain the fluid; they finally pulled the tube out after six days. He spent 7 days in the hospital. We started out at LVH-Muhlenberg in the ER; he was quickly transferred to the trauma service at LVH-Cedar Crest once they saw the CT of his chest and the large hemothorax (blood collection) that was present.
He became best friends with his incentive spirometer, pictured below. He was instructed to use it hourly to take deep breaths to help expand his alveoli (sacs in the lungs) and prevent him from collapsing the lung or getting pneumonia. Once he went back to work, it went along with him in his backpack ;-). He was finally released by the doctor on April 16th, two months after his fall.
And, of course, we had about six shovel-able snows while he was in the hospital and home from the hospital and still in quite a bit of pain. And to top it off, Adam was away for work! Fortunately, Kurt works with a great bunch of guys that showed up for every single snowstorm and either shoveled or snow-blowed our driveway and sidewalks.
And then there's me and my job. It's a job. I really loved not having to venture out in all the bad weather this past winter. That in itself will most likely keep me at the job. I don't love it like I did my previous job...but we won't go there. It's gotten better. The first few months often found me in tears at the end of the day; that doesn't happen any more. Well, not usually ;-) I miss not having co-workers to chat with and talk about what's going on in my life...or hear what is going on in their lives. But then again, I am expected to take so many calls in my 7.5 hour shift....I'd never meet my case rate if I had anyone else to talk to besides my buddy there in the background of this picture:
This little girl doesn't usually let me get so close to her, not sure what the deal was this day that she let me take this pic:
One of my breaks:
In March, a group of us from church had the pleasure of going to a Natalie Grant concert at a nearby church. She was phenomenal! Danny Gokey opened the concert for her; he was an American Idol finalist.
Then in April we attended a SWiM concert at a church in Allentown. SWiM is a Christian band that grew out of our contemporary worship at Emmanuel's. Currently Alyssa is singing with them:
Hiding behind Alyssa is a bunch of palm branches. Macy (kitty on the left) loves palms. She looks forward to Palm Sunday every year :-) to get new palms to play with. Well, on this day, both of them decided they needed to play with them. As you can see, Samson is a bit more difficult to hold than Macy!
Boy does Samson love being outside! He's getting a bit more comfortable with the harness. Right after the kids put it on him, he acts like he's paralyzed, but each time seems to get a little better. The biggest problem with him getting to go outside, is that he sits at the door now and we have to be very careful that he doesn't slip out without the harness.
This was Sam playing with the 50,000 feather toys Alyssa got him for his 2nd birthday! Well, I am exaggerating a little bit....it wasn't really 50, 000 ;-)
A few weeks ago, I saw on Facebook that Chonda Pierce was going to be doing a show at a Baptist church in Lancaster. If you've never heard Chonda Pierce, you don't know what you're missing. She is a Christian comedienne and is hysterical! Kurt and I saw her two years ago at another church in Lancaster. When I saw she was coming again, I asked him immediately if we could go and he was up for it. I asked our friends, Pat and Ron, from church if they'd like to join us. We left early enough to get dinner and be there in time for the 7 pm show. She never disappoints! And we had a great time with friends!
Alyssa is Maid of Honor in Samantha's wedding next Saturday. She and the gals in the Bridal Party did a fantastic job with the shower!
Kurt rented this piece of equipment last week so they could dig up/deepen the *creek* that runs through our property. Over the years grass/weeds/ bushes have grown in it and it was no longer deep enough, that whenever we had any significant rainfall it would flood on to our property.
While they had it, they took the opportunity to pull out the stump of this tree that got cut down last year. It was quite a challenge to get it out. The roots were deep and extensive. I happened to be on my lunch half hour while Adam was working on it; I watched the entire time and per Adam, it took an additional 20 minutes to get it out!
I tagged along to most of Sam's Bachelorette party events to take pictures. They had a great day! First, some of the gals had pedicures:
Then they had a ceramic painting party:
Afterwards, they had dinner at The Apollo Grille, followed by dessert at The Melting Pot.
This was what was waiting for me on Friday when I walked in to my *office*. Note the grapes that had somehow made their way on to the floor!
Guess that was exhausting work, not being able to get into the grapes:
And I think that's the last few months in a nutshell.
Stay tuned...wedding pictures to come soon!!
