Abe's family was with us for a month. Along with Newland participating in both a football and a basketball camp at BYU, Wynne participated in a gymnastics camp at BYU.
One of their adventures while they were down in Provo after one of the camp days was hiking the mountain up to the big Y. It is a very steep climb. But they did it!!
The children had a fun time whenever they went to a park.
I had a fun time taking Caroline to one of her ice skating lessons. She was impressing me with her little hops, her ability to skate backwards and her skill of being able to spin. Amazing!
Rebecca's family met up with us at the splash pad in Bountiful. I love the fun area for the children to play in the water in the summer. In the winter, on the other half of the park, is an area for outdoor ice skating.
Madison, Spencer and Newland are standing on the ice skating track. The dragon artwork behind them was fascinating to look at once you can see it is made out of a lot of Utah license plates. So cool!!
On Father's Day we went to Andy and Amanda's backyard for a Ward family dinner. The little children love their yard so much. The adults love their yard so much because it is perfect for enjoying the outdoors while eating and visiting together.
We took a family photo of my parents and five of their six children. Mark was missing! But not for long. His family would be stopping by in July when they were on their way to St. George for Michelle's family's annual reunion.
Abe's family was anxious to have Glen open the Father's Day gift they had gotten for him.
We were both shocked to see the new accordion they had so thoughtfully bought for him. Glen used to play the accordion when he was young. It brought back a lot of good memories for him, and it brought back memories of me watching my friend Ann practicing her accordion. It is a fun instrument.
Glen was so good at remembering how to play the accordion that he started playing a little jig for the kids to dance to.
Love these two and their sense of fun and adventure and surprises and love.
Glen got really serious about practicing up on the accordion with the goal of learning the Happy Birthday Song so he could play it at Aspen Grove when Caroline would be celebrating her 14th birthday.
Glen continues to be very studious in practicing the piano every day. Abe captured one of his lessons where we were playing a duet together.
Lots of piano books out as Newland and Wynne were also practicing every day and Abe has been honing up his piano skills as well. Piano playing brings peace to the soul.
Wynne was so excited to lose one of her teeth while she was staying with us. And not only did she lose this tooth, but she lost the tooth next to it a short time later. She was worried the tooth fairy would not be able to find her, but her fears were unfounded.
Newland went with us one day to borrow my dad's car while Jacob's family was in town. It was fun for Newland to see his great-grandfather's big elk trophy head, and it was fun for Dad to tell Newland all about the hunt.
There were a few opportunities for Abe and Klarissa to sneak away together for some dinner dates and a temple date.
GLEN'S UPDATE:
Here's an update on Glen's health after his visit to the urgent care 2 1/2 months ago, and then was admitted to the hospital the next day when he was exhibiting heart attack symptoms.
Since then, he has had all sorts of heart tests done. He had a stress test (inconclusive) and an angiocardiogram (no blockage and no evidence of artery disease). Nothing was relieving his chest pain and shortness of breath.
The cardiologist had him on one heart medication along with two diuretics to control swelling. After a month she switched him to another heart medication. None of those medications were helping relieve the chest pain and shortness of breath.
It is still so frustrating that they couldn't really find anything wrong with his heart, yet he was sent home from the hospital with the diagnosis of heart failure.
He went to his regular doctor for a follow-up visit and Glen was prescribed an antacid. Shockingly, Glen was feeling so much better by the next day. That proved to be a super big blessing for him as he started that medication right before we went to Aspen Grove. I was so worried about how his breathing would be at the higher altitude in the mountains. He did just fine!!
It took a while for Glen's chest to quit hurting because he was joining in with all the children on the rigorous games at Aspen Grove. He did feel like the original pain was subsiding, though.
This past week Glen has been sick with bronchitis and he has been having a whole different kind of chest pain from the intense coughing he has been doing. He got put on an antibiotic on Monday and has been coughing his head off!! Thankfully, he has been coughing much less today. We are hoping he is on the mend.
Glen finally had a sleep apnea test done which we had to wait for weeks to get the results back. He learned he averaged 38 "events" per hour during the night. They told him his is one of the worst cases they have seen. Despite that, he has to wait almost a month to get in to find out his course of treatment. It is crazy how long everything takes to get medical help.
He bought himself an Apple Watch when all these health issues began and it shows lots of things, one of which is his oxygen rate. He is notoriously low during the night--in the low 80s, sometimes getting into the 70s. It is crazy how low that is. Hopefully, he will get everything figured out and will start feeling much better soon.
DALLAS'S UPDATE:
Rebecca's husband Dallas has been suffering with kidney stone pain off and on the past couple of months. He would get so sick and be throwing up and would need some big pain killers to get through his episodes. He was told he had a 3 cm stone that would need to pass on its own.
Well, the diagnosis was questioned since then as he has passed many small grains and also several larger stones--the biggest of which was 5 cm. CRAZY!! The saddest part of the story is he had been doing pretty well and then went on trek with Caroline and their ward's youth. That is when his latest episode happened. He got so sick.
But, thankfully, he survived and then a few days later he had success expelling the stones. Praying for him that he doesn't have to endure that ever again.
No comments:
Post a Comment