Caroline went on an HXP trip to Ecuador. HXP is a humanitarian experience that focuses on serving communities in need. She had been so excited about doing this and the day finally arrived. She was gone May 31 - June 18.
The first part of her trip she and her group of 20 young people were doing some sightseeing before the working part of her trip began which was helping to build school classrooms.
Meanwhile, back at home... Not only did Caroline miss Emma's wedding, but Brooke did as well. Brooke earned a scholarship for this coming year, and it required her to attend a retreat which took her away from home.
Once she got back, her belated birthday celebration began.
Brooke has always loved when her mom would make her a decorated cake and this year was no different. She requested a David Bowie cake.
Rebecca and Madison got busy making Brooke's wish come true.
Spencer added the name, and Rebecca added a bike at the bottom in honor of Eli's belated birthday celebration. Eli is an avid mountain biker, so this was the perfect representation of how to honor him.
Brooke and Eli were pleasantly surprised by the cake. Brooke was even wearing her Bowie shirt that day.
Sarah had actually made some Oreo cream pies for Eli's birthday treat.
When Jacob, Laurie, Luke, and Claire flew back to Omaha, they left Logan behind. Spencer, Eli, and Logan spent the week in Provo at BYU to attend FSY.
What a fun experience for the boys. Natalie was a great sport consenting to pick up the three boys early on their last day to bring them back here. She was a very kind sister/cousin buying doughnuts to eat on the way home.
I am happy to report both of Glen's hips have successfully healed and he is feeling happy he had them replaced. But his neck is a different painful story.
Thinking he woke up with a crick in his neck, he waited for a bit to see if it would get better. It just kept getting worse and was so painful. So off to the doctor he went.
As we reminded the doctor Glen has had three discs fused in his upper neck, there was a suspicion he is now having trouble with the area above the fusion. The doctor gave him muscle relaxers and a strong dose of Ibuprofen.
One week later there had been no improvement and the pain had gotten worse.
He went back to the doctor who put him on a round of strong cortisone and put in an order for an MRI. He told Glen if the pain got worse, he should go to the emergency room.
The medication didn't even touch the pain. Glen's neck and head were killing him, so off we went to the emergency room the next day. They gave him a migraine cocktail of three different drugs, but that did nothing for him.
Glen was able to get a CT scan which ruled out brain bleeds and other scary stuff. The emergency room doctor said next step would be an MRI, which Glen had already scheduled a few days later.
The MRI got pushed back because insurance would not authorize it. Glen made many phone calls to try and get the okay or else just pay for the MRI himself, but he was told that could not happen. So frustrating!!
He finally told the insurance company he was going to get an MRI on Friday either with the clinic he had scheduled with or he would go back to the emergency room and have them do the MRI. They still did not approve the MRI, so later that day off we went again to the emergency room.
Glen was in so much pain they gave him some morphine which turned out to be a huge relief for him as he got a reprieve from the pain for several hours. They put ice on his neck.
He changed into his gown to prepare for the MRI. While still icing, a physical therapist visited with us for an hour talking to Glen about therapy possibly helping his neck.
The MRI came back showing two severely pinched nerves on both sides of his neck with a referral to see a neurosurgeon.
Glen chose to get an appointment with the same neurosurgeon who performed his neck fusion surgery 15 years ago. He was prescribed Valium to help him sleep at night as well as some other nerve-deadening medication.
They also recommended a cortisone shot in his neck. He met with that doctor and set up the appointment for the shot a week later only to have the insurance company also deny that procedure.
After arguing for two days, Glen had the insurance company do a three-way call with the doctor's office authorizing self-pay for the procedure so he could get it done.
He was told it would take a week to get relief and no relief came.
Next step was physical therapy, and he came home looking like this??!!?? Physical therapy actually made it feel worse.
When he went for a second appointment the physical therapist said, "Those discs are a hot mess!"
Despite Glen's continuing health drama, he has been a good sport to continue living life and pushing through the constant pain.
We went to a play at Hale. We all really enjoyed My Fair Lady and dinner afterward at Red Lobster.
We are always so impressed with the things Hale does. The costumes and scenery are always spectacular. This time we could not believe that this ginormous flower presentation was only used as decoration before the play even started.
My personal feeling is it would have been the perfect ending to have the huge flowers reappear at the end of the play when Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins have discovered their fond feelings for each other.
My brother Andy was born on Father's Day many, many years ago. His birthday fell on Father's Day once again this year which makes the day extra special.
We had a Ward family dinner in Andy and Amanda's backyard to celebrate the birthday and honor all the fathers in the family.
The birthday boy was very happy showing us his new grill and cooking us up some burgers on it.
Jacob and Laurie's family attended a family reunion in Oregon with Laurie's family. We picked up the returning vacationers--Natalie, Emma, and Wesley--from the airport and took them to Slackwater for a pizza dinner.
The City of North Salt Lake hosted Liberty Fest. Lots of celebrating in various ways of the 250th anniversary of our nation.
Haley posted some photos of Kade and her at Liberty Fest.
Dallas was also at Liberty Fest. He was dressed as Paul Revere and was talking to a news reporter.
But, then he had to quickly run off to spread the message, "THE BRITISH ARE COMING!! THE BRITISH ARE COMING!!"
We had our traditional July 3rd family dinner, this year featuring steak and shrimp.
Some of the family helped haul chairs up earlier to the golf course to get our spot staked out for the North Salt Lake City fireworks show.
We love doing this activity with the family. Most of the family walks back down to our home from the golf course afterward. Jeff was the one who had his car parked close by so we could dump all the chairs and walk unhindered the rest of the way home.
Since our July 4th celebration always happens the day before, we had a free day. Brooke had inquired if we had any work for her to do for us so she could earn some money.
We got her busy working in the yard with Glen doing some weeding and then picking up clippings from Glen trimming the bushes. That was a big help to him as bending is still a bit hard for him and any movement makes his neck and head hurt even worse.
We treated her to lunch at Costa Vida. Great way to spend the 4th!
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