Colten's (very belated) Birthday Celebrations

Colten had friends over for a sleep over for one weekend and then we finally had his family birthday party this last weekend. In fact this last weekend was pretty packed. We had the pinewood derby Friday night (his last one - he made it to the finals, but didn't place in the top 3), then had his last basketball game for this year (his team was undefeated!), then had his birthday party that night. Crazy! I think he enjoyed them all. I made a crockpot chocolate lava cake which I think turned out pretty good.

Here he is with his friends (with cupcakes I bought):

Lots of gadget playing went on since the weather wasn't the best for kicking them outside (but it was raining so I'm not complaining!):

Here he is setting up his truck for the pinewood derby:

And here he is blowing out his candles in his crockpot cake :) It was yummy!

And today we finally got the new water well hooked up so we now have decent water pressure in the house - enough to do laundry and take a shower at the same time, I'm so excited! :)

Basketball and Postponed Birthdays

Colten's 11th birthday has come and passed and we still haven't officially celebrated. We weren't able to do anything the weekend before his birthday and then it was the stockshow, so we put it off until the last weekend of January. Unfortunately, he got what we thought was a stomach virus that Friday and so we postponed it. When he still wasn't better by Monday, we took him to the doctor and he ended up having strep throat, so strange! He never had a fever or a sore throat, so we're still trying to figure that out. Fortunately, no one else has got it from him so far, hopefully it stays that way! I think we'll end up having his birthday at the end of February, better late than never!
He has started basketball and has had 4 games so far. He missed one the weekend he was sick, but they won all of the games they've played. The last one was a nail-biter at then end. They were behind most of the game (it was the 2nd in a row that they were playing and you could tell they were tired), but in the last 5 seconds, his team scored to bring them ahead 27-26, crazy! Colten is enjoying it, but doesn't get into the middle of the action too much. We asked him why he doesn't go for the ball more, and he said he was helping other people get the ball... that's my Colten!! He does pretty good shooting in practice, so hopefully he gets a little more aggressive before the end of the season and tries to make some points. We'll see, I guess!

Here's a pic of him (number 12) guarding at the first game:

Ashlyn had an art competition last weekend that she went to in Brady called VASE. She did a colored-pencil sketch that I'll post a pic of here when she brings it back home, I thought it was very cool and had to do an interview about it. She made it to area in the competition, but not state, only one student from Mason got that far. I think she enjoyed it though and will try again next year.


In non-kid related news, I'm happy to report that I got a good review from my new manager for last year. I was worried about it since I had had Rafael for my manager for so long. It has been an interesting time getting used to the new manager, but I guess it's going pretty good so far. He even went as far to say I don't need to come into Austin so often since he knows I get my work done and he'd rather I work more than spend that much time on the road. So now I will only drive to Austin every other week, yay! Also, I've been able to work at home since we are able to get Hill Country internet at the house amazingly enough (we can see the water tower in Mason from the roof, yay!). I have only been driving to Fredericksburg once a week the last month (so I can get groceries) and now that I only have to go to Austin every other week, I sure will be able to save mileage on my new car and our gas bill should shrink considerably also! It's so nice to not spend so much time on the road. I have a great view too!

Stockshow & Baptism & Stuff

We had a busy weekend with the Kerriville Stockshow, the pigs didn't do too great, but we're done with stockshowing for the year now. Colten did get in the top 13 of his class, but didn't place. Ashlyn's pig got sifted, but it was stressed with the move to Kerrville and wasn't eating and so didn't look very good at the show.

Here are some pictures:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150605671645908.436809.755340907&type=1&l=e4c835ce32

Then Sunday, we were blessed to become the Godparents of our friends, Emily and Scott's new baby, Emery Jacob Wolf. It was a nice ceremony and we had a great visit after. Even my parents came to watch and they had a good time visiting too.

Here are some pictures of that:

https://picasaweb.google.com/dlynnb/EmeryJacobWolfSBaptism?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPO9lZCu6rv9EQ&feat=directlink

Also, as most of you know, John got injured when a bull kicked a gate, which in turn hit his face. He had to get 8 stitches and had 3 cracks in his cheek bone and also cracked the bone between the cheekbone and nose. He is doing much better now. After the stitches came out, it has been healing fast and looks pretty good already. He still has a hard time chewing on that side of his face, but it will still be awhile before that is completely healed. So thankful it wasn't worse.

And then also Ashlyn had another seizure :( We were done with the stockshow Friday, but she was going to stay and help her friend, Jayde, show her goats on Saturday. Unfortunately, she missed a dose of her medication on Friday morning and also didn't sleep good Thurs or Friday. And, she was also nervous about showing the goats. I think all of this contributed to it. She was with Connie in the drive through at McDonald's Saturday morning when it happened. It only lasted about 30 seconds, but it happened. John went and picked her up and brought her home and she rested the rest of the day. Sunday morning we let her sleep in and she was feeling much better. After this, we decided we'd let her quit athletics. She'd been wanting to, but I didn't think she should. However, she has been feeling so much better and less tired this week since she has more time to do homework and doesn't have to be at after school practice every day. I think this will be good for her. She's taking another ag class now, and will be doing more for FFA, but at least that doesn't require practice every day.

So now, I must resign myself to use a word I hoped I wouldn't need to. I had hoped and prayed that her seizure was just a fluke and she wouldn't have another one. Now that she's had two (that we know of anyway), it is what it is:

What is Epilepsy? (from http://my.epilepsy.com/101/ep101_EPILEPSY)

Epilepsy is a neurological condition, which affects the nervous system. Epilepsy is also known as a seizure disorder. It is usually diagnosed after a person has had at least two seizures that were not caused by some known medical condition like alcohol withdrawal or extremely low blood sugar.  Sometimes, according to the International League Against Epilepsy, epilepsy can be diagnosed after one seizure, if a person has a condition that places them at high risk for having another.

The seizures in epilepsy may be related to a brain injury or a family tendency, but most of the time the cause is unknown. The word "epilepsy" does not indicate anything about the cause of the person's seizures, what type they are, or how severe they are. 

I think this is a good definition, but for me the word has had a stigma. I will have to get over that. It was a strange and mysterious disease that I knew very little about. Now I know it's not a disease, but a condition, kind of like a tendency for migraines, and it describes many, many types of seizures. Thankfully Ashlyn has a tame version that only causes her to stiffen up and lose consciousness for a few seconds or minutes. There are much worse.

The worst part for Ashlyn is the driving. State law says you have to be on medication and seizure free for 6 months in order to drive. Letting her drive terrifies me just a little bit now. I know how teenagers push themselves, she will have to be extra super responsible and aware of how she feels at all times (not stressed or overtired) in order to drive safely.  Ugh, this is going to be hard (as if it wasn't before all this happened!). The other thing is swimming. We will no longer be swimming in deep water where we can't see the bottom. If she has a seizure in the water, she will sink like a rock to the bottom. So scary!

I think she will be ok, as long as we keep her less busy and make sure she is always getting her meds and enough sleep. We will definitely be more diligent about this now.

2012!

 So I've been kinda lazy with the blog, so here's a quick update:


The kids had a great year at the stockshow this year, we're very proud of them, and I'm proud of John for helping them raise such great pigs. Hopefully we can do good at Kerrville in a couple of weeks. Here are some pics:
https://picasaweb.google.com/dlynnb/2012MasonCountyStockshow?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJCkmaujh6CXOA&feat=directlink

We had a great Christmas and New Years with lots of family visiting and more than enough eating. 
Here are a few pics I posted on facebook earlier:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150553108135908.428318.755340907&type=3&l=c924d7062d

 

We also had excitement with the Mason Punchers and were able to watch them win the state 1a highschool football championship in Dallas Cowboy's Stadium - that was an awesome experience!!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150527907535908.423643.755340907&type=3&l=04dbfda76b

 

Ashlyn is still playing basketball games occasionally and is doing a great job. Colten just started basketball and will have his first game in a couple of weeks. 

That's all I can think of for now. Hopefully I will do better at updating this. It's nice to go back and look at these later to remember what all was going on - I'm having a harder time remembering things these days :)

Relief!

We are feeling so relieved and blessed to know that Ashlyn's MRI was normal - or according to Ashlyn, she has no "rotting parts" in her head, lol! We also know she does indeed have a brain, in case you were wondering :) Now that we know the abnormal EEG was not caused by anything "rotten", we can just keep a close eye on her and make sure she takes her medicine. Still kinda scary, but at least manageable. The MRI itself went well. We were kinda worried we wouldn't be able to see anything because the tech said her braces might block out the picture, but thankfully it worked! She was in there about 30 minutes, got to listen to George Strait, and almost fell asleep! I was able to stay in the room with her, so that made us both feel better I think. At first we thought we wouldn't hear the results until the next day, but our doctor was so kind as to call us that evening and share the good news. We all slept much better that night!!!

In other news, Ashlyn has started playing basketball. Tuesday they played and lost 39-12, but Ashlyn made 3 of the baskets! We later found out they were mistakenly playing a varsity team, so that actually wasn't too bad! Today they played a team more on their level and won 21-19. Ashlyn scored 3 points - she is doing so much better this year at being aggressive and taking initiative, which she needs to do being point guard.


Here is a picture I took of her before the game:

And here she is shooting a free throw:

MRI Tomorrow

Ashlyn will be having her MRI tomorrow at 11 in Fredericksburg. Praying for no surprises. I will let everyone know what we find out after her follow up appointment at 1:45pm. This is a busy week because also tomorrow, Omie B will be getting a colonoscopy and Oma Reeh will be getting an EKG and Friday my Aunt Frances is having a thyroid procedure. Saying lots of extra prayers for clean bills of health for all of these wonderful ladies!!!!!

Have to say how extremely thankful I am that we decided to become a member of the AirEvac Lifeteam. This is the helicoptor that flew Ashlyn from Mason to Austin. Since we're a member, anything that is not covered by insurance will be written off. We just joined this year because of a cousin of my mom's having a heart attack at age 36 at the school in Mason and we found out it cost $25,000 for the helicopter ride. That was a definite wake up call and I'm so very glad we acted on it.

Update on Ashlyn

Well, tomorrow is the big day, Ashlyn will be going to the neurologist. She has been doing pretty good since her seizure. She's been more tired than usual and has had headaches every day since then, though. I think she's been worrying about stuff too much. (We probably all are). We've been trying to not do as much as usual, but this weekend she had a basketball scrimmage in Coleman on Saturday and the 4-H food show on Sunday, and then it was Halloween last night and another basketball game in Wall tonight. So much for slowing down!

Anyway in the meantime, here are some pics from the last few weeks. 

Colten in boy heaven in the Camp Sol Mayer mud pit:

John and the kids mucking out the pig pen:
 

Opie and Colten with their buck they got together:
 

Ashlyn and her Shrimp with Lobster Sauce at the food show Sunday:
 

Colten and his BBQ Beef biscuits:

Colten the army guy at the fall festival:

Please pray that tomorrow goes well. I know you are, but I just have to say it. Also pray for Oma Reeh who had a small stroke this afternoon. I will send updates tomorrow night if I get a chance.