You finally wore us down centurylink and we're leaving you

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So I'd like to celebrate the fact that we finally were beaten down so much by Centurylink's incompetence we left them.
I can't tell you the amount of hours Dru and I have spent, over the years, talking to people who don't know what they're talking about.
I'd say out of the 4 years we've been with them and, let's say the 100 people we've talked to, about 5 were competent.
Honestly man Centurylink BY FAR take the cake of being the ABSOLUTE worst company we've ever had to deal with.
They're the cheapest internet company, but it's not worth it anymore for us. I'd rather pay an extra $20 a month to have nothing to do with centurylink ever again in my life, or at least for the new few years.
So when I got this email I had to laugh out loud at the fact that they wish we wouldn't go and there's still time for us to change our minds. I feel like yelling I DON'T THINK SO BUD and GOOD RIDDANCE in their faces, but they wouldn't care and put me through to 5 different other people that also don't care and wouldn't know what to do with my complaint hahahaha
Stupid company.

I would NOT recommend this company to anyone.

Should I be worried?

 "He made brown skins and white skins be able to go to school together and play together."

 Think these goals were maybe indoctrinated by her school teacher? That better not be Yuki's goals for this year!! Well.......I like the last one.

So can you think of a reason Yuki would be calling people black skins and white skins?
I've never heard her say this before, so she's gotten it from school.
Is it me, or does that seems racist?
Aren't they African American? Or is that going to far?
Should I be worried my daughters being taught by a racist? Hahahahaha......seriously though.......

What's been going down in Chinatown.................

So Masaru is doing well, he's still tired but he seems to be improving a little at a time. He opted to play outside today at lunch time. He said it was good and he caught up with his buddy CJ. I'm happy for him.

We were suppose to be headed to Utah this past weekend and opted not to, because of Masaru. It ended up being a productive weekend.
I got the whole house clean, which always feels so good.
We got to watch the movie 'Tomorrowland' with the kids and we thought it was great. Someone told me it sucked and so I never had any interest of seeing it. Turns out that person was wrong and I should know better. We all had a great time watching it.
The kids had a bunch of mates come over and utilized the backyard for all it's worth. It was awesome seeing them all running around in the back having the time of their lives.
We're gonna have fun back there man. Plus it's only going to get better and better the more we add our 'plans' to it. I'm excited, which is good, cause it'll be a bunch of work, but once it's done, it'll be the ultimate play land back there man. Love it.
I started a new knitting project for my new little nephew that was born on the 16th.

Welcome to the world Ezekiel. Super healthy and wonderful. Congrats to my brother and his wonderful wife.
I'm knitting him a blanket and it's going pretty well. I'm excited to see it finished.
Meanwhile I've still got a pillow I've been knitting myself for close to 2 years now!! One day I'll finish that and it'll be the greatest thing, then I'll turn around and knit myself another pillow and then one more, then I'll be done. The first thing I"ve knitted myself and look how long it's taken. Typical right? I should knit it for myself for my birthday so I have a deadline. I seem to work better with a deadline. Always have.

The prize for MOST productive though, has to go to my one and only. That man has the kind of motivation and hard work that I could sell for millions if I could only bottle it up. Man the things I could do if I had those ethics!!!
His goal since moving into the house has been to fit the two cars into the garage. The man was on a mission.
The garage is slightly smaller as well and so he had to get SUPER ninja on it. So super ninja he went.
Monday he did it........he parked both cars in the garage. I almost went out to buy him a cake to celebrate, but he told me not to. Typical Dru, no fuss. Me man, I'd be texting the world and blogging about how awesome I am. He didn't even put it on face book.
I said "Put it up on face book and put the hashtag #youneeddru because my family has this little #whoneedsdru thing going on cause they're way pumped when they do things themselves. It's all in fun, but he didn't even do that!!
He also changed the oil in all three cars, got the art table done, fixed the lights downstairs, put up the hooks for jackets in the mud/wash room, fixed my steam mop and made dinner 2 out of the three nights.
I'm telling you, Dru's the man. I don't have to nag either, he asks me what I need done and I tell him and he does it.
One in a million man. Love him.

Things are slowly getting back to normal.
I'm enjoying having a little 'down time' since it's winter and there's not much to do to leave the house. It's nice being home with Emiko and just chilling out around the house. I'm feeling a little more relaxed and I can feel myself being rejuvenated each day I get. It's been really nice.
I'm a homebody at heart and really do enjoy just being home, if I'm not out on my bike!!
I'm such a better person if I'm not bombarded with a ton of stuff that I have to do. So maybe I'll try to work on that this year. Sometimes you just gotta get things done though, so I dunno if I can find that balance. We'll see.

I'm on an 8 week challenge with my family. I'm in week 3 and have lost around 2 pounds. I'd like to lose around 13, so we'll see how I do with that.
It's the weight I gained in NZ and over Christmas. So I'm not going crazy on anyone. I'd just like to be back where I was, where I was was easy enough to maintain and I just need to work a little harder to get back there.
I'll do it, it'll just take a bit of time.
Everyone else in my family seem to be doing alright too. Dru joined and he's doing well as well. So it's really good for all of us.

My calling with the youth at church is super busy. We have what's called Trek this year. This is where the youth go on a three night and day Trek in pioneer clothing, trying to embrace what it would've been like for the pioneers back in the day.
It'll be really fun, but there's a lot of prep that goes into it.
Also Dru and I have been picked to be a 'Ma and Pa' which means we'll be in charge of 6-8 kids for the whole time, motivating, talking, guiding, cooking and leading them the whole way.
Should be fun right?
It's a day after Dru's birthday. We're trying to convince Dru's sister to come up for it so she can watch the kids. We'll see (right Kristin? We'll pay for your gas)
Meanwhile we've still got the regular things we have to do as well in my calling. It's all a little crazy, but I love the youth. It'd be nice to be a counsellor though, but that's alright.

That's about it I think.

Takeshi's art work

These are all pieces of artwork and writing that Takeshi has handed to me in the last week or so.
He told me with this one above that he started doing an Elephant and then it wasn't working out so he made it an Elephant boat. I was cracking up for ages about that.

Almost finished

 I just took this picture because of what he was wearing. I kinda matches right? light blue in the t-shirt and light blue in his PJ pants and then camo slippers with camo pants and Halloween socks? Black socks goes with the black slippers. See, no worries.
I can see all the women in Dru's family shaking their heads. Hahahaha

So things have been progressing nicely. No more nightmares. I took his codeine dose from 7.5mls to 5mls and it seems to not make him so loopy, which works great. His pain was too much so we consistently kept up with his pain meds, instead of trying him out without any. It worked out much better for him.
He's in the spare room upstairs close to us, and that seems to work out a lot better for us. We got his antibiotics on a schedule where we can give his night one at midnight. So Dru and I would try to stay up to administer it to him. Most of the time we'd end up sleeping on the couch together and waking up to the alarm we'd set.
We're both tired but happy at his progress.
He's been absolutely bombarded with awesome support from friends and family. It's been wonderful and Masaru seems to be relishing in it a little. He's received gifts and love and it's been amazing for us.
We had dinners brought to us, which is a huge help so we can concentrate on ourselves, we also had mates stop at the store to pick up bits and pieces for us. One mate said that she was driving past, thought of us, then texted what we needed and I told her Motrin. It worked out great.
It's nice to know that you have a few 'on call' mates who you can count on for things you know.
He's gotten art stuff, legos, remote control things, games, a star wars soft toy (which he sleeps with nightly) treats and more.
It's really opened my eyes to how I need to help friends when they're in the same situation you know. It's been good for me.
I thought I was 'good', but soon realized that there's lots of room for improvement. Like I said, it's been good for me and my soul.

So Monday we went into the hospital to look at his drain.
When we got there, it was a different Dr that was looking at how his abscess was doing. He seemed surprised that they were checking so soon.
So he got in there and had a look, I was allowed in the room with him, and he was shocked at how small it'd gotten. Only 2cm!!! He said that he couldn't see any reason, not to remove the drain.
I thought they might do it, there and then, but he said, probably, Wednesday.
So that was such great news.

Then Wednesday we went in early and had it removed. I told Dru to stay at work and I'd give him a play by play of what was going on. Emiko went with Nawang so I could just concentrate on Masaru.
Here he is afterwards. He'd had a little sedative and was super talktative, which was nice, cause he's been pretty quiet.
The nurse who was looking after him seemed nice but flaky, I didn't fully trust her, so was keeping an eye on everything she was doing, just in case.
The nurse said I'd have to wait in the room but the doctor told me I could come with him. Then she said I'd probably be put in the control room but the doctor let me stand there, right by him, while he did the procedure.
Now don't get me wrong man, I LOVE the nurses that have looked after me AND Masaru. They're the best man, but what I've learned is sometimes they don't know what they're talking about. Good nurses don't say cut and dry things, they simply say what they think but say the Doctor may say something different and leave it open.
Some nurses say things like it's definite and I've learned not to trust that, that's all. 98% of nurses are perfect, so there's only a couple you have to call out. Which I've often done.

It was good to be there, right with Masaru, and comfort him with the drain removal.

 We got there at 8am and left at 11am. Just like they told us. So that was awesome right?
He was SO happy to not have that drain hanging around you know. I was so happy for him. He said he slept well that night cause he could sleep however he wanted.

Here he is with his antibiotics hanging off of him, being injected in, while playing the piano. We gave him his last antibiotic last night, midnight, and his white bloodcell count is totally normal. Good right? So hopefully things will be ok.
He's been doing homework all week and today I sent him off to school for the short day. I haven't heard from the school and so hopefully things are going ok for him.
They want to do a follow up with him during school hours and I told them no and it got a little heated, so we'll see what they wanna do about that.

It's fascinating to me, the rate at which he healed, considering everything. Again I'm grateful for modern medicine. I'm also grateful for prayers said in his behalf and being able to talk to Heavenly Father throughout the whole thing.
I hope he can be ok. I'm glad things are, seemingly, normal. Let's hope it stays that way!!

It'd be nice to just to be able to live in this house without any chaos you know?
We move in, go to NZ, come back, have Christmas, come back, Masaru's in hospital, I'm just ready for things to be settled down a little and to just 'live' in the house and such.
Some people don't get those blessings, I know, they have sick kids, who won't get well, or other things that they deal with, and my heart goes out to those people. I hope that with this experience I can have a little more empathy towards people.

So just one more appointment with the Dr, if she can meet outside of school hours, and then his surgery, which I will also push to be in spring break or a friday night so as not to miss school. Wish me luck with that fight, they don't seem to like it.
I'm not usually a stresser about school missed. But the other day I walked into Masaru class and the atmosphere was amazing. What they were talking about and just everything was awesome and it struck me that Masaru was missing this. Mr Herron is his most favorite teacher and he's missed the most school with him and it breaks my heart in a way and it just hit me when I walked in to get his homework. He needs to be with Mr Herron, learning and being with mates. I asked Mr Herron if he could move up to 6th grade with Masaru. He laughed and said 6th graders go crazy and he doesn't wanna be a part of that. I couldn't argue with him and so had to admit defeat. I'm glad he can be back at school.
I don't regret the 3 weeks missed in NZ, but these 8 days he's missed because of hospital, I've really felt.

The nurse comes this afternoon to take his PICC line out then he's looking forward to a hot shower!!

Latest on Masaru

So things are looking up.

They took Masaru off the machines and we got a way better sleep. He woke up at 4:30 needing pain meds and a potty stop.

He's going to the toilet really well and he hadn't had pain meds for almost 12 hours.

The Doctor came in and said he's meeting all their points of being able to leave the hospital. So he said, if he did well with his pancakes, he could go home later on in the afternoon.

While that was great news, I was a little nervous to take him home. It's so much easier and reassuring to have the hospital and nurses taking care of him. But I had to be happy with the fact that he was healing so quickly and so well.

So that's what we did.

We ordered him pancakes and eggs for him and he ate a little of them. I was told that because of his pain meds, he could have less of an appetite. At least he's eating.

He watched the first Star Wars movie, which he loved. Now we just need the rest of the 5. Anyone out there have them?

We also tried to watch the first Harry Potter, but the disc was scratched really bad. Anyone have all the Harry Potters?

I decided to go work out while Dru brought the kids to the Hospital to visit Masaru.

I think Masaru is enjoying the quiet time to be honest and was a little sad to be leaving the hospital. I think he liked the silence and doing whatever he wanted and getting all the help he was getting.

It's good for him to be coming home though.

We needed a babysitter for the kids and had asked a couple of people and then Nawang texted and asked if she could get the kids, just out of the blue!! What a blessing. She came and grabbed the kids for us so we could get all the information we needed, without distraction of the other kids being there.

Anyway he was tired and started getting sore, so he slept after he was given some pain meds.

We let him sleep for 2-3 hours while we went and had some lunch at a local place.

 Here he is sleeping.

So here's his drain that's in his back. Pretty crazy right?

Once we came back we prepped to get him home.
We're having home health come in and help us out with what we need. So that's nice.
We took him home and got him comfortable. The nurse came over at 4pm to administer his meds and teach us how to do the same and look after him.
The company called Coram were suppose to be at our place at 4pm as well with our medical supplies. Masaru's meds were due at 4pm.
Well turns out Coram sucks and totally dropped the ball.
After lengthy, heated, conversations with them, from both Dru and I, they turned up with meds for Masaru 2.5 hours later.
To say that Dru and I were upset is an understatement. To add salt to the wound, these people didn't care, made excuses and didn't apologize. I can't believe it!! They working with sick people who need meds at a certain time and they just didn't seem to see it as a big deal.
Please if you're considering home medical supplies DON'T go with Coram, they don't care about you or your family and have poor business skills. Horrible company, and horrible people working for them.
Ok I've finished my rant.

Don't be fooled by this picture, 5 seconds later he was giggling his heart out about the story of how I was busted eating his mac and cheese at the hospital.
It's nice to see his face not gaunt anymore and to hear him giggling like he does.
His class sent him home some HW as well as a card to wish him well. I'm sure he'll be back in no time.
We were taught how to put in his meds and the nurse was able to go home to her family, 2 hours later than usual, and we felt pretty good.
We had some visitors who helped us out along the way.
Cesha brought us dinner then went and picked up the kids from Nawang's place, cause we thought we might have to go back to hospital to get Masaru's meds since Coram sucked. That was so nice of her.
Natalie came over to drop off some snacks in the middle of the chaos and then brought us Motrin, cause we didn't have any. Super nice and well placed visit for our needs.
The blessing of people following their hearts and helping out are truly great and I hope to be like that.

Then our mate Ellen King and her son came over and visited Masaru, which was a great catch up.

We put Masaru to bed and his night was up and down. He was crying a ton and having, what seemed like a nightmare. He couldn't stop talking about some liquid that was attacking him. I gave him some pain meds but he was still upset, so I did what I thought I should do and knelt by his side and put my hand on his forehead and asked Heavenly Father to take away his bad dreams that were surrounding his mind. Then I told my father to drop, whatever it was that he was doing on the 'other side' and come and be with Masaru and protect him from those dreams and help him to be at peace and to not leave his side until the morning. I stood there for a second, felt good, hoped to see Dad, but didn't, then went to bed.
If Takeshi heard any of that, I'm not sure what he would've thought. But it's what I did and Masaru fell into a deep sleep.
Dru got up at 2:30am to administer his antibiotics and he said that he didn't wake up at all. So that's great.
The thing with giving him his drugs during the night is that it takes 30 mins to flow into his body. So you get up to give it to him, wait for 30 mins, then finish the rest of the administering. So it's quite the ordeal at night.
He woke up at around 6:30am needing more pain meds and crying because of being in pain. I asked him if he'd had anymore nightmares and he said no, so that's good.
Unfortunately he's been peeing his bed though and is in pull-ups, I'd appreciate it if someone is reading this and has children who know him, not to tell them or repeat this to anyone. I think with the pain meds he's in a deep sleep? and isn't feeling when to get up?
So I had to shower him, change the bedding and mattress and make him up a new bed.
I feel bad for him.
So both Dru and I's night was busy and interrupted, but that's just how it's going to be for the next little while. So if you see me, I'll probably look like a zombie, which is what all mother's with sick kids, probably look like.
He seems well though and is laughing and is looking good.
I'm grateful to all support we've had.
My visiting teachers Hannah and Mary Jo came over and clean our house so when we got home we go home to a clean place.
It was so nice to not have to worry about that. I'm grateful for the peace of mind that came with that.
If my place is clean then I'm more relaxed, which helps me to concentrate on my son and the rest of my family.

Hopefully things go well. We'll see.

Up date on progress

 So here's a picture of his abscess. See where the arrow is? That big round ball? That's his abscess!! Crazy right? I can't believe his pain tolerance for something like that. What a trooper. And how was I suppose to even know that that was going on right?
I'm glad he got that gross drink down so he could have his insides seen properly so they could catch this.
So this was pushing on everything else and making life difficult for him. Hence the reason he threw up and had diarrhea.
So they think this is from his appendix and he had it rupture and just endured it and from the rupture it caused the abscess. They're not 100% sure but I guess this happens to kids quite often, for no reason, and they do this kind've procedure once a week.
So that's kind've crazy.
So they took him in the get that abscess drained and the doctor said the minute they put that in it made a popping sound and released 500cc straight away.
So that's tons, just if you're wondering! The nurse said she'd never heard of anything more than 100cc. So he just had a ton of pressure there. It must've felt so good to have that released man. Poor kid.
They said it smelt really bad too, which makes sense plus is kinda gross too. But they said it went great. So that's good.
Then they moved him into another room to put his PICC line in (I just found out that that's how you spell the pick line I was talking about in the other post). They said that went well too.
They let us go into recovery with him, where he slept for at least an hour or two. He was probably so tired and his body was probably so relieved from having that abscess taking care of that it just wanted to rest and relax. He looked pretty peaceful.
I stuck around and watched him sleep until he woke up and had a chat to him.
I had managed to be able to go home and drop Emiko off to Nat's place and I WAS going to take a shower but Dru called me and said that his abscess had already been done and I needed to get back as it was going faster than what we had anticipated.
So no shower for me, and I headed back in time to be there to meet him in recovery.

Then we took him back upstairs where he hung out and the doctor came and had a chat to us.
So he's gonna have the drainline in him until the abscess is looking better. So that could be a few days to a week depending on his healing. The PICC line could be in for a couple of weeks as well, depending on his meds and how much he needs for how long.
The drainline was put in right at the top of his butt and has a bag attached to it to catch the rest of the abscess that needs to come out.
The PICC line is for all his meds that he needs, including antibiotics to help heal anything else that's in the body that needs to disappear to make his body function properly.
Medication couldn't heal the abscess that was already there, but it can heal anything else gross that is remaining. Between the antibiotics and his body's immunities fighting for him, he should be healing as we speak. Our bodies are amazing.

After he's fully healed, 6-8 weeks, then they'll go back in and take his Appendix they think, which should just be an overnight stay in the hospital. But I can't really think about that yet and just wanna get through this first then hit that when it needs to be hit.

 So they took the nose tube out, which Masaru was really happy about and then that meant he could drink water. He was SO happy to be able to drink water. We were elated for him. He's been drinking well since. He hasn't even felt like throwing up and has been going to the toilet well. So that's great news.
The kids have the hookups when it comes to staying at the hospital. He had a wii brought into him and they have a ton of movies they can watch. They have a play room, art supplies as well as ipads, nintenedo's, DS's and more. They also came in with a little kit to give him as a gift which came with a DVD and some drawing paper and crayons etc.
Here he is playing the wii.

Eventually we had to go get our other children though, and Dru and I had to leave Masaru for the first time. I felt bad about that but knew he was in good hands and that he'd be ok. He'd been the best we'd seen him and had just got the wii and wasn't interested in talking to us, so we figured it'd be a great time to grab the kids and for me to have a shower.

We went and picked up Emiko from Nat's place and then went and picked up Yuki and Takeshi from Jobecka's place. They'd just walked home after school to their place and had dinner with the Thompsons. Huge help for our family. Thanks guys.

We've had texts from family and our close friends giving us support and offering it as well. This helps us feel like we're not in it alone and have a support system in place that we can rely on and know we can count on. This brings us great comfort and gratitude. Thanks guys, you know who you are!! We love you.

 

It felt so nice to have a shower and then I packed some stuff, like my pillow and a blanket, to head back to the hospital and be with Masaru for the night.

The night before I'd only gotten a couple hours sleep so I was pretty hammered.

Here's a picture of Masaru and I watching 'Narnia' together. I nodded off pretty soon after this.

 

The night went ok. Machines beeping, constantly wake you up. It's like giving birth all over again.

Masaru needed to change his robe and bedding twice in the night as well. I think he's sleeping so soundly you know, which is great.

Interrupted sleep or not, I'm glad I'm there with him. Whenever he wakes up the first thing he says is 'Mum' and I would hate not to be there to help him with whatever he needs.

I feel bad that I haven't hardly seen Yuki and Takeshi and hope they can understand.



Dru came in with Emiko this morning and the nurse told us that we need to get Masaru up and walking today. She said the goal is 6 walks today. So here's our first 'adventure' giving the DVD back and visiting the fish!!

We're gonna need him to get up and walk somewhere every couple of hours, which shouldn't be a big deal. I think he's doing pretty good man and am grateful for all the doctors and nurses who've been there for us and have helped us so much.

I'm grateful for modern technology to keep me in constant contact with my family and close mates and for what it means in Masaru's health.

The machines they have and the things they can do and know is such a blessing for when you're sick. I'm glad this was something that could be seen and fixed with help of amazing people who know what they're talking about.

Now it's just concentrating on getting better.

He should be in hospital till around Monday and then we'll go from there and see what we have to do. Maybe he'll have to go home with the drain in his back or maybe it'll be healed enough, we're not sure at this point and will have to wait it out and see.



 

Masarus in hospital

So after they took some bloods they sent us home. 

The doctor told us he'd call us and tell us the results of the blood test. 

Meanwhile we were told to grab a stool test kit. Take it home and use it the next movement he had. So we went and picked up emikos meds for her infected sore, picked up some Gatorade for Masaru and headed home to wait. 

Time passes and I figured we weren't gonna hear until the next day. I was pretty upset. I mean this is a little kid man and no one seems to care!! That's how I felt, at least. 

So I went to my young women's youth group that night and get a call from Dru to come home immediately. So I did. He told me our doctor had rung and said that Masarus white blood cell count was up as well as his electrolytes I think? And if it was his kid, he'd take him to the ER straight away. So we did. 

Amy turned up just while we were leaving and stayed with the other kids until Natalie came over to watch the kids while Dru and I went to the hospital with Masaru. The doctor had rang ahead to let them know what's up. I told all mine and Drus family and we settled into the ER. They took blood from both arms, got him in a robe, took a urine sample and prepped him for X-rays. 

They wanted to see if there was anything going on on his insides. 

He got back and had to drink this gross drink that lit up his insides for the CT scan they wanted to do. 

Apparently that would show them what was really going on. 

They did the CT scan and after looking at it found an abscess 9cm round blocking his insides that needed to be drained. They said they needed to put a tube down his nose to his stomach to get rid of everything  in there as that was contributing to his pain. 

Then they said he needed to be admitted into hospital and the surgeons were talking about whether they needed to operate now or later on. 

I've never had anything like this happen to me before with any of my children. It's a mixed bunch of emotions. It's like I don't wanna leave his side but don't wanna face everything and have to be strong and don't want anyone to touch him but want everyone to heal him. 

I dunno how else to put it. 

Watching them put that tube down his nose sucked and I cried. But I don't want Masaru to see me crying cause I dunno how he'll handle that. I'm suppose to be strong for him right? But I'm not. So I hid behind the bed while Dru held his hand. 

I dunno what Drus feeling. I guess he'll have to write it down if he feels the need. 

After that they took him up to his room in the hospital and for him settled in. 

He got pain meds went to the toilet and fell asleep. That's been the routine for the night. Dru let me stay and he went home to deal with the kids and get them to school. I dunno what we'll do with Emiko. We'll have to make a game plan I guess. 

They're gonna put a pick line (?) in at 3 this afternoon and drain the abscess and then decide what to do. I guess a pick line is for more long term and goes straight into the vein close to the heart. The nurses couldn't tell me much more and we're gonna have to wait for a doctor to come and talk to us. 

Hopefully he'll be ok. I'm a little numb and need to figure out our home life around hospital life. Hopefully Dru and I can figure it all out. 

I'm not sure what else to say. 

Sickness

 Masaru still isn't doing well. He's been running a constant fever and he's started throwing up again. He's lost about 10 pounds and is weak and frail looking. His face is looking gaunt and things aren't getting better.
We're going to the doctor's today to see if he can help.
We took him to the doctor 5 days into his sickness and they simply said he had the stomach flu and it'd pass. They tested him for strep too and it came back negative.
But since then things haven't been getting better. He didn't throw up for a few days, which was nice, and he's been eating a tiny bit each day, but he's not getting better.
The school rang me yesterday to come and pick him up as he was running a fever of 103 point something.
I brought him home and tried to make him an appointment with his doctor. They didn't have anything until today.
Then you have to go through the process of wondering if it's bad enough to take to insta care or if you should wait it out.
Dru and I thought about it and after giving him some motrin and bring his temperature down a couple of degrees, thought we'd wait it out.
He got up around 10pm and threw up all over the floor! Thank goodness we have wood floors and it was just like water, nothing in it. So strange. So I really hope that the doctor can have some answers for us today and help Masaru be on the mend.
He's never been this sick before and none of the other kids have caught it, if it can be caught.
There's nothing quite like watching your kid being sick and not being able to help them. I don't like it or wish it on anyone.

 Then Emiko has had these dots on her skin for over a year now. I was assured by the doctor that they'd go away. They haven't and now some of them look like they're getting infected and she's complaining that they're sore.

They're spreading as well. So hopefully the doctor will be able to help us out with how to fix that as well.
Poor Emiko, that doesn't look fun does it!?!
So it's a double whammy at the doctor's today in hopes to get half the kids in the family back to normal capacity again.
We're so lucky to have modern medicine and help where we need it. It makes me think of the mothers back in the early 1900's and 1800's who had to sit by their kids and simply watch them die, as nothing was invented or thought of yet that could help heal their child.
Rips your heart out. Bless those women.

Little random catch up

 Masaru's cuzzie, Kate, did this for him on his boogie board he got for Christmas. It's tough to delete sweet pictures like this. I think he's still got it on there.

 Yuki's been quietly making up her legos. She followed the instructions for some and built some on her own. So she took multiple pictures of it.

 So cute.

 Nemo?

 Then she was allowed to change her earrings on the 1st and hasn't looked back since. Her first earrings she chose was these greenstone heart ones from her uncle and auntie in Perth.

She's been changing them, daily, ever since. She loves it.

Sledding Saturday

So our mates invited us to go sledding with them and we accepted.
The cuzzies were still over and we figured it was a great activity to pass the time.
We don't have any sleds though, which is something we need to purchase. I need to shop around and see if they have any.
So we shared with our mates.
I took three video's of the event.
Maseru decided he wanted to come, which was great, and went sledding a few times then spent the rest of the time in the car. I'm glad he tried.



Here's Masaru and Dru and Keith all whizzing past.


Here are Ella and Presly going super slow and trying to figure things out.



Here's Yuki and Ella (I think) and Takeshi flying by after them.
It was a pretty steep hill man, but the kids did great with it.

Then later on we got our cute babysitter to come watch the kids while Dru and I went and fulfilled a Christmas present from our mates the Jares.
It was a cowboy sleigh ride up bogus basin with a dinner and cowboy poetry at the top then a sleigh ride back down the mountain.
We went with our mates the Thompsons, as they'd gotten the same gift. It worked out perfect to be with each other.
Ok so it was FREEZING man. I haven't been that cold in a LOOONG time. So Dru had packed us blankets and our snow gear and we all shared the blankets and cuddled up and tried to enjoy the ride up to the cabin.
Those horses were the HUGE ones with the hair over their hooves. Clydesdales we call them back home, I'm sure they're the same name here. They were amazing. It was all we could do to get this picture taken man. They asked if we wanted a picture with the horses, after we were back down the hill, but no one was interested hahahahaha
It read 20 degrees fahrenheit but it was windy, so I think that took it WAY down a notch to say the least.
Once at the top, the food was amazing and it was really good. Great steak and chicken and wonderful soup and hot chocolate and peach cobbler. Good conversation as well. We were trying to make mtb plans for the year. We'll see if they pan out. I hope so.
We listened to some cowboy poetry as well. That was fine.
I'm grateful for the gift. It was a fun thing to do and it was awesome to go with the Thompsons.

When we got home (earlier than we'd expected) Sammy said that the kids were great. I dunno if they really were, but she was drawing and the kids were all in bed, so I guess things were alright. The kids loves Sammy so I'm glad it went alright.
We'd left them with the redbox movie 'Pan' so they were excited about that.

So Saturday was a fun day of sledding for the whole family.

Shogatsu 2015

 So we did our second year of Shogatsu in Boise.

Dru's sister came up the day before and helped out. It made a huge difference.
New Years Eve we stayed up till midnight just prepping for the next days festivities. The kids played with their cuzzies all night and Dru found some bottle rockets to light off as well. One exploded on the spot. That kind've hurt the kids ears, but the rest flew off and exploded how they should've. We then put the kids to bed. It was a good night.

The next morning we woke up around 8 to continue to get ready for shogatsu.
We made miso soup, gyoza, teriyaki chicken, wontons, inari sushi as well as loose sushi and california type rolls as two other types that I forget what they're called (sorry Dru). We also prepped sunomono but forgot to serve it.
It doesn't seem like much but it was and took a while to prep.
It was all so yummy though.

 We had a wave of mates come at 1 then another at 3. It worked out perfect.
Everyone brought a plate to share as well, and so there was plenty of food for everyone.
I had a really good time catching up with mates and eating. It was really nice.

Our last friends left about 7:30pm and Dru and I wandered around and assessed the damage. To our wonderful surprise it wasn't bad at all and didn't take much time to clean up, between the three of us.
Having Kristin there was so nice. She's invited every year.

I think people enjoyed themselves as well as the kids and I'm glad we did it and hope we'll continue to do it every year. I just wanna do it for the food. It's also nice to have friends over and usually people are pretty relaxed on New Year's Day and it's easy for them to come over and help celebrate.
Great way to celebrate the new year.