My baby moves on to Kindergarten

Last week Shawna graduated from preschool. They had a cute ceremony where the priest blessed some rosaries and each child received one as they shook hands with their teachers. Shawna wears it almost everyday. I don't hold much hope in it not breaking given they're pretty flimsy.

The class also sang some songs and did some dancing with this one song that was a crack up. Here are some pics.

Shawna with one of her teachers Miss Karen


Dancing to the song




This is a shot of her from Monday's game. She's so tiny. LOL

Adults Only

What's been going on?

1. I'm feeling much better. I'm still on antibiotics but they didn't have to "clean out" my sinus'. I am back to work as of yesterday (Monday). I saw the ENT on Friday and he did another probe up my nose. I'm all clear in the upper sinus'. I'm still draining and could relapse but I'm hoping I don't. My implants also look good. I saw the periodontist on Thursday who wants to see me again in 2 months.

2. Friday night we had a fire in our hills. At night it seemed much closer than it was so we got our important papers and things together in case in the middle of the night they said to evacuate. We didn't even let the kids know there was a fire or Paula especially would have been panicky and very upset.
I made Todd prepare the trailer for easy hookup. Normally it can take him 45 minutes to get it ready so he did some set up so in case he needed to hook up the truck we could leave faster. My mom was there to keep him on track. He didn't think all our preparation was necessary and kept saying so, but I didn't want to risk it. By morning the fire was out so he was right. Still...you can't be too prepared for that! We had ashes all over our cars, house etc. Even in our computer room where we'd left the window open.

3. Saturday afternoon my mom drove Paula to her house for the week. Already I've talked to her each day and she's having a grand time. Yesterday they swam in the pool at the club and she met a little girl who might be there again today. Too cute.
That night Shawna had a sleep over at Tyler's house which she LOVED.

4. Saturday night we had an adults only party at our friends the Coulthards, one of our school/softball families who we've camped with and adore. There were 8 of us. We had so much fun. For awhile the ladies chatted together and the men chatted together, then after dinner we all hung out around his backyard bar. They have the best backyard set up for summer parties. I laughed so hard my sides ached from their stories about Paula and Shawna during softball practices. I never make the practices since I'm at work so it was fun to hear what my kids do. We definitely need to do that again. Below is a picture of us all.

Left to Right: Danielle (married to Sam), Patty (married to Brett), Me, Johna (married to Steve), Todd, Brett, Sam, Steve.

5. Tonight starts swim lessons for the girls, although only Shawna is here this week. She's excited since she's been asking me for a year when do they get to go back to swimming. It's hecka expensive for the place I like to take them which is why I didn't sign them up for an entire year. But Shawna needs to learn her strokes and Paula hasn't graduated yet from the school so it's time.

That's it for the past few days. Busy busy as always.

Sinus infection from hell

I haven't posted in awhile because I've been in a lot of pain after my titanium implant surgery.

I had surgery on Tuesday, May 27th. I had the normal discomfort associated w/that type of surgery. He raised my sinus on my rear molar and added bone. By Saturday I started having pain that wasn't there before. By Tuesday I had a 100.5 fever and saw my periodontist who did the surgery. He did an Xray and it all looked fine but he was worried I was getting an infection. Keep in mind that from the hour before surgery and 7 days after I was on a low dosage antibiotic to prevent infection.

He put me on Kevlar. That night was up there w/the few in my life that I'd rather die than go thru that pain. My entire left side of my face was so painful. Not even the vicodin he gave me helped. The next morning, Wednesday the 4th I called him to ask if I could take two of the Rx instead of 1. He said yes. He would check on me again later. I slept all day. That night he called after talking to some of his ENT colleagues and changed my meds to Biaxin. Todd went to get that. I was off work from Tuesday to Thursday. I did go in Friday afternoon but w/out Advil or tylenol every few hours the pain was too bad. The nights were better than that one Tuesday night but still I'd have pain, even being woken up from it. I'd also have bad mornings until 10am or so when the pain would finally subside. Friday and Saturday were no better. In fact, Saturday I talked to one of the parents on Paula's softball team who is an RN Nurse among other things a director for San Francisco Medical. She said the antibiotics should have provided relief by now and that most antibiotics kill 80 percent of the bacterias out there, but there are some that kill 100% and I should request that. I called Dr. Lim and told him more of what was happening. He said to double up on the Biaxin and to give it a full 72 hours. Which now that I look at it, it had been 72 hours. Also, doubling up the Biaxin was nasty. OMG I oozed the Rx taste in my mouth. Ick.



On Sunday, today, after another night of being woken up from pain and my morning with major headache, clearly my sinus infection hadn't eased up much after being on 3 different antibiotics in 2 weeks so I went to the ER this afternoon once Todd got home from work. I should also mention that I've been blowing out green stuff that smells, for a week. Nasty. They did a cat scan and discovered that I have puss from above my left eye to the bottom of my face thru out my entire sinus. Basically, my entire left sinus' are filled with puss. ER dr said this would have been coming on for a couple months for it to be that full. I never felt or noticed a thing. The sinus lift from the implant surgery set it off. I'm still not sure how that could have been storing in my sinus for so long and me not know. When I see the ENT I'm gonna get his view.



I'm on 2 new antibiotics. 875MG of Amox-Clav and 750MG of Levaquin. That's a lot of drugs. I also received more hydrocodone. I called my periodontist who did the implants telling him the newest diagnosis. He was going to call the ER to ask what the CT scan showed as far as the implants failing. That's a major concern too obviously. If this can't be cleared up by the antibiotics then they'll have to go in and drain my sinus'. Let's hope it doesn't go to that. I have to make an appt w/an ENT tomorrow. I'm also supposed to stay off work for 3 days. I'll probably have bad diarrhea w/all the meds and one of them makes me a bit lightheaded I noticed but it didn't last long. Geez, who knew dental implants would cause all this?! I'm just glad to be truly diagnosed and that my brain is no longer at risk which could have easily happened since your sinus' lead right up into your brain and a sinus infection reaching your brain usually ends with death. (thanks to the internet I had that knowledge to scare the crap out of me) I even asked him if that was still something I should worry about and he agreed that it could have gone up into my brain but that w/the antibiotics I'm on and how they're closely monitoring it I won't have that problem. Let's pray! Oh, and I'm not going on my work trip to PA obviously. I'm bummed about that but I cancelled all my arrangements this morning after the headache wore off. I knew I couldn't risk it w/my not healing. Now I know for sure I couldn't have gone. The pressure in the plane would have been awful. That was my exciting day. Hope your Sunday was better!

Titanium implants

Tuesday May 27th I had two titanium implants put in. I had an anesthesiologist there to put me out. The surgery only took a little more than an hour. Here is what they had to do and why.



I think I've mentioned how I was born with a condition where I have many adult teeth that never formed in my mouth. It's hereditary from my fathers side of the family. I'm missing 11 adult teeth. 4 wisdom, several molars and the side tooth next to my left front tooth. Over the years I've had 3 bridges. The Maryland bridge they did for my frontish tooth was more than 20 years old and needed to be replaced. I'd also pulled the baby tooth (molar) in the back a few years ago when it started to bother me (I still have 1 baby tooth left actually). I decided now with the great technology of implants I'd go with that. I had to do braces to move some roots around so the implants would fit. This entire thing is costing a fortune. The frontish tooth gum area sort caved in a bit so to beef it up they took skin from my pallet, lifted up my upper gum, stuffed it in there then lay down the gum and stitched it in place. That area right now is bruised and swollen. The area they removed the skin from my pallet is sore. The molar is fine. In fact, if I'd just had the normal implant w/out all the skin stuff I'd be good to go. They also had to add bone to my rear molar.



I'm glad it's done. Now is the recovery period. I'm taking antibiotics, Advil, rinsing with warm salt water and eating on my right side. In a few months when the healing is done, I get the crowns. :0) I'm also going to get my teeth whitened before the crowns go in. Woohoo.

Reading Eval

Paula had her final reading evaluation for first grade. They do three evals a year. The last one showed her at a 2nd grade reading level. I knew the books they'd been sending home with her were too easy at that time. Well now she's at a 3rd grade reading level! I didn't expect that at all. Wow. Good for her. They even had to write in the number 3 because the form didn't have that as a choice. I'm a proud mommy. :0)

Festival Weekend

This weekend was a busy one for all of us. The girls school had a festival that went from Friday to Sunday. Todd was there all 3 days setting up and working the casino booth. The slot machines the 4 families purchased (ours included) were used.

Saturday Paula and Shawna also had a softball game. They did really well even in the heat.

OH! And on Friday night we celebrated Susan's Bday. Todd Peppers neice came over with her baby. OMG too cute! She's only a few months old. I got to change her diaper and get a huge baby fix.

Here are some pics:

At the festival Paula and Shawna liked the Preschool booth because they could get doused w/water.

Here I am at the slots.

I'm getting my baby fix

My baby holding a baby

Maui Vacation

Our vacation to Maui was wonderful. The Westin Ka'anapalli Ocean Resort Villas are amazing. The girls had a blast in the children's pool with the ship that had slides, water spraying from the top and lots of kids to play with, and the larger pool on the South side with the long slide and jacuzzi. The condos were modern and comfortable. We had the 2 bedroom villa. We stayed in the 1 bedroom side, the Peppers stayed in the studio side. We each had our own washer/dryer (Seriously!) kitchen, jet tub, huge shower and king beds with couch sofa beds. We each had a balcony too. Granted the 1 bedroom had a larger size of everything mentioned, the studio was in no way less of a room.

Our weather was warm but very windy. We had light showers a couple nights but we were already inside so it didn't matter. We ventured to the beach as a group once. I also took Shawna alone. The sand was so soft. The water clear and warm. The problem was just that the wind would toss up sand while painfully slapping your body so we didn't spend much time at the beach. The drama in washing the sand off the kids in the cold outside showers provided was also something none of us wanted to do again. They had it EVERYWHERE. Even inside the linings of their swimsuits. (shake head like that's crazy).

Another exciting thing that happened is we met and hung out with a recently retired major league baseball player named Matt Franco. He'd played on the Cubs, Indians and Mets. He was there with his cute 3.5 yr old son Nate. His wife (stunt woman/actress Bevin Kaye) wasn't there due to a work conflict. I did meet his sister and her boyfriend though. We hung out with them a lot.

Day 1: Sunday - The long flight over

That was a long day. We got picked up by the shuttle bus. SFO airport was crazy busy. We had the 3 kids, tons of luggage and a connecting flight. All went according to plan but kids were making us all nuts. They were as anxious as us to get there but we had 2 planes and a rental car to deal with. By the time we arrived we were all hungry. Thank goodness I packed an entire suitcase with dry goods. We had mac & cheese, crackers, chips and other munchie food to take us to the next day.

Day 2: Monday - Shopping Day

Todd, Todd and Susan took the minivan to Costco (an hour away from the resort) to Safeway and Kmart (the girls HAD to have pool tubes). The girls and I hit the kiddie pool with the ship. Soon after I planted myself down a cute guy and his blond son arrived. Son had a Superman pool suit. Dad lathered him up in sunscreen and off son went. As the morning went on we started talking.

Over the course of the hours he'd run and get us drinks while I watched the kids. I'd run the restroom alone or with one of the girls and he'd watch the rest of the girls. He'd go smoke off site and I'd watch the girls. He'd get us more drinks and I'd watch the kids. There was a lot of drinking going on. :0)

At some point he mentioned the slide in the other pool on the South side of the resort. Paula was really up for that. Shawna too but not Tyler. We all ventured over there together. Paula went down, then Shawna but the water was 4 ft deep so Shawna had trouble staying up and got scared. I dove in to retrieve her. That was the end of the slide for Shawna.

We hung out and drank more. Finally the two Todd's and Susan came and hung out. Matt had said he was planning on going to the beach the next day. We hugged and I thanked him for all his help that day. I went to the room, showered and fell asleep with a really great buzz.

Day 3: Tuesday - Lahaina

On Tuesday morning everyone was tired but Shawna was very tired. Even grumpy. The kids feet had sores from rubbing them against the pool bottom of the kiddie pool (1.5 feet deep). Everyone wanted to go to Lahaina but I said I'd stay back w/Shawna and we'd hit the kiddie pool again. Now that it was just Shawna and I and the pool had almost no kids, she wanted me to swim with her. It was 1.5 ft deep. Shawna I can't swim in that. I did play w/her a bit. Later Matt and Nate showed up. Nate had been asking if he'd see Paula and Shawna today. They decided not to do the beach. Matt's sister Monica and her boyfriend had also arrived. They sat over on the sunny side, I hung out over in the shady section. He and I didn't chat much other then to say how buzzed we were the day before, how we had a fun time and we all went to sleep early. haha

Shawna and I went to the beach to make a castle. She was afraid of the waves since she got "taken out" in New Brighten Beach in Feb. The wind picked up so we headed back to the kiddie pool. Still not that many kids so Shawna and I headed back to the room for lunch and a rest. I ended up taking a nap when I knew Todd was moments away. He came in, got the kids swim gear and they all headed to the pool. I napped then joined them. The girls each had shell necklaces and bracelets and flowered hair ties from Lahaina. Tyler and Paula also received new flip flops.

I napped while the rest of them went back to the pool. At some point I joined them. This day the girls had to wear their swim shirts from now on because they got too red the day before. We were using spf 50 on them btw.

Day 3: Wednesday - Kids Club

This was the day the kids got to go to the Westin Kids Club from 9-12:30 (Paid for by the Westin so we could meet w/the sales folks), while we separately listened to the spiels by the sales folks on how we could upgrade from every other year to every year (no thank you) or to the Peppers how they could just become owners (not on their life for these prices). Our girls were the only 3 in there so they had lots of activities. They each received their own backpack filled with a water bottle, bracelet, passport, visor to decorate and apron to decorate. They also made the Moms cute things for Mothers Day. I received a personally colored pillow case from both my girls, their hand prints in sand on colored tongue depressor type board, and another sand picture. They got to pick out their own lunch (pizza and chicken fingers) and feed the qoi fish in the pond. They also watched a movie and played games. They LOVED the kids club. I'll definitely take advantage of that FREE part each time we go. Otherwise it would have cost me $50 per child. We gathered them up at 12:30pm and went to the pool. Susan got VERY sunburned on the backside. She didn't wear any sunscreen and was bright red.

That night Todd and I got into a fight. We'd been sparring with each other for a few days and it all had to do with things at home. We each had alcohol in our system so it got heated. He went down to the bar with Pepper where he drank too much and threw up. Nice.

Day 4: Thursday - Luau

We hit the beach in the AM where the Todd's snorkeled. Susan hid in the shade all day. Poor thing. She was really sore. We went to the Luau that night at the Hyatt. The girls really enjoyed it. They got to go up on stage and learn the hula. The food was really good too. That night Todd and I had it out. We each vented and cleared things up. We also made up really good that night too if you KWIM.

Day 5: Friday - Whaler Village

That morning we took the shuttle to Whaler Village. We did some window shopping and had lunch at McDonalds. Afterwards we headed to the pool where we saw Matt and his gang. We hung out with them. Matt bought more drinks which I then proceeded to spill. Monica was showing Nate how to do armpit farts. Just like every great aunt should! I'm like Hey! I can do armpit farts! My right side wasn't working I switched the left where I did get a good one out, but then my elbow bumped my drink which I'd placed on the recliner arm. DOH! Matt shared his drink with me. Todd was so great about letting me hang with Matt. Although he could have gotten jealous he wasn't.

That night Todd Pepper and Susan got in a fight. Todd jokingly called her a Hussy which she didn't appreciate. Their fight lasted the entire next day. It was in the air I swear.

Day 6: Saturday - Last Full Day

We spent the entire day at the pool. Well, not Mr. Pepper since he was Mr. Grumpy face. Susan was bumming out too. We spent most of the day at the big pool. I covered all 4 kids for awhile while Todd went to the condo to gather up lunch, Susan and Tyler were at the kiddie pool and Matt was lord knows where. Finally Matt came back, then left again. OMG dude! He brought me a drink so that was cool. LOL

We packed up that night while my Todd and Susan did dinner. Susan cried a lot too. Mr. Grumpy face stayed on his balcony or left the condo completely. Finally we sent him outside with the kids cuz they were stir crazy and we needed to pack and get dinner done. They had a fun adventure apparently.

Day 7: Sunday - Going home

Todd and Susan made peace. Thank god since we had to get up by 6am to shower and leave by 7am, return the rental van, shuttle to the airport and get on the plane to take us to Honolulu where we'd wait almost 3 hours for our next flight to SFO. Once arriving to SFO our shuttle bus did not show up. We didn't get home until 11:30pm that night. Everyone was tired, starving and happy to be home.

Here are a few pics:

The Plane Ride Over

Me and Susan - This was what I looked like (lounging) everyday

Paula

Shawna

Paula loved this slide

beach

We had a hard time keeping them out of the hottub. There was a 16 yr old age limit.

Bathtub jets fun

Awe....

Luau

So these are all the Matt pictures:

His sister Monica, boyfriend, Me and Matt

I'm a dork and had a hard time doing the hand sign

Matt and his son Nate (don't they even look like they a bit like Kurt Russell?

This is from internet