Savannah's Post

 

She deserves a post of her own.  This girl is such a blessing!  She has prayed, loved, encouraged, and supported us all through the past few weeks so well.  I just recently found out that while I was in the hospital with Preston she tried to find things on my to-do list to help with.  When I need help with Preston she is always willing to see what he needs or help me interpret what the heck he is trying to say.  There also haven't been any complaints from her about the lack of yummy dinners.  She continues to push onward doing her best with everything.  So thankful to see her back in the swing of things with the little guy, waiting for him to watch their special shows and hearing the old familiar "do do" name-calling.  It does this mama's heart good!

Recovering . . .

We moved his bed into our room for the time being to make sure I could get him his pain medicine at night if needed.  However, after two days we were down to just Motrin and Tylenol!  PTL!  It wasn't long (like day two of being home) that the gifts started rolling in.  Aunt Susan and Corey sent some cool sketch pads, pencils, and straws.  He was thrilled to open his own Amazon box!

Pawpaw bought him a new Switch game. 

Thankfully, by Wednesday he was feeling well enough to log back into zoom for school.  He LOVED being able to do school from his bed!

The gifts kept coming . . . color-changing stress balls from a former soccer teammate.

Balloons and a gift bag of toys from the TD teacher at school, two other teachers including his all-time favorite, Ms. Langlois, sent him sweet gifts in the mail too.

This balloon seemed pretty appropriate!

A slushie maker cup from the Marions, a blender from Dave's work, and so much more.  One precious boy down the street even gave him $5 of his allowance money.  I'm telling you this kid is LOVED!!!

And finally, we tried a chick fil a milkshake on Thursday!  It went down just fine and is now his all-time favorite thing to drink!  He is recovering just nicely and with each passing day, he is more like his normal self.  He is able to talk A LOT although it is sometimes hard to understand him.  The device in his mouth is now just an inconvenience instead of being "extremely badly uncomfortable".  He misses eating normal food, but we have promised him that we will not have pizza until he can enjoy it with us again. :)  I'm so thankful for the prayers that are still being said and for the resilience this child shows. He takes each day in stride and never complains. 
 

The Bicycle Accident

I was at Harris Teeter on Saturday when I got the call "Mom, Preston is hurt.  Dad wants to know if we should go to urgent care." I had no idea what to expect as I was racing home but just assumed that since Preston was riding bikes with Dave it was just a minor injury and he needed a little TLC from mom.  However, in a matter of minutes, I quickly realized this was quite a bit more serious.  His face hurt really bad, his chin was gashed open and his arm was in considerable pain as well.  Dave took my car to deliver the groceries and Preston and I raced to the local pediatric urgent care.  About three minutes after arrival, we were being seen by the doctor, who was talking to Dave on speakerphone, while I was answering a million questions from the nurses in the room.  The doctor was very calm and just said this was beyond his scope of care.  He had the nurse hand me the address to Levine Children's Hospital uptown and said to go. . . he would take care of sending our paperwork.

3:30pm after arriving at the hospital uptown

We arrived uptown around 3:30 and were quickly checked into the children's ER.  The new few hours were very long and scary.  We went to radiology three times for different scans and then there was LOTS of waiting as different residents and doctors came in.  The most difficult news came around 8pm when we found out from the plastics trauma surgeon on call that he would indeed need surgery because the jaw was broken on both sides.

11:36 pm waiting for a room to be ready on the children's trauma floor

The decision was made to admit Preston and schedule the surgery for early Sunday morning.  Dr. Morgan would perform the jaw surgery and then the ortho surgeon would scrub in to cast his arm, which was also fractured.  It was a LONG wait to finally be admitted to the children's floor, but we were finally "settled" about 1:15am.

Dave came Sunday morning after dropping Savannah at the Marion's house for the day.  This little guy was SO anxious and worried about the surgery, his biggest fear being that he would wake up while they were operating.  

We got a call right before it was time to wheel down to the OR that we had a gift at the reception area.  Dave went down and to find a soccer teammate brought these ballons and a precious card for Preston.  They truly made his day and made the worry about surgery subside for a bit.

Before we knew it, we were waiting in preop for surgery to begin.  The orthopedic specialist came and after consulting several doctors, they determined a cast would not be needed since the ulna was just bent, not completely broken.  As long as we could ensure Preston would be super careful, they were fine with him continuing to wear just the splint that is removable for showering.  Hallelujah!  The nurses in preop were amazing.  They could sense Preston was getting more and more anxious so they started the silly medicine and it wasn't long after that he was off . . . which was tremendously hard to let him go, but the Lord was faithful and returned him to us safely in a matter of hours.  The surgeon came out and said everything went well and that he ended up being able to use super strong elastics instead of wire, which was another blessing.  Preston was back with us by 3 and as promised we were there as he was waking up.  We all agreed staying another night in the hospital was best to make sure he was okay being wired all shut and to get the pain under control.

We were loved so well . . . not only by our friends and family who called, texted, and most importantly prayed for Preston., but also by the amazing team of nurses and doctors at LCH.  Thankfully Preston was discharged around 2pm on Monday and we headed home to get him settled.

 Finally, home sweet home!

Soccer, Snow, & Tubing on Saturday

This weekend's soccer tournament has been a bit of a nightmare . . . as the team manager, the drama started by finding out that the Asheville tournament was actually being played in Hendersonville on Saturday (2 games with 6 hours in the middle) and in Asheville on Sunday (1 game with time TBD).  This news came after I had already booked us and the coach a hotel room in Asheville.  So several calls to hotels and e-mails to the team later and we had rebooked in Hendersonville.  Anyway, we decided that since our first game wasn't until 10:30am we would drive up Saturday morning and enjoy our beds at home one more night.  

As the weekend got closer we realized the weather forecast was less than ideal, but we would make the best of it!  Savannah did some research and found a snow tubing place relatively close to the soccer fields and we made reservations for 2pm on Saturday.  So, after a morning soccer game that we lost 1-0, we headed to Wendy's for a quick lunch and then to Black Bear Tubing.  It was SUPER fun!!!

The place was a bit mom and pop, but man, the snow tubing lanes were SO icy and fast. We enjoyed 2 hours of tubing and some hot chocolate before heading back into town for our promised Bo Berry biscuit treats.   

Only as we were driving back to town, the snow started pouring down.  We checked the weather and realized that the area was under a winter weather advisory and calling for a few inches of snow and ice on top of that overnight.  YUCK! We are all sitting in the car at Bojangles trying to decide what to do.  It wasn't' long before the tournament director called me to say that because of deteriorating weather conditions all night games had been "postponed".  He was calling managers as fast as possible but I tried to find out as much as I could . . they were unsure about Sunday games but would make the call by evening.  

So I called the hotel and found out that they would graciously waive the cancellation fee if we decided to head back home due to the weather.  BUT, we still weren't sure about Sunday games.  Meanwhile, the snow is still accummulating. :) Long story short, they did end up canceling the rest of the tournament and we headed home.  It was a bit crazy trying to notify the coach and team, call back to cancel the hotel, and high tail it out of the mountains.  But, we made it home safely and all before the game would have ended anyway.  We enjoyed dinner at home and sleep in our own beds!  Always an adventure . . . 

Our Sunday Walk

 

Preston is in NC and Savannah is in SC

On Sundays, we always go on a family walk.  Most of the time we make Savannah happy by "walking with a purpose". . . this could be walking to Lowes, Harris Teeter, to drop off something to a neighbor, or a variety of other errands we might need to do.  Sometimes we venture to the greenway but often we just walk around the neighborhood.  There is usually lots of complaining before we start, but never-the-less, we go!  So today I decided we would try a new adventure.  I saw a friend post on Facebook about a suspension bridge where you literally walk from NC to SC on the bridge, so after lunch and both of the kids zoom Sunday school calls, we headed out on a surprise adventure.  It was only a short drive to Waxhaw and then a short walk to the bridge.  We could have spent a lot more time hiking, but we walked our standard 40 minutes and then headed back home.  It was a fun way to get some fresh air, exercise, and something new to see too.

MLK Day at it's BEST!!

 

Today we celebrated MLK day by having the Marions over for the afternoon.  I am SO thankful for the friendship these kids have . . . there are never any fights or arguments . . they can literally play for hours with no parental figure needed. :)  They arrived after lunch and started with a game of Throw Throw Burrito.  Then it was outside to play for the boys (rolling down the hill, riding scooters, tug of war, football, etc) and the girls started their normal kitchen routine (messy goodness in the form of mini cupcakes this time).  I worked on taxes and enjoyed listening to their many conversations.  It was a fantastic day off school!!

Welcome 2021

Today we welcome a New Year, a chance to start fresh and with a renewed mindset.  

2020 was a year like no other, one filled with sadness and loss, but also one that caused us to reflect on the many things we have to be grateful for.  Here are a few of the things I'm choosing JOY over . . .   

Although we said goodbye to two very special women, my grandmother and Aunt Cherry, there is hope in knowing we will see them again.  I cherish the many memories we have with them and know that they are happy, healthy, and healed in Heaven.  So grateful they didn't have to experience COVID in such a weak state.

Yes, the kids have spent almost the entire last year at home doing school online, but they are still learning.  Preston's anxiety is at a low point and he is back to loving school.  Savannah was grateful not to have to dress out (ever) for high school PE.  They have a great team of teachers and have learned to use time wisely at home.  Also, Dave is a rockstar in German.  It's been so neat to see him helping Savannah with the new language.

Shipt has given me the opportunity to meet so many people and build a lot of relationships.  I'm looking for ways to love people better as I deliver their necessities.  In addition, it's been a huge supplemental income, like more than I was making teaching!  I LOVE my job and am learning to balance work with time at home with the family.

Dave's job is still going well.  He is a great boss and continues to be kind, loyal, generous, and honorable in his work.  Not only that he still works all day and comes home to love us well.  We are very thankful the shut down of the world did not affect his job!

Although the gyms were closed for months, one of my favorite aerobic instructors started posting online workouts daily from her garage.  It took some getting used to, but oh my word what a blessing it has been to have these convenient workouts stored to do anytime that is best for my schedule.  It has saved me hours in travel time to the Y and back by doing the workouts at home.

We are grateful our church was capable of providing Facebook feeds of the service each week.  We certainly miss seeing our church family (and the preschoolers we served) each week, but this has been awesome to have church at home.

Lastly, we are so blessed to be happy and healthy.  Although we have had moments that were less than stellar as we learn to be home a lot more, we are also enjoying more time to play games, go for walks, and accomplish a few projects too.  The kids have become better friends and have teamed up to avoid boredom.  

So although we say peace out 2020, we take with us many valuable lessons learned and memories made.  Here's to an incredible 2021 ~ hopefully one filled with joy, health, laughter, special memories, and a release from quarantine.