Surgery

Along with Thankgiving, Nov brought another surgery this year.
Leila had her tonsils taken out. (They also did adenoids and ear tubes.)
She wasn't having any problems with them.
They were just 'in the way' for future surgeries and procedures.
Children's Hospital in Columbus and the Ronald McDonald House are both amazing.
Leila, however, does not do so well with things like this.
She has a very low tolerance for pain.
And when she hurts, there is absolutely NO reasoning with her - at all.
Needles bring on mass hysteria.
We are now 6 days post-surgery, and I'm not seeing much relief yet.
I am NOT looking forward to future procedures!!!

To top it all off - Austin came home with strep throat yesterday!
If she ends up with strep - she'll go back to the hospital, and I'll go to the looney bin.

On a few positive notes, Christmas preparations are coming along.
I think all of my shopping is done.
We put the tree up before going to the hospital.
Austin put up our lights while we were gone.

David celebrated a birthday on Mon. We didn't get to out to eat, so I cooked one of his favorites instead.

Also, earlier in the month, Darrell, Mom and I had a last-minute opportunity to take a 'red-eye' to NYC.
It was up on Fri night, spend the day on Sat, and back on Sat night.
It was tiring trying to fit so much into one day, but we had fun.
We made it onto the 'Today' show - but no one saw us.
We went on a NBC Studio Tour - saw them setting up for Saturday Night Live. Did some 'shopping', but didn't buy anything. And I took him to a comedy show that night. (It was a little bit dirty, but he thought it was funny and enjoyed being a 'grown-up' for the weekend.) Mostly it was just being there and seeing things.

Fall Update

Fall has quickly turned into winter.

Austin is still trying to figure out his life long-term.
He's currently working 2 jobs.
He went back to the gym, and is one of the head gymnastics coaches.
He LOVES that job, and he must have a knack for it, because I've had a lot of the parents tell me how good he is.
They're talking about moving Leila up another level after the 1st of the year. That means she would be in his class. Yeah - we'll see how that goes. (She just doesn't see him as the authority figure the other little girls do.)
He also works at a store called Rural King. It's a little bit of everything type of store. They just recently opened in our area, but he's been there since before they opened - doing all the getting ready stuff too.

Darrell finished cross country, and started swim team.
Our school has never has a swim team before - we don't have a pool.
A new teacher has worked it out with a neighboring community college to have practice at their pool and has agreed to coach.
Darrell was very excited.
Biggest problem is that it's 20-25 minutes away, and practice is 4-5 days a week - at 7:00 in the evening.
We told him that as long as we could work out a carpool, he could do it.
He did, and we carpool with 4 other kids. We only have to drive one day a week, and so far, he's loving it.

Oct brought Halloween and birthdays.

Leila turned 5!

We had cake here and celebrated by going to Camden Park (an amusement park in nearby Huntington) and to the famous Pumpkin House.

2 days later, Darrell turned 16 and got his drivers license!
Not sure I was ready for that, but I must admit - the convenience is sure nice at times.

Halloween was carving pumpkins, Trick-or-Treat and the Block Party.