I Can SEE!!!

Well I did it. I went and had lasik eye surgery this past Thursday. Let me tell you, that is money worth spending! For 20 years I've had bad eyes. My last exam was 20/400, which isn't too bad compared to lots of people but now I'm seeing 20/20 and that was the morning after the surgery. I was very nervous about having the procedure, after all, these are my eyes we're dealing with. I was in and out of the surgery (if you want to call it that) in ten maybe 15 minutes at the most. The longest part was waiting which was about 1 1/2 hours. When they were finally ready for me, I had to put on some booties over my shoes and a net for my hair. When I got in the room, they had me lay down on what looked like a flat dentist's chair minus the arm rests and it swung from side to side. They numbed my eyes with drops, put a patch over my left eye, "propped" open my right eye and swung me to the machine on the left. They told me I'd feel some pressure, which I did, andI think this is where they produced the flap in my cornea. They released the pressure and I'm sure this is where the Dr. opened the flap because I could see him using some kind of tool that reminded me of what the dentist uses to scrape plaque off your teeth. Then I was swung to the right where I was told to look straight ahead at the red dot and be very still. This was the actual laser part which reminded me of a mini sand blaster that went in quick, short bursts for about 15 seconds. They brought me back to center, rinsed my eye out, used some other weird instrument to smooth my cornea flap back down and the process was repeated for the left eye. When my eyes were done, I remember looking at the clock on the wall thinking, wow, I can see the numbers where just a few minutes earlier I could barely tell there was a clock. Of course, it looked like I was seeing things under water but at least it wasn't blurry. They had me go into another room where the dr looked at my eyes, said they looked great, here are your sunglasses, make sure you take your eye drops, and we'll see you back here in the morning, have a nice day. My mom had come with me (there was no way I was going to be driving, I couldn't keep my eyes open) and by the time we had stopped to get dinner and then home, the numbing drops had worn off and my eyes felt like they were on fire. I quickly had something to eat, thank you mom for feeding me, took my Vicodin (I had taken a valium there to calm my nerves) and went to bed. The following is a lovely shot of the beautiful glasses they give you to sleep with so you don't scratch at your eyes while you're asleep. They don't seem to work for me because I caught myself twice last night lifting the goggles up to scratch my eyes. Thank goodness I woke up enough to stop myself. I get to wear them for a whole week though. My eyes were watering so bad my nose was runny and I was so stuffed up. The other picture is the wonderful bruises I got from the suction machine. I know, flattering pictures. Despite the three different types of eye drops I constantly have to take for the next few days and the irritation the first day, I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out. If I had to do it again, I definitely would!

Family Reunion

The last week of February, we drove back to I.F. for the Ward Family reunion. A family reunion in February, you ask??? Because vacation times are based on seniority with Doug's work, we're so lucky to get whatever's left, which ultimately leaves October, November, February, March, and April left for picking our vacation days. So we make the best of it and Doug's sister (who was in charge of the reunion this year) was so kind to accommadate us (and another brother), which we were very greatful. As always, it was wonderful to visit with family, we had a great time and the kids had so much fun with their cousins.


Off to Grandma and Grandpa's...





Where's Aiden?




There he is!




They loved playing in the snow. Below is Shannon, Olivia and their cousin Riley. It was funny watching Liv trying to walk in it.



Even at Grandma's Aiden and Olivia managed to get into mischief. They got into a box of oranges that were left out and stashed their mess behind the curtains.





We were able to go through a session at the new Rexburg temple. Ken (our brother-in-law) was the foreman for the outside crew that worked on the temple and he was able to give every one of the sibling's, and mom & dad, a piece of the granite used in the temple.





The grandkids (minus three) all having a slumber party at aunt Julie's.





Once the kids are down, it's party time for the parents. The first night we stayed up until almost 4am. There were some pretty tired adults the next day but that didn't stop us from staying up the following night. Now I have to tell a funny story. The first night we stayed up, us ladies made a KJ's run. Meaning, we went down to the local gas station and filled up the 44 oz. cups with fountain drinks since it was only 50 cents or so to fill them. There are five of us women with a box (really, we brought a box with us to hold all the drinks in) filled with nine fountain drinks and a few Sobe's and Vitamin waters, plus some goodies. The following night it was the men's turn. When they took the stuff up to the counter, one of my brother-in-laws said something like, "I bet you don't see something like this very often." The woman behind the counter said, "Actually, there was a group that came in last night." His reply, "Yeah, that was us too."



Saturday was game day with everyone. We were going to go sledding after breakfast but it was raining and all week the snow has slowly been melting so it wasn't good weather to play in. Julie had reserved the cultural hall at the church and had games planned for the kids. Below: the kids having a leap frog relay.




One of the other games was to build a snowman using whatever supplies they had available. Everything was piled in the middle of the gym; boxes, sticks, clothing, buttons, balloons, etc. We had two minutes to plan what items we wanted, after the two minutes, one person from each family ran into the center and grabbed whatever they could and brought it back to their team. We then had 10 minutes to build our snowman. Ours is the one on the left. We used chewing gum to hold the eyes and nose on. We won the "most life-like" award. The one on the right belongs to Julie and Ken (Doug's sister). They won the "most anatomically correct" award.