hawaii?

Here are all our Keens ready for Hawaii! Only now only 2 pair will see the beach in a few weeks! We decided today that we're going to leave Jack in Iowa with our dear friends, the Bolands with Linda and Gary taking a couple days (yet to be determined because of G'pa). Over the weekend we got to thinking about the 10 hours of flying time, time changes, etc. So Jack is going to celebrate Christmas in Iowa and Steve and I will be on the beach! I will miss him like crazy, but after some good conversations with people I've come to realize that he would have more fun here without having to travel. I think the rest of the people on our flight will agree!

FYI...for those of you who don't know that this Hawaii trip is going to be a bittersweet trip for us. My dad and mom had been saving money for years to be able to spend their 25th wedding anniversary in Hawaii on the beach. On December 28th, it would have been my mom and dad's 25th wedding anniversary. My dad invited Nels, Steve and I to go with him to Hawaii to celebrate.

thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I loved every minute of not having to be at school! Gotta love a long weekend. My dad and brother came down to Marshalltown from Minnesota and were suprised how big Jack has gotten. He's for sure more of a toddler now than a baby even though everyone calls him "baby Jack". We went to Iowa City and stayed with Gary and Linda on Thursday night. Linda was kind enough to make us a great meal! Yum! We spent the night so we were able to visit with my granpa 2 times. He is now back at Legacy and the hard part is that hospice is now involved. We cherish every time we get to visit with him. He is so sweet! We also had Christmas with Linda, Gary and my dad and Nels. We got some fun gifts! One of the highlight gifts is that my dad bought Nels, Steve & I a Wii! Nels has his already but we're still on the search for ours. It was SO fun to play. I almost beat Steve at bowling!



Steve and Uncle Nels went with Jack to swim class on Wednesday night. It was fun to watch them all play.

test

Here is a picture I tried to put up last time, this is an example of what Jack loved to do at the hospital when we visited my grandpa! Just like his mom!! Off to the candy and pop.

pictures

Since Steve and Jack stayed home today, Steve was able to up-date our computer with the hospital pictures. Good news today was that my grandpa is now back at Legacy Gardens, all cozy back in his room. Steve took Jack to the doctor today, and Jack is back on the nebulizer...but now since he's older he is suppose to wear this mask that makes him look like he has a fish face. I'll try to get a picture of that. We have to use the nebulizer machine every 4 hours for now. At least the croup is gone and we've moved on to something else? agh...

One of those nights...

I was hoping to download some pictures of our weekend in Iowa City tonight, but we got a new digital camera a week ago or so and I don't think I have it set-up right. I know, big suprise! So much for that idea. I guess I'll try tomorrow when my patient husband is home.

Along the technology line....I dropped the cordless phone into the sink where Steve seems to be growing a spiderman? Don't ask! It was this little spiderman that he got and it's suppose to grow 400% or something? So it seems to be taking over our bathroom sink. So no more cordless phone. I'm trying to dry it out? Who knows if that will work.

I also had good intentions of being able to get some other things done around the house once I put Jack to bed...but after he was all clean and had a snack, brushed his teeth he started coughing so hard he threw up ALL OVER himself and me! It was so nasty. Washing Jack, myself and a load of clothes at 9:00 at night was not my plans. All Jack wanted to do was go to sleep so he's already out cold in his crib. Hopefully with the humidifier on he won't wake up coughing.

So the moral of the story is tonight...no pictures and nothing exciting, except cleaning up puke, and not talking on the phone!

G'pa

My grandpa is in the hospital in Iowa City. He's been there since last Wednesday. He has pnemonia(sp?), a blood infection and who knows what else. He was taken my ambulance from Legacy Garden (Memory care place...aka his "big house") to Mercy Hospital. Linda has been staying with him there making sure he is getting the best possible care. She is too sweet. I do get e-mails that talk about her eating ice cream, nachos, etc. So I do have to say she knows how to do it right! I attached a picture of them. My grandpa has been very entertained with Linda's computer and pictures. Linda is also learning how to take digital pictures and send them over e-mail!

Today my dad shot a dear with my grandpa's gun. My grandpa thought that was so neat he got tears in his eyes (is what I'm told). It's so neat to see that even though his memory is not so with it that there are still things from his past that he remembers. He hunted for a lot of years, with my Uncle Lars so who knows what kind of memories it brought up.

Jack and I are heading over next weekend to visit Susie and Aunt Carol who are coming down from Duluth. We all hope and pray that g'pa will be back in his "big house" by then!

Croup anyone?

It all started with what we thought was some more 1-year molars coming in...boy, were we wrong! On Halloween night we didn't hardly sleep at all and Jack was making this awful noise each time he woke up (which was often) and it was like he couldn't take in a full breath. Lovely, I know. I took Thursday off and I was at school at 6:30 that morning writing lesson plans for the sub, oh the joys of missing a day of school. Jack and I headed to the pediatrician at 9:00, and we didn't have to get checked out for very long when she heard him cough and labeled it Croup. For those of you wondering what you do for that....no medication! :) The things we were told to do was go outside in the middle of the night in the cold air to break the "stridor" or tight breathing. We could also turn on the shower and let it run for 10 minutes and fog up the bathroom. It never quite came to either of those, but it did require Steve and Jack sleeping sitting up on the couch for a few nights. Saylor and I had to hold down the fort upstairs and slept in our bed. It is definitely not any fun to see your kid get so sick and cough, and cough and then start to cry because it hurt so bad and look at you with the look of why did you do this to me? It broke our hearts to see Jack like that. All he wanted to do was sit with us and be carried around the house. He usually NEVER wants to be held or carried. I did manage to take some cute pictures of sick Jack. He wouldn't eat anything so the doctor told us to let him eat whatever he wants....cereal, toddler Cheetos and more cereal! He thought it was more fun to eat right off the table and not his tray, notice how he put his feet on the table.

On Saturday afternoon the youth group came and raked our yard. It was a huge blessing! They thought it was fun to put Jack in the pile of leaves. He had his own rake and was copying what they were doing.

Oh yes, we did make it our trick-or-treating with our friends. We went to a couple houses of people we knew so the moms could eat the candy!