Adventures in the ER

Tuesday night was a rather long one.  As in 7 hours at the emergency room long.  Now, neither Gav nor myself are strangers to hospitals, between nieces and nephews, accidents, sports and a mother who worked in one (on my part)we've seen our fair share.  This was a whole new experience.  Gav went up snowboarding with my brother and sister-in-law.  About half way through the day he took what my Dezaray described as a "massively epic fall" and landed wrong on his arm.  Thinking it was just a deep bruise he boarded down to the first aid station and chilled.  After many hours of the pain not subsiding and not being able to get comfortable I picked him up after work and we drove to the U.  Turns out it wasn't a bruise, or a broken bone.  He had managed to dislocate his elbow.

Should be an easy fix right? Wrong.  Turns out because it had been popped out so long that it took 2 bottles of  propofol(and another drug I can't remember the name of), portable X-ray, 3 nurses, 2 doctors(one an ortho specialist), and two rounds of pulling to pop his arm back in. 

We were finally discharged at 12:30 in the a.m. After more X-rays and a semi solid splint was wrapped around his arm.  The upside to this little adventure...Gav says really funny things when he's drugged.

New Years Catchup

Yes, I am an enormous slacker at this blog, it is an admission freely given.  And now that that is out of the way...

The last few months have been very busy for Gav and I with big changes in work dynamics and holidays and vacations and the list goes on and on.  The holidays, yes all of them (including Halloween) we busy days filled with lots of family adn festivities.  And right in the middle of which we recieved a much welcomed respite to seriously warmer climates.  We both went on our first cruise ever!  It was amazing!  Really, I could go on and on but that is not the purpose of this post, and that's just way to many words to expect someone to read on a blog.

Not long after New Years we had my sister and her family move in with us while their house is being gutted and reformed into something awesome.  I think this has probably been a bigger adjustment for her and her family than for me (but then again I lived with 15 people in London in a flat that really wasn't much bigger than our house) at least when it comes to the no furniture rule she has for her dog.
This rule is not enforced at all.

Wow, the year has gone by fast

This last Sunday Gav and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary (I have to specify wedding because we've actually been together closer to 2 and a half years, and I'm just a bit neurotic :))  We celebrated in pretty typical Amber and Gavin style, not a whole lot of fanfare and spent mostly around family.  We didn't have church because of stake conference, which we probably should've gone to but didn't.  We had a relaxing sleep in and yummy waffles with, still slightly frozen, berries on top.  We then proceeded to be lazy lay-a-bouts before heading off to the dog park up the road.  We met my mom, her dog, and my two youngest nieces there.  Gracie had Gav and I laughing as she swam like a fish, when just a few short months ago she was afraid of the water.  We were all really impressed with Piper and Payton, who not only walked the whole, roughly, 2 miles by themselves but did so with the only round of crying coming after Piper had her feet swept out from under her by the dogs who were tied together.  That night we went to Gavin's parent's house for dinner, taking along the top of our wedding cake.  Yes, it was still good and still entirely too rich lol.  We managed to eat about half of it between us all.  The other half was succinctly dispatched by Gavin's co workers yesterday.

With all of the blessings and changes we've had it's hard to believe that a year has gone by.  We've been asked quite a bit lately if it feels like a year and the answer is, no not really.  For me at least, it is a bit of a paradox because while it doesn't really feel like we've been together that long, it also is as if there has never been a time when we weren't together.  I found my life, and while I am aware that I was in fact alive before we met, and it is better than I anything I could've come up with on my own.

Way to go Ry!

Gav and I are going to be seeing a lot of high school football this coming season.  Or, ok let's be honest, the next four years.  (probably six, Breaden will be at East in two years) we found out on Saturday that my nephew Ryan made the varsity team at Highland, and the coolest part...he's a FRESHMAN!!!! He's worked his tail off for it and it paid off for him.  Big congrats's for him.  The team did publicity some publicity photos and I'll post them as soon as I can figure out how to get them off my iPad because, apparently, you can upload them from just about everywhere except an iPad.

Our dog is apparently trying to poison herself

Having a sick dog is a very scary thing.  I imagine that the feeling of helplessness is pretty akin to having a very sick toddler who can neither tell you whats wrong or if something you've tried to alleviate their illness has helped or made it worse.  We got to experience this twice with Grace the last few weeks.

In the six months we've had her we've become quite accustomed to her puppy chewing habits and for the most part have found ways to curb them, for example, she will chew through power cords but not if they are plugged in, only when they are just left to lay on the floor.  So we have learned to not be lazy and just leave things like cords and the occasional shoe on the ground and to close closet doors at night.  But over the 24th her stomach was bothering her and so she, in typical dog fashion, ate some grass to help her get rid of whatever it was.  Only one problem, Gav had fertilized the lawn just the night before.  Poor puppy was sick and throwing up every morning for the rest of the week.  Luckily, my parents were willing to keep an eye on her the days when it was really bad.  After a little research I felt a bit less worried about her when I found out that it is a very common occurrence and that because she's not super little her system would just work it out.  Then, just a week after getting over that round of food poisoning, it happened again only this time it was truly frightening.  I got home from work this last Thursday to a nice pile of regurgitated food, gross I know, and after cleaning it up we found a mangled and punctured AA battery on the floor.  Even though the oils in common batteries aren't as strong and concentrated as the acids in, say a car battery, they are still very acidic and can cause burns and even ulcers in a dogs mouth throat and stomach, plus they contain a very scary concentration of lead.  She continued to throw up and be extremely lethargic for the next hour and a half.  We inspected her mouth and there didn't seem to be any burns and with a lack of battery acid even on the battery  let alone the floor or her fur, we concluded that it must have been dead, luckily.  As we debated whether a trip to the emergency vet was necessary we managed to get her to drink some milk and pepto to help neutralize whatever acid she did ingest as well as some peanut butter covered bread to help coat her stomach and throat and provide at least a little barrier. 

When she finally stopped throwing up we decided to wait on the vet trip and see if she would bounce back.  Thankfully all it took was the milk and pepto and then an hour or so of a good deep nap, closely monitored by my nervous self, and she obviously felt much better.  By the next morning she was back to her old self, as if the previous night had never happened.

Summer is only lazy when you're a kid

Oh wow, have I been a slacker.  No posts since April, yeah I should be fired.  I shouldn't be too surprised though, considering just how much stuff we've had going on between then and now, and how many posts I started but didn't get a chance to finish.  So here is a quick summer recap.

In April I started working at Zions Bank, originally I was going to be one of their Peak Time, or floating, tellers but the branch I was training at decided they liked me so on my last day of traing they hired me and after 3 weeks of floating I started work there on May 22.  And I have been working full time there ever since.

At the end of June we went with Gavin's family down to Disneyland.  It was a super fun trip!  We went to an Angels game and then  Gav, Maddie and I blew through both DL and CA in a day and then went to Newport to play on the beach the next day.  My extremely white self got stupidly sunburned to the point it was difficult to walk and I still have a solid tan line a month and a half later. 

July was a month of holidays and family.  Gav and I finally made it to Seven Peaks on our passes and I didn't feel quite as guilty about not using them until July as soon as I found out that regular admission is $30.  The Fourth was a day of family and fireworks.  We went to his families neighborhood breakfast and when the boys went to play golf I met my mom and we went to the Sugarhouse street fair, followed by dinner and swimming at Geoff and Dez's.  After that we got cleaned up and went over to my parents.  They live about 5 blocks north east of Sugarhouse park and you can see the fireworks from their back yard.  Poor puppy Grace was a nervous wreck the whole time, a combination of all the loud fireworks and the presence of my brother's dog, Miley, who is the sweetest dog you'd ever meet but is also the only dog Gracie does not like at all.  The 24th Gav had to work so the night before I took the dog and went downtown to camp out at the parade route, something my family has done for at least 20 years.  Afer the parade, per family tradtion, we hit up the water park.  Ususally we go to Cherry Hill but this year with having the Seven Peaks Pass of All Passes, we went there instead.

So that about does it.  Summer has been quite a bit of go go go for us around here but now with the approach of fall maybe, just maybe it will slow down just a little bit.

Hey all,
I just wanted to let y'all know about a really fun event for a good cause.  The teacher is amazing and it is a great way to come and have fun and exercise at the same time.