January

I hope that I am not setting precedence for the rest of the year.  I didn’t blog at all in January.  Thus, here is one post to summarize it all and I hope that in the future, I will do better!  

January has been a little upside-down in our house.  The month started off with Leonard finally having surgery.  I say finally, because he had been waiting to have a hernia repair since about October.  It had actually been bothering him since August, but we kept putting it off and then when we realized it was going to have to be fixed, we decided to wait until the new year so we could start with a fresh deductible and plan for it with our flexible spending account.   If you don’t understand what any of that last sentence meant, don’t worry – it doesn’t really matter

Anyway,  he had surgery on January 9.

 

All ready to go.  He was quite nervous but everything went really well.  He was pretty chatty coming off anesthesia and was a bit entertaining.  For his sake, I’ll spare you the details, BUT the best part is he doesn’t remember any of it!  Funny for me to know a few things about him that he doesn’t know himself! 

The doctor said everything went well.  He would have to rest for a couple weeks, then he could return to work with a 15lb weight restriction.  WELL, the hospital didn’t like that.  Their policy says he must be 100% before returning to work.  That meant that he has had to be off for 6 weeks.  In fact, he can’t go back to work until February 21.  Luckily for us, he had enough sick and vacation time saved up that he could get paid while he took the time off to recover.  Because he HAD to use his vacation time, we have decided to put it to good use and plan a trip to HAWAII!!  We leave on February 11 (Monday!) and we are leaving the kids with Grandma and Grandpa FitzSimmons for 10 days!  We have never been to Hawaii, and we are really excited to go.  We also have not been on a trip by ourselves since I was pregnant with Kaydra.  We have been married 15 years and Kaydra is turning 12 this summer, so we think it’s about time! 

We are visiting the island of Kauai.  We have a hotel reservation and a couple of tours set up but that’s it.  Mostly we hope to lay on the beach and soak up some Vitamin D!   I am so grateful to my in-laws who didn’t hesitate when Leonard asked if they would watch our kids.  I hope they are blessed for their efforts with healthy kids and a rip-roarin’ good time!  I just keep thinking, “If Timberlyn sleeps, everything will be just fine!”  If you have any extra prayers, feel free to send them their way this week!

Because Leonard has been forced to stay home this past month, I picked up a few extra shifts so we could pay for our extra vacation!  We are so blessed with the ability to do this.  I actually worked 90 hours this past two weeks!  I haven’t worked that much since we lived in Twin Falls.  It was kinda fun to be back to work full time for a few weeks.  Leonard thinks we should keep up the trend and maybe switch off every couple of years – Two years of him full-time and then two years of me full-time.  I just laughed at him.  I quite enjoy my part-time status, thank you very much!! Anyway, that is why we have been a bit upside-down around here.  It did give him a chance to work on the basement a little more.  Kaydra’s room is getting so close to being done!  She has been so patient – I know it’s taking forever! 

Things will get back to normal pretty soon, however, and when we get back, I will have lots of pictures from Hawaii!  I’ll end this post with a scene that has become very familiar this past month.  Sometimes when I come home in the morning (after working all night) as the sun rises, the beauty that surrounds us takes my breath away.  This was one of those mornings – and realize that this picture isn’t even close to how it really was that morning.  We are so blessed.!