One For The Road...

As we conclude 2011, I thought I'd get one more post in. Due to my immense lack of energy or brain power, this will probably be a condensed version of the end of the year. We have been home from the hospital for a week now. The first couple of days were rough. I believe the week has gone like we thought it would, a few ups and a few downs. However, all things considered, I think Dave has done remarkably well.

Dave got to go home on Christmas Eve. I didn't think it would make much difference if we were at the hospital or home for Christmas, but it actually did. We had a rather uneventful day, but just NOT being at IMC was a tremendous blessing! We have been behind on a number of things this past month, probably year. So we didn't get hardly any Christmas shopping done. (That's being worked on now.) Thanks to our amazing friends and neighbors, we had a Christmas. It was a good chance to explain a bit to Olivia about the true meaning of Christmas. While I'm not sure it was really a big deal at all to her, I appreciated being able to teach her.

I've been trying to take opportunities to help teach her about different things. She's been a lot of fun. Her personality continues to show more and more. Among other things, she has HUGE smiles and is laughing now. It has been really challenging for me to take care of her and Dave. Last week Mom and Dad Porter were here, which was an enormous help. This weekend has been a bit trying for me.

It seems I will be awake to ring in the new year. Here's to hoping 2012 is a good one!

Where We've Been...

This will be an extremely short entry, but I'll try to catch up soon. The "highlight" being that we have not fallen off the face of the planet, but rather have been camping out here.

It's IMC - Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, UT. Dave had his surgery to remove a tumor in his lungs. Everything with the surgery went fine and Dave did almost too well during his brief ICU stay. It has not however been all rosy. Nevertheless, we are on the home stretch and hopefully leaving tomorrow.

A Bit of BAD News...

After months of Dave coughing up blood and just not feeling well. We've learned he has a tumor in his lung. A biopsy was taken today to see if the tumor is benign or malignant, but we have been told by 2 surgeons that surgery is pretty inevitable. We will meet with the surgeons the next couple of days and determine a plan from there, but we're looking at having this done next week probably. I'll update as we learn more.

Turkey Day 2011

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Cache Valley. We debated whether or not to go because of how young Olivia is, but in the end we decided it would be a good idea. I'm glad we went. Olivia got to meet a bunch of the Porter aunts, uncles, and cousins. We had 6 of the 8 siblings at Mom and Dad's. Of course everyone loved her. :) Here are some pics.Olivia, Kim, Dave, Mom

Porter, and Grandma Barbara (99)A group shotUncle Ben, Aunt Cheryl, Grandpa

Porter, Uncle Bob, and Grandma BarbaraAnother group photo

After lunch with the Porter family, we went to Thanksgiving dinner with Grandma Nelson and Grandpa Pat. It was a much smaller group, but excellent company. Olivia really enjoyed being able to see so many people and Mom and Dad liked letting other people hold her for a while.

Olivia and Grandma NelsonOlivia and Grandpa PatOlivia and Uncle Chuck

It wasn't a total picnic however. This was our first overnight trip with Olivia and it was a trying start. I kept joking that next time we'll start packing 3 days before, but I just might do it. We've done trips with Jack and Sadie, and while we knew it would be harder with a baby, we didn't realize just how much work it is to travel with a child. Once we finally got on the road we made it with only 1 brief stop. It was only a 2 hour trip or so, but that was more than far enough.This just goes to show how tough it was for Baby and DAD. ;0)

We had planned to stay until today or tomorrow, but it didn't work out. Dave has had some health issues, which flared up; so we ended up heading home yesterday. It may have been for the best anyway. We were able to get our tree up today. It turned out really well. Tree picture to be posted at a later date.

What Do You Know?

Or rather, what does Dave know? Apparently a lot. Dave took a couple of tests yesterday, one on Excel and the other on financial principles, etc. The average score for the finance portion is 71%, and the average for Excel is 75%. So how did Dave do? He scored 80% on the finance, which isn't too shabby considering he graduated 6 years ago. He told me he got 100% on accounts payable, 90% on accounting, and 69% (not his best, although surprising lower than I would have thought) on accounts receivable. On the Excel testing, 100%! Congratulations Dave; way to go and I love you bunches!!

1 Month

Happy 1 month birthday Olivia. It has gone by quickly, but not. We have had our share of good days, bad days, challenges and bright spots thus far. All in all, Olivia has been so much fun; she has got a lot of personality. She amazes us all the time with how alert she is and how much she can do. Despite her occasional "down" days, Olivia is a great baby and we love her! We look forward to continuing watching her grow and progress.

Dinner Winner!

I entered an ongoing radio contest a while back, and then my radio broke. So I haven't been able to listen to anything in the car for a while. (Major bummer.) Anyway, I went to check our mail a day or two ago and had an envelope from Now 97.9 in there.It turns out I was a Free Pizza Friday winner. So I got 3 free pizzas from Papa Murphy's Pizza.I guess now we'll have for dinner on a busy night. :0)