Overview of the Past Weeks

OK, here's the brief update on other things going on. Then in the next day or so, I'll get some pictures up.

Thursday the 18th, Brennan woke up not feeling well. So he stayed home from school that day. During the night he woke up, and then threw up. So he didn't go to school the next day, either. (Well, actually, he went with me to see the Winter Sing, but he didn't go to class. But after the very beginning of the day he didn't have a fever and seemed to feel fine, so we figured he was getting better.

Saturday morning his stomach started hurting him (well, it had hurt him during the past two days at various points, but this was a lot worse). After he spent a couple of hours not really moving and crying, we took him to an urgent care clinic. After a couple of hour wait (by which time he was feeling much better), the doctor finally got to him. They did a blood test, a urine test and an x-ray. The tests showed nothing, but the X-ray showed a lot of gas in his intestines. The doctor recommended we take him to the ER to get a CAT scan, because he couldn't explain the cause of all the gas.

After thinking it over, we decided to do this. Of course, this involved more waiting. By the time the doctor could see Brennan, it was going to be at least 8 before he was done. So Jessie went to stay with some friends. After a long trial with the iodine drink, only partially helped by getting to watch BYU lose to Arizona, he got his CAT scan. That didn't really show anything, either. The doctor said to go home, and if he got worse again take him to Texas Children's, where they would be better able to help.

By the next morning Brennan was quite a bit better, and hasn't really had any problems since then. We're really hoping to break this new tradition of someone going to the ER and getting a CAT scan the week before Christmas this year...

In other fun news, I spent a lovely time Christmas Eve morning getting yet another tire replaced, this time for the Taurus (that's six tires and two new batteries for 2008). The rest of Christmas Eve was much more enjoyable. Especially when we decided to go to CiCi's (a pizza all-you-can-eat buffet) for lunch. It turns out they were closing a little after we got there, and they let everyone still there take as much of the pizza as desired home (obviously, this is not normally the case at an all-you-can-eat buffet).

Santa brought Brennan an Imaginext set and a Lego chess set. He brought Jessie a Hannah Montana stage (with lights and music) and a new CD player (which can be plugged into the stage). The CD player was almost as much for me as for Jessie, because her old CD player had to be coaxed into playing anything without skipping, and I'm more than happy to not need to spend 30 - 40 minutes a night trying to get it to play whatever CD she wanted to play.

Among many other great gifts, Dee and I gave Jessie and Brennan a Wii, as well as a Wii Fit. Here's a picture of their reaction:

We've all got a lot of enjoyment out of it, and Dee and I have been happy with the amount of it that has been able to be shared by all of us.

Sunday after church we packed everything up (including the Wii) and headed for Louisiana. We spent the night in Beth's house in Lafayette, even though they were gone. Monday we continued on our way to Slidell. We stayed there until Saturday, when we went back to Lafayette and then on home on Sunday.

I could never have the time to write about all the fun activities we had in Louisiana, but we very much enjoyed the time with the mini family reunion, especially the fireworks on New Year's Eve. As I said, I'll put up a bunch of pictures later.

This week it's been back to school and work.