Lights and Snow

With the Christmas season now here we're getting out and about to all of our usual traditions!  Several years ago our little town started doing a parade of lights.  It's at night and all of the floats are decorated with Christmas lights, it's so neat.

In true ME fashion, I was late.  It was a Saturday so Shawn was working, I was at home all day and the parade started at 6pm.  Plenty of time to get ready, right??  Not for this procrastinating ADD girl.  My parents had a plumbing emergency so I flew by my parent's house to pick up my mom and then went as fast as we could to get to the parade and meet Natalie and her boys!  I was so afraid I'd end up missing the entire thing.  Little did I know they had over 70 entries!  That's a huge parade, especially for our little town.  It was so nice to see this Christmas tradition take off so well and have so many people getting involved.  I watched the parade for 45 minutes even with being 15 minutes late, woo!!  It was FA-REEEZING cold and was actually starting to snow.  Claire loved all of the lights and just stared mesmerized at most of it.  Toward the end of the parade she started pointing and jabbering like usual.  Ethan was so excited to realize that candy is thrown at parade's.  All of our coat pockets were filled to the brim with candy.  Eric was happy when he finally got a sucker. :)

 

After the parade, Claire and I met Daddy for dinner.  When we came out the snow had picked up enough that the ground and cars were white!!  We were so excited and Claire loved it, she kept pointing at the snow and laughing.  I love this time of year!!  Well, until New Year's, then I want summer!!

A Hike

It's getting much colder around these parts.  The leaves are finishing up their color changes and many of them have already fallen.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up though!  Before it got too cold we went on a afternoon hike through the Skyline Drive yesterday.  Everything was still so beautiful.  This was Claire's very fist hike and she got to hitch a ride on Daddy's back the whole way. :)  Somehow between trying to keep up with a mostly male hiking group and replacing Claire's hat for the umpteenth time I actually got a few pictures.  As another season is coming to a close I get reminded again of just how fast time goes.

Claire patted Daddy on the back and gibbered to him most of the way.

 The sun was gorgeous peeking through the trees!

 Our backyard view from Central VA ;)

 

 And last but not least, my FAVORITE picture of the day!!  They are such buddies. :)

Lunch with Colin

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween!  Check out the newest puppy in the Crawford house!

Fall Fun!

I'm really enjoying this fall season!  We've gone to a festival or done something fun every weekend.  The leaves are at their peak colors and the state of Virginia is at it's prettiest! 

Beth and kids are in for a visit from Japan so we've been trying to soak up every free minute they get to do fun stuff.  We went to the Harvest festival at Graves Mt. Lodge and carved pumpkins at Grandma's.  Carving pumpkins there has been a tradition forever.  Her big spoons always work best when cleaning out pumpkin guts!!  Topped off with a big bowl of Beth's chili, that makes some extreme fall fun. :)

Stone

Ever gone to the doctor and had them respond "Hmmm, I really don't know what is going on!"  I seem to be getting that alot and it is NOT a good feeling.

Back in June, literally while I was on my honeymoon, I started have pains/complications that were typical of a UTI.  At least that's what WebMD.com said!  I've never actually had one but that's what everyone else said it sounded like too. 

When we got back home I called my PCP and had him call-in a anti-biotic to fight off the infection.  After the 5 day dose was over I didn't feel any different, it was actually getting worse.  So I called the doctor back and he called in a stronger anti-biotic that lasted 7 days.  Once again I took the entire dose and if anything felt worse, certainly not better.  That time I went in to the office and they ran lab work.  Guess what?? No infection at all!  He referred me to my GYN to have a full work up.  That actually irritated me because all of my symptoms were urinary and I felt like the second the lab tests showed no infection I was kinda written off.  But I went in for the work up since I was due anyway.  The same thing came back, no infection.  She wanted to schedule an US to check things out, their next available was 6 weeks later.  6 WEEKS!!!  I was in pain right then!  Not to mention I was having to take off over and over again going to doctors. 

So I had finally had it and just decided to go to the ER that next Saturday.  I was in pain and it was a one stop shop instead of different specialists over and over.  My mom went with me to watch Claire and we started the all day event that is going to any ER.  There they did the SAME lab work I'd had at both of my doctors offices.  Guess what??  Same results, no infection.  They wanted to just discharge me home and schedule a visit with a Urologist.  No way, I was there for an answer.  My mom and I both said NO very quickly and I had to pretty much demand a CT scan.  I had been researching lodged kidney stones which also matched my symptoms and a CT would show that.  The doctor very reluctantly ordered the CT.  After waiting hours on those results he came in to let me know that I was indeed right to a degree.  I had a Bladder Stone, not a kidney stone but it was a big one.  This is the actual image of my bladder:

The big grey circle is my bladder and then the white circle is the stone!!  As far as stones go, that is huge!!  THEN everyone was taking my pain seriously!!

I scheduled a visit with a Urologist and since I work in the hospital I got in in less than 5 days.  That doctor was very stumped on how I got the actual stone so he referred me to the stone specialist in the department.  After meeting with him he told me that woman do not get bladder stones, only men and malnurished children in Asia.  After going through my medical history and reviewing the CT he told me that when I was being stitched back up from my c-section the doctor mistakenly put a stitch into my bladder and the stone formed around that since it was a foreign object.  GREAT!!!  For those of you who know me it was yet another complication from pregnancy and I hadn't been pregnant in a year!  Ugh.

Yesterday I went in, was put to sleep and they blasted that sucker with a laser!!  After flushing the fragments out I was sent home to recover.  Even though I'm in pain from the actual procedure I feel so much better with that stone out.  It was constantly bothering me and I never want to experience that again!  The doctor who does my next c-section will be avoiding my bladder at all costs!!!

The Camera

I finally did it.

I purchased my very first DSLR.

The Canon T2i.

And I am head over heels in love.  See why:

One.

Our baby girl is one year old!  I just can't believe it.  All of my life I hear every parent talk about how fast time flies by but you really can't grasp HOW fast until you go through it yourself!  This has been the best year of our lives by far.  Thank-you little miss for being the light of of lives!

Mommy made her a special cake!

Daddy blew out her candle and everyone sang.

She wasn't a big fan of the icing on her hands so after trying to eat like a dog I held it up for her.

Cake face!!

 

Fall

It is FINALLY cooling off a little here in Virginia.  The leaves are starting to change colors and you can just smell fall in the air.  I love it!!

 

These nice days make it extra hard to be stuck in an office for the majority of daylight hours and make me miss my baby girl even more!  Today Claire, Grandma and Eric went to Gran's house for a visit.  Gran's house is beyond beautiful every fall.  Grandma just emailed me this picture, too precious for words!!  I could just eat her up!

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF FALL, y'all!!!

Blackberry Pictures

Reunions and Moutains

This past weekend was Labor Day weekend.  So, in other words, a 3 day weekend!! Having that one extra day off can make such a difference.  Unfortunately, Shawn did not have an extra day off. :(  He still had to work all day Saturday and Monday.

The weather was beyond beautiful all 3 days.  We were able to cut the a/c off and open all the windows in the house.  It was so nice to air out from the horrendous heat and humidity we've had.

On Sunday we all went to the Lam family reunion.  It was so nice to see some of the older members of my family.  I have to admit that whenever I hug one of Grandpa's brothers I still close my eyes and pretend it's really him giving the hug.  I'm sure he was there with us that day as I feel he is most of the time.  They all hug and smell very similar.  That deep down, sawdust mixed with gas and sweat (and who knows what else!) smell was intoxicating to me as a child.  It was the smell of my Grandpa, a man who seemed invincible to all of us.  Bigger than life itself.  I mean, how many people can pull this off??  They just don't make 'em like this anymore.

On Monday a small group of us went up on the Skyline Drive to celebrate Gran's upcoming birthday this week.  I love to go up there, it's always so beautiful. On this particular trip everything was down right breathtaking!  Everything was so clear with hardly a cloud in the sky so we could see for miles.  After eating lunch I sat under a big tree with everyone while holding a sleeping Claire.  THAT is the definition of a relaxing afternoon.  I could have gone to sleep at any point.  Small apples were growing all over the place and we even saw a buck!  Since it was a holiday weekend there were more people than usual so I think that scared away most of the animals.  Claire was brave enough to venture out and walk in the grass!  She hates the way it feels but eventually got over it.  I can't wait to go back once the leaves start changing colors!