The Colors of Summer

The color and beauty of food never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes I just stand by the table staring at how gorgeous a simple plate of food can be.

And the most beautiful time of year for food seems to be summer when all the bright colors of the rainbow come out in full force. Sometimes dinner appears in just one color: an array of red everywhere, or even a plate of yellow with eggs, corn, summer squash, and cantaloupe.

So bring on the summer food! And don't forget to praise the One who created such bounty and allows us to enjoy it!

May Wedding

At the beginning of May we had a wedding here in town. Jenny, a member of our congregation serving as a nurse deep in the heart of Uganda, married Dr. Jim Knox. Together they will continue to serve at the clinic in Uganda. It was a lovely celebration!

Emily and Mom did the flowers, which were so pretty against the dresses.

Jenny had made cake pops to decorate all the tables. My friend Karen had come from SCotland to take the wedding pictures.

Alaina (of The Cooks Next Door) made the brownie cake which was so beautiful and tasted delicious).

The most amazing thing happened while at the wedding. I actually discovered a relative! Dr. Jim's friends David and Susan Winslow were in attendance. Winslow is my maiden name and as soon as we met we began comparing family trees and sure enough we both are descended from Kenelm Winslow (brother of Edward Winslow) who came to America on the Mayflower II. It was so exciting to meet a new relative and to find so much in common with our shared faith.

The reception tables were very festive.

Lots of beautiful flowers.

I always love when Emily does a wedding and there are flowers everywhere in my kitchen.

I can never take enough pictures.

I love the tiny wax flowers.

And the yellow roses were gorgeous.

Well done, Emily! She's already planning for the next wedding she's doing in July.

Of course we all stand around and watch whenever possible.

And now it's off into another day. Laura is more perky today and I hope her appetite will continue to pick up.

Last Day of School

Let's see, our last day of school was May 13th, a long time ago now. Here are the kids at the end of the 2010-2011 school year:

And, for comparison, here they are on the first day of school back in August.

Although our school year kind of got turned upside down with all of Laura's complications, I am surprised at how well I think the year went in spite of that. We all enjoyed our astronomy science study and the US geography course, which we supplemented with lots of good books. I am thankful God blessed our studies despite the crazy year.

For the last day of school, we ended with a picnic lunch down at the kids' "secret beach." On our way we passed the mallards:

We arrived at "the beach" to discover that the area is now owned by this snake:

He wasn't very easily scared away and kept making his presence known the entire time we were there. Kind of creepy, especially when he acted as though he would come up on shore to scare us away.

It's so beautiful down in the woods, a very relaxing place to be:
Laura had fun watching from the buggy, coated in about 7 layers of bug spray:

Playing with mud is so much fun!

Definitely the best fun ever!

The woods in spring is alive with light:

Little moths were flying around:

And there were lots of wild flowers to gather:

What joy there is in the natural world!

Oh, and we also watched the launching of the last space shuttle.

And now I'm enjoying my break from teaching and beginning to think about the year ahead....

A New Week

I think we are all glad to begin a new week. Thank you all for your prayers for us this weekend. We have much to be thankful for, including the fact that they didn't have to do the major surgery they were considering, only the two minor surgeries. It was a very stressful weekend and it took me several days to physically recover. Thanks to all of you who brought by meals! They were very much appreciated.

Here is Laura after the first surgery, happy to be home, and sporting an orange face from the popsicle she had in recovery.

Here she is pointing to her nose:

A sleepy little girl ready for some rest.....never knowing we had an evening at the ER ahead of us.
Here she is on Sunday, looking much better.

The weather is hot this week and our neighborhood pool is closed after a sad accident last week. I'm thankful for the extra time to be around the house and get a few chores done.

I also need to get into the garden where weeds are trying to take over. Discovered a nice fat toad hopping out of the corner of the garden last night. Michael says he lives there. We are also diligently feeding our silk worms which began hatching about two weeks ago. They are getting bigger every day!

I've uploaded a bunch of photos from events I've been needing to blog about and so hopefully I'll be getting this blog caught up to date!!!

Thanks again for your prayers and thoughts this past weekend!

Home Again

We are home from round three at the hospital. Laura's surgery went well, this morning. The surgeon who did the cyst removal yesterday came in extra early this morning to re-suture the wound for us.

Although we trust the Lord's mercies in such tragedies regardless of whether or not we can see any good in them, we are grateful when he brings blessings in the midst of disappointments. And there was a significant blessing that came out of having to go back to the operating room, today.

When the cyst removal was done yesterday, the surgeons were also supposed to have excised a pair of small pits, one along the edge of each of her two ears. But in the midst of the operation yesterday, focused on dealing with the cyst and its removal, they forgot to close up the two holes in her ears. Those are a minor problem compared to all the other issues we've been dealing with, but the ear holes are an infection risk so should be repaired.

Well, as long as Laura was back on the table under anesthesia, the surgeon was able to complete the excision of those two defects in her ears, as well. So, that was a blessing to get taken care of.

Now we are home, exhausted, and Laura is so happy to be back on familiar turf.

Thank you all so much for your prayers through this weekend. I trust this is truly the last of it, for now!

Michael

Surgery, Take Two

Well, one more update today. We just got home from the hospital ... for the second time, today. Laura was doing so well after we got home this afternoon. But just after dinner, she somehow got through the stair gate at the top of the steps and rolled all the way down, re-opening the stitches in her nose and bleeding everywhere. We are still mystified at how she got through the stair gate, but it happened, and it was scary.

We dashed her down to the Riley Emergency Room, where they ran CT scans and other tests to make sure everything was okay internally. Once that was all clear, they scheduled her for a return to the operating room tomorrow morning to re-do the stitches in her nose. So, we get to do the whole hospital routine all over again tomorrow.

We are scheduled to take her in tomorrow morning for a 7:30am operation (they do have to fully sedate her to do the sutures right). And it will be the same surgeon doing the repair who did the operation today. We can hardly believe this all happened--it all seems so unreal. But there you have it. A strange twist we never could have anticipated.

As you can see from the attached photo (taken just a few minutes ago), Laura is doing great and happy as a lark (so long as there are no doctors nearby). Heather is tucking her into bed now, and the rest of us will also go get a little sleep before an early morning. But I wanted to fill you in, and to invite your continued prayers for tomorrow.

Praise God for his protection.

(Michael)

Home Already!!!

Guess what?! We are home already!!! Surgery went very well and Laura was able to have the minor surgery, and not the major neurosurgery that was a possibility. Thank you so much for your prayer! Here's the update Michael put together:

The surgery went very well. Dr. Havlick was able to follow the tract through the bridge of her nose and remove at least 99 percent of the cyst in there. As they got into the operation, they found that the tract actually stopped and did not continue through the whole length of the cyst. Therefore, even though a small filament of the cyst does seem to go up toward the brain, there is no tract communicating any infectious material to the brain. Therefore, they decided removing the majority of the cyst through the nasal operation would be sufficient, and opening the skull from the top to remove that last tiny bit would be unnecessary. This means they were able to keep the surgery simple, and did not have to go into the far more complicated and risky procedure of full cranial surgery. However, it also means that we will need to have more MRIs done at six month intervals, for awhile, to make sure that remnant of the cyst is not causing any trouble.

Also, another new problem requiring attention was identified. Heather had noticed, months ago, a small area of Laura's scalp where her blood vessels enlarge when she cries. Heather brought this to the attention of other doctors before, but when Dr. Smith saw it (and double-checked the head scans), she identified it as indication of a hole in Laura's skull where some of the blood veins feeding the brain are coming through to the surface. She says the major concern with this kind of situation is that, if Laura were to take a bad fall and cut her scalp at that location, the bleeding would be significant (and potentially serious). So, to make a long story short, it looks like we will be scheduling another surgery for another six months down to road to get that repaired, too.

Thus, the news this morning is at the same time very good (concerning the present surgery), uncertain (concerning the need to monitor the remainder of the cyst), and unfortunate (concerning the need, already, to plan yet another surgery). But all in all, we are encouraged and so grateful for the excellent care God has provided for us here at Riley.