Confession

I don't think I've ever actually admitted this on my blog, although most of you surely know. My name is Sarah, and I am a Twihard.

It all started in November of 2008. A friend of mine was having a "Twilight" party; dinner at her house, then to the movie. I decided to go, although I didn't really want to see the movie. I hadn't read the books, and the commercials for the movie gave me the impression that it was not something I would be interested in. But I wanted to go hang out and have fun, so I went to the party for that reason.

I enjoyed the movie, even though I hadn't read the book. I think I may have actually enjoyed it MORE because I hadn't read it, so I didn't see all of the flaws in it. I liked it enough, and was intrigued by the characters enough, that I decided I had better read the books. I devoured them in no time, and loved every minute of it. Of course then I had to see the movie again, and then I saw all that was wrong with the movie (although I still liked it).

That's where the story begins. November of 2009 I went to my first midnight show to see New Moon, and I liked it much better than Twilight.

Last night my sisters Mary and Amy and I went to Eclipse in IMAX. They picked me up and we headed over to the theater to see how long the line was. The lady told us it wasn't very long, so we went to Walmart for snacks, then Rubio's for some quick dinner (and it was quite tasty). From there is was time to just wait in line. We entertained ourselves with playing some Phase 10 for awhile, and then decided to grab some Bahama Bucks. Mary and I ran over and got some while Amy held our place in line. Let me just say, it was YUMMY!

Above: Amy with her ticket, very excited!

Below: Hanging out on the floor of the lobby. There was no way we were standing for two and a half hours.


We were happy to be moving when they opened the theater at 11, and we got pretty decent seats. Not long after we got in the power went out, and I'll admit I was a little worried. It came on soon after, though, so I figured there wouldn't be a problem. In the meantime someone had blown up a beach ball and people were tossing it about, throwing it around the crowd. Some people weren't so amused, and it ended up that a lady right behind us took the ball and put it down by her legs. (I didn't mind, the people playing with the ball were pretty obnoxious). Some girl came to get it from her and just stood there, right in front of her (and behind me) for a couple of minutes. The lady that took the ball didn't even acknowledge her! I was uncomfortable just being near the situation! After a few minutes the girl gave up and went away, and then a different person got up and took the ball out. The whole time there were shouts of "give it back!", and "beach ball, beach ball!" A bunch of people booed when the girl took the ball out, and some cheered. Whew, it was too much tension for my taste!

At midnight we expected the previews to come on, but no luck. After 15 minutes I wend out to ask an incredibly uninformed theater employee what was going on. He didn't know. Apparently when the power went out it messed something up, so they were trying to fix it. At 12:20 the movie finally started, and the potentially angry mob was appeased.

About the movie, I will simply say that I enjoyed it immensely. I thought it was definitely the best so far, and they did a good job with the amount of time they had to work with.

So now you have it; my confession. I like Twilight. I love Twilight. The books are delectable pieces of words, ready for devouring. I will not be ashamed. :)

P.S. I just want you all to know that while I am a fan, I am NOT the fan with the Edward shirt, and the Jacob bag, and all that other paraphernalia. I was one of the normal looking people in line! :)

Not exciting

Well, we are anything but exciting here. Joel was making fun of me for not posting, but I really just don't have much to post about. So I'm betting this post is going to be a lot of random thoughts and events thrown together. (Don't say you weren't warned)

Things in AZ are going well. We are basically settled in to our house, although there still isn't anything hanging on the walls. Hopefully that will be somewhat taken care of tomorrow. It is definitely hot (duh) but I think we are all getting used to it. I have enjoyed having a Costco card, though I've found it to be quite a dangerous thing. It's so easy to get carried away with all of the great deals. Before you know it you wind up at the register spending triple what you planned.

My sister, Adrienne, came to town last week. I didn't see her as much as I get to when she stays with me (obviously), but all us girls were able to get together often and it was always a blast. The highlights, I thought, were lounging around my sister Laura's room listening to some new music, and watching North & South. (If you haven't seen it, watch it. It's based on the book by Elizabeth Gaskell. BBC is awesome.) Anyway... I also enjoyed the game playing at Rachel's house. And my nephew's birthday party. And swimming. Okay, so I enjoyed it all.

Joel started school last week and he's already crazy busy. When he's not at school he's mostly studying. It's most definitely going to be a busy two years for him, but he will certainly learn a lot.

We've enjoyed the two Sundays that we've gone to our new ward. Everyone we've come in contact with has been very friendly and welcoming. It's a huge ward, and I doubt we'll get to know everyone before we move. We look forward to getting to know people, though, and getting involved in the ward.

Adam is doing well; healing well. We are finally (FINALLY!!!) to a point where he doesn't have any more dressings, of any kind, and all of his skin is closed up. He now just wears his compression shorts. We try to keep him moisturized so the scars will be supple, and so he doesn't itch too much. But we can't keep his skin too moist or he breaks out in red spots (yeast infection). It hasn't been too hard to find that balance, though. We are so pleased with his progress.



I think that pretty much covers it. Next week I am looking forward to seeing my fist IMAX movie with a few of my sistas. It should be a great time, and a late night (or should I say early morning?). Good times. Hopefully I'll remember to snap a few pics so I can post about it. ;)

Goodbye, WY

Well, we officially live in Arizona now. It is an extremely bittersweet thing, as everyone close to us knows. We love Wyoming, and we love Laramie.


We actually left WY Saturday morning. My sister, Cindy, drove our pick-up down for us, so we were a three-car caravan. We were able to fit all our our belongings is a large yellow Penske truck, but we did fill it up quite full!


Saying goodbye to friends and family on Saturday morning was by far the hardest part of the whole deal. Even though I knew we needed to get on the road, I wanted to keep postponing our departure because I just didn't want to leave! After many tears and many hugs, we did finally pull out of town.

The trip itself went fairly well with little to no problems. We took two days to come down, staying Saturday night in Bernalillo, NM. We got to our new house Sunday evening around 5 and were welcomed by much family. Thanks to them we got the truck unloaded in no time! We also got beds set up and the large things brought into the house.


Everyday since then has been busy with unpacking and the many things that need to be done when one moves. We've gotten internet set up (obviously), registered the kids for school, bought a washer and dryer, and done approximately one million other things that needed done. We are very close to being done with the actual unpacking. We only have a few random boxes that need to be unpacked. There is still organizing and some moving around of things that needs to be done, so we're still keeping busy.


We are enjoying the new house, although is has a few quirks, as all houses do. It's been nice to have a garage, albeit a small one. We can get both cars in it, but there isn't much room to spare. I like that we are on one level; it's saved a lot of leg work. And of course, it's great to not share walls with anyone.

In Adam news, he is doing well and healing wonderfully, overall. We received his burn garment and he's been wearing it at all times, except for bath time. His right leg still has some ulcerations on it that need to heal, but I think those are coming along slowly but surely. His side looks absolutely amazing. Below is a picture Joel took on his phone this morning.


As you can see, there is only one small spot of scab. The parts that look pink in the picture are actually a little darker, for some reason the picture seems to bleach it out a little. The darker pink by the scab is a thicker scar. He's still sensitive on his side, but not as much as he used to be. We have to rub ointments on him every day, and he fights us a little less than he did before.

His donor sites are also looking wonderful. Those are completely healed and they don't bother him at all. As soon as we can get his right leg healed up he will be good to go!

Jenna and Will are also doing well. They've handled the move very well, so far. Jenna was sad when we left Laramie, but I think part of that was her seeing how sad I was. She came with me when I returned the paperwork to her new school for registration, and she was excited about going there. The playground looks fun, and the school looks nice. I think/hope that she and Will both have a good and positive experience at that school.

Joel starts school on the 14th, although orientation is next week. He is definitely nervous about the whole thing, but I know he'll be great. I think he'll be happy to get back to school and back to learning. I'm excited for him to start this new phase, and I'm so proud of him for all the work he's done to get here!

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So, I need to blog about the wonderful weekend I had, but I just haven't had the time. However, my friend Sarah did blog about it, so I'm going to redirect you to her blog to read a brief telling of our wild and crazy time.

Click Here!!!!

Getting back to "normal"

Ha ha, isn't that a funny title of mine? I guess it's true when you realize that "normal" is a relative term. The reason I used that word is because Adam is now allowed to resume "normal" activity. We are happy about that, though not as happy as he is, I'm sure.

In Denver yesterday we stuck to our normal routine. The nurse took all of the dressings off, then brought the doctor in to look at things. Adam has another yeast infection, so we will stop the lotion massage and start a prescription of Diflucan again. The donor site on his left leg was still very red and looked "yeasty", as the nurse put it. The graft site on his right leg is looking very good, and the thick dressings are a thing of the past.

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

You can see the graft site pretty well in this one. Those dark edges throughout are the edges of the donor skin.

The Child life Specialist (a person who comes in with toys, and their job is to distract kids from what the doctors and nurses are doing) brought a game with her yesterday, and Adam thought it was pretty darn cool.

His legs now have pretty simple dressings on: just a large nonstick pad smeared with nystatin (an anti-fungal ointment), and a thin tube of fabric pulled up over his thighs like nylons. He has a bandage on his side to protect it because it's still not healed.

We don't have to go back for two weeks, at which time they will have the compression garment and they will make sure that it fits correctly. Hopefully it will, because we are moving less than a week later.

Jenna and Will

With all of the Adam hoopla going on, Jen and Will have been a little left out of the blog updates. Okay, a lot left out. Fortunately, they haven't been left out of everyday life! Today they decided they wanted to play "ocean", so they put their swimming suits on and did who knows what upstairs. After awhile they decided they needed some Popsicles. I tried to get a couple of pictures, and these were the best I could manage. :)

Jenna and Will have been troopers over the last month. They have been kind and gentle with Adam (mostly). They are both doing well in school and generally having a good time.

About two weeks ago Jenna got to go to Ft. Collins with her grade at school to watch the Disney movie "Oceans", and they got to go to a restaurant. She was very excited about that part! Jenna also did a project with the help of her Dad. She had to pick an ocean animal that they saw in the movie and do a report on it. Jenna picked sharks. Joel narrowed that down to hammerhead sharks, and they spent a lot of time doing research and writing about the shark. I think they both had a good time doing it, and the report turned out great!

Will has also been doing well in school, although it's harder to get much out of him about what he does at school. His favorite specials are P.E. and music, so Wednesdays are a good day for him! (Both those specials are on Wednesday) The other day I took Will to the store with me to do some grocery shopping and he embarrassed me more than once. :) In the produce section he said, very loudly, "Why does that lady have really big eyes?" I didn't know who he was talking about, and I didn't look around to find out! Then at the check out line he said, "That old lady has a LOT of stuff!" He happened to be talking about the woman in front of us in line. Yes she was old, yes she had a lot of stuff, and yes I was mortified.

They have both been their normal, fun, crazy, interesting, exasperating selves. We love them to death!

And so the story continues...

Of course, it was back to Denver today. We finally got to take off Adam's dressings; he still had on the same dressings from surgery. They held up very well, especially considering they were on for eight days. I'm sure it helped that we didn't let him do much of anything this week.

It actually took them quite awhile to get us back into an exam room, so Adam made due in the waiting room by scooting around.

Below is the only picture we have of the actual dressing. I'm not sure how we didn't get any good ones, so this is it. As you can see (kind of) his right leg is totally wrapped up, and his left thigh is covered.


The nurse pulled off the DuoDerm on his side and was checking out the progress...


Next it was time to cut off the dressing on the right leg. As soon as the scissors came out Adam got upset. The boy is going to be permanently traumatized by the sight of scissors.

This leg was wrapped in layer...

after layer...

after layer... (and we didn't get pictures of them all).

There is a mesh layer covering the graft area.

Next it was time to unwrap the right leg. There was a large band-aid type covering over the entire area, and it was very painful to take off; that was probably the worst part.

Waiting to be wrapped up again...

After all of the dressings were off Dr. Moulton came to check things out. He was very pleased by the progress, especially of the donor sites. They are healed (by their definition, which varies greatly from my definition). The graft sites also look good, and our goal is to continue to let them heal undisturbed. They left the mesh covering on and just wrapped over it with the new dressing. In the pictures you might be able to see some of the black skin on the edges: that is donor skin that is overlapping good skin. It will just die and fall off.

They measured him for a compression garment today. It should come in in a couple of weeks, and if it fits properly we will order another one. He will wear the burn garment all of the time, they said 23 out of 24 hours in a day. They suggested that he wear it for about a year. He will continue to be fit with new burn garments as he grows. The compression mostly helps with scarring. By keeping things tight the scars will be flatter to the skin and less noticeable.

They didn't dress his left leg (the donor site), and we will do lotion massages on it four times a day to help with healing and scarring. They did a more normal dressing on his right leg -not so many layers- that goes to his knees. We asked the doctor if we should still limit his activity, and he said yes. He seemed quite surprised that Adam was able to walk with the splint on his leg; I don't think he understands this boy's determination. There is no splint now, but Adam has been fairly compliant with our not letting him walk around. Hopefully he'll be able to last out the next week without getting too cranky.

At our appointment next week they will see how things are doing and hopefully remove the dressings for good. We would then continue with lotion massage over the entire burn. Then we'll need to go back to get the burn garment, and hopefully that will fit well. They know that we are moving at the end of this month, and they've been really great with doing things in a way that will work out for us.

Speaking of moving, have a mentioned how stressful it is? We haven't even gotten into the thick of it, and it's already making my head explode. It could be because we're dealing with moving and all of this drama with Adam at the same time. Maybe one day I'll look back on this time and laugh about how crazy things were, but it is not this day. :)