A New Year

Well, I told everyone in my earlier posts that I am terrible at this blogging thing. It's not that I don't communicate well. I do, just not on here. Sorry for those of you that look for updated info, especially regarding my dad, Louie's health. Sign up for facebook and you can talk with me daily :)

We had Pola (Amy), our exchange student from last year, home from the University of Pittsburgh for 3 weeks at Christmas. Her sister Ye-Eun (Sarah) and Pu-Reum (Rachel) joined us a week later. They live with a family in Kalamazoo for this school year. Dave had lots of estrogen to deal with over the holidays! When Courtney or Kelsey would have friends over, there were times we had 7 women & Dave at the dinner table!

Courtney was in 3 different dances with the Grand Valley Dance Troupe. They delivered a very enjoyable recital to benefit Toys for Tots in December. She was part of the seaonal help at Aeropostale at Rivertown Crossings, so she snagged some nice discounts for her Christmas shopping. Courtney and Kelsey have both started new semesters at school. Courtney has a busy semester w/2 nursing classes, Organic Chemistry & Biology. Yet, she still finds time to help with Club 56 at church on Wednesday night and play the violin in the contemporary praise band on Sunday morning a couple times a month. Lets not forget Swing Dancing and clubbing with her friends! Kelsey is enjoying being on the Calvin Christian Poms squad. She snagged a couple of friends and finally painted her room. She leads a very busy social life also. They are both doing well in their classes.

My dad has had a rough year with more procedures than most would endure. Despite complications in early December, the medical staff decided to keep his surgery scheduled for January 20, 2009. He started hemo-dialysis 3 times a week in mid December. On January 20, they removed his bladder, remaining kidney & ureter. They hoped to perform some of it lapaoroscopicly, but due to scar tissue had a full 9 1/2 hours of surgery. He is still at Butterworth Spectrum. He was not improving as quickly as they would like so they had discussed a nursing home for a couple of weeks to allow for rehabilitation therapy. You can imagine he and mom were NOT happy with that option. They are hoping to release him today or tomorrow. He has made big improvements so he will be able to go home. His body needs to adjust to missing organs and displaced muscle groups. He toughs it out and doesn't like pushing his pain meds button. Dad will continue his dialysis treatments in Ionia, with some out-patient therapy.

I managed to capture bronchitis a couple of weeks ago and spent almost a full week on the couch...blah. I slept 18-20 hours every day! Since both girls have conditions with asthma, bronchitis is not a welcome thing around our house. My friend Sandy said it sounded like I had pneumonia and I better go to the doctor. The doc gave me Z-pack which made me feel worse before better. I took Kelsey in also since she was already showing similar symptons. They said she had a head cold and could go on her weekend retreat with church. We should have kept her home, because she has now missed 3 days of school. Her dance team is dancing tonight, but she won't be joining them. The hardest part of being sick was that I was not able to visit dad in the hospital during the crucial first few days. Mom spends all day with him and I usually spend the night with him. I have been to visit him for a couple of hours the last 2 nights but have guarded my contact with him because I don't want him to contact any lingering germs.

Dave is keeping busy with work, but not bursting the rafters. Its a good thing that lots of equipment requires hydraulics to function. He is ever happy to be inside and not worrying about closing in a construction site due to freezing temps. He likes to rib those few friends that still own masonry companies that it is a balmy 60º in the shop! He is still waiting on some proposals for the aggragate company. Its green material and that is what the government wants everybody to use. The economy has to improve before we will see company's ready to implement 'new' green improvements :)

It is snowing here but nothing like the snow/ice storm everyone is experiencing south of us. Dave's parents held off leaving for Florida until today. I think they will still see some interesting travel conditions!