Knee Surgery Update
Rob is not off his brace yet, technically. He goes to physical therapy tomorrow and he expects he will be released from having to wear his brace then. This week is week 6, I think, so he's right on schedule. He's not been ahead, but he's not been behind, either. ... It's been interesting to watch his recovery. First, when he just had surgery, he'd try to flex his quads and they just didn't flex at all. Now they both will flex, but his surgery leg is obviously weaker and he can flex his leg and keep it straight, but it shakes a lot. That's been the slow-up with getting the brace off. His quad has to be "firing." In other words, it has to be responding when his mind and/or body says flex. ... He's been not wearing his brace for a week, though, except to school. Places he knows he won't have to walk very far, he doesn't worry about his brace. Rob can now do exciting things like not walk with a noticable limp and walk up and down stairs one foot at a time (you know, like without having to put both feet on each stair). He went to work out with me yesterday, which consisted of walking without his brace on a treadmill for 20 minutes, lifting weights on his upper body, and doing some abducter machine (I don't really know what they're called. It's the machine where you sit down like in a chair and push out with your legs like you're doing a butterfly movement or something). It was fun and it was good to see him able to do a few things.
Trip to Toledo
Rob's little brother, G, is going on a mission next month, so a lot of our recent activities, and activities we'll be doing later, center around that. I took the kids and went up to Toledo to see Grandma and Grandpa D so that the kids could have a chance to see their great grands that they don't get to see too often. It was a fun trip, but I ended up not sleeping like at all up there, which meant I was just really, really tired the whole time. They had me in a tiny, poorly-circulated room so I was too hot, on a bed not my own, with 2 kids, one of whom wakes up at least once during the night still (despite sleeping, actually, pretty well. He wakes up once, normally, but sleeps usually 4 - 6 hours, wakes up, then another 8 hours or so) and on top of that makes lots of baby noises through the night, and plus, the two kids don't know how to sleep in the same room together, so I had to treat going to bed as a 3 part process: get Elijah to sleep, get myself and Miciah ready for bed, then lay Miciah and myself down after Elijah was out, so that then they wouldn't just laugh at each other and keep each other awake. ... Anyways, I was so tired that on the trip back home I had Rob meet me halfway so I wouldn't have to drive the whole thing. Sad, but safe. I came home, took 3 Advil, 1 decongestant, and slept for 2 hours. I felt better after that. :)
Family Spat at Columbus
The next day, Saturday, was exciting. Rob and I (without the kids) went to the Columbus Temple. G got his endowment out and seemed to really be touched by the whole thing, which was great. We went out to eat afterwards and experienced an all-too-common family spat. There's a particular family member that has anger issues. Anyways, I expressed an opinion he didn't like (imagine me with opinions, I'm sure that'll be hard for you guys to envision), and he got really, really angry. Like, sudden rage. He started talking to me meanly, which Rob didn't like, so Rob told him so. Anyways, it ended with Rob covered in Diet Pepsi (Rob was wearing a nice white shirt and his suit pants), and the other guy leaving the room for the last half hour or so of the meal. So all-in-all, the day was interesting. :) Anyways, the family spat didn't ruin our day and Rob and I have since apologized for our part in the matter. Honestly, I can't imagine anyone being offended by my opinions. I hardly have any and they're so mild at that.
We spent Sunday with R & C, and B & R. It was a blast. We talked a lot about the reunion, which was a good thing, cause all the things I had questions about, they hadn't talked about yet. :) So it was good to talk about them.
Soccer on Memorial Day
Monday we went to a ward Memorial Day picnic. This is the reason I've been working out (lightly) for 3 weeks. Because they played soccer. Which is fun. The guy in charge loves soccer (he's from Columbia) and announced to the whole Elders' Quorum that I was excellent at soccer. Yikes. It ended up being a really good thing that I'd been at least making an effort for 3 weeks. Because I have been so sore that I think I would have died had I not been at least doing somthing exercise-wise before the game. Our team won. 10-9. I didn't score any. I played defense. But I did get to shut down a few of the other teams' best players. I won respect for girls (which has apparently been part of my call in life), scared a few of the guys on the other team, and won several nicknames and possibly a reputation that will follow me in this ward for a while. The best person out of the field was a little kid that my Mom and Dad know (at least they know his family). Drew, Missy's kid. I don't know how old he is, but clearly he's "too short" for his age. I sympathized. But only a little, cause he didn't need the height. He was awesome. Impressive ball control, composure, etc. He was just good. I shook his hand afterward. He wasn't impressed. :)
I'm going to keep exercising, though. Cause I've fallen in love with it again. Like L, I feel better about myself, I like being able to see my muscles when I flex them, I like the way my body looks better, and I'm on my way to meeting some of my weight/image goals. And I like all of that. Also, like L, I'm not working out hard core. Jogging, biking, light-ish weights (any weights for me must, by definition, be light). Rob says he's going to keep working out with me over the summer, so I'm excited. I've been debating finding a soccer league to play in. But it's expensive, apparently, to play. One league showed $425. Sheesh. Maybe an indoor league. I've heard they're only $50 - $100. That's a little more manageable.
Fish Tank
We got fish. Someone gave us an 20 gallon (high) aquarium. We're in process of killing all the fish we've introduced. It's a new tank, and we were told, of course, to wait to introduce many fish. Of course we didn't listen. We started with 6 zebra danios (my fish, if the family will recall from old times). These were the hearty species we decided to start with. Then we decided (I'd like to say Rob decided, but it was really an us decision. He didn't want to wait and I didn't think it'd be a problem) to get a few more fish. So 2 days later we got 6 neon tetras (Collin's fish), a Paul Scum-sucker, and a silver bala shark. Well, we lost a zebra first. Don't know why. Rob says he had an open sore a day before he died. Then we started losing neons. 2 were in the filter, but did they get sucked in or did they die and then get sucked in, we don't know. 2 just lost color and then died. Then, just last week, Ick arrived. Our last 2 neons got a little (one only had a spot or two), our bala was covered in it, and Paul was near-covered. Well, we lost little neon first. The 2nd neon is doing good. No Ick now, which makes me wonder if he ever had it (did we just make it up?). Bala shark died today. Rather, I killed him, since he would have died shortly anyway (he was really acting so sad it was unbearable for me to watch). Paul is going to die, I think, very soon. He doesn't look substantially better after 2 days of treatment, he's not eating, and he's acting really really weird. Like he'll stay in one spot for hours. Last night he was floating upside-down at the top of the tank, like he'd forgotten which way was down.
That's our update for now. Next week Rob and I will be going back up to Toledo to do bonding time with G before he leaves on his mission. And a week before everyone arrives for the family reunion we'll go back up for the farewell. It'll all be fun. That's about all that's on our agenda for the next month. Rob's finals are next week, the 6th and the 7th. His 7th is his last final and my birthday, which is a WONDERFUL b-day gift. Being done with classes. Rob will start his P&G rotation, we just found out, on June 13th. We will be paid our increased salary starting August 1st (meaning that will be our first increased paycheck), which is as soon as we could have hoped for. In July he'll start doing stuff for the IGERT, so we're interested to see how all that will go. 3 people out of the 5 in Rob's program that started with him are on academic probation and will probably be gone in a year. Which is a bummer, but makes me feel proud of my husband. I've sometimes thought he wasn't as "bright" as others, but let's face it, to be doing well in Graduate School and get a fellowship, you can't be dumb. So I'm very proud of him.
We love you all and sorry this was so long.
Tamra and family
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