Writer's Conference for Our Little Writer

Chloe loves to write... write silly stories, write truthful stories with silly details... just write in a journal, write, write, write.... anyhow, Chloe got invited to our area's Young Writer's Conference which took place at the Port Angeles Community College (beautiful campus above the city with an amazing veiw of the Strait) last week!! It was fun and only 3 kids from her class were invited to go! Very special!

We started off with a group session with the author Ron Hirschi (come to find out, he's a local and went to one of our district's elementary schools). You should check out his site- http://www.ronhirschi.com/index.html. Anyhow, he writes creative/non-fiction combo books and the kids all got to do the same. They were to write about a pet (preferably a dog) in their lives, their stories folded out (like his), had tabs (like his) and then they were going to add their stories (if they chose, and Chloe did choose to send hers away) to a gigantic fold out storyboard titled "Bark Orama" which was a weiner dog head and tail and the middle was this scene, and this would be sent to President Barack Obama! The scene on the story is a colorful depiction of the Olympic Mts., Sequim Bay, the Strait of Jaun de Fuca, etc... so very "local" story with "local" kid stories about their pets. Very cute! Anyway, Chloe's story was about Kacey of course (although you'll notice Kacey is brown, its hard to color white on white paper I was told)!


Then after that session we went to our sharing session with our small group (we had 1/2 kids from other schools, and the other half were kids we knew from our school). Her Story is titled "Backing with Daddy" and its all about her first backpacking trip she took this last fall with Kent, her, her best little friend across the street- Molly and Molly's dad Mike Hickam. Its a cute story! Sorry the video is turned sideways... but its still cute to listen to at least part of it.

After that we had lunch, playtime and then onto our final group sessino with author George Shannon http://www.georgeshannon.org/ and he was hilarious for these kids to listen to. He talked all about the formation of a story, but he definitely used "kid" language... they were intrigued on how its ok to change your story halfway through, or to toss it and start over, or to come back to it months later and pick it up again. Once again, he is totally local for us, he lives on Bainbridge! Once again, the video is sideways, but you can at least hear part of his presentation...

It was a long day- we had to leave the house at 7 a.m., I got a speeding ticket on the way up, then we were there all day, and headed straight to Bainbridge for Chloe's knitting... we didn't get home until nearly 6:30! LONG DAY- but good day- and Chloe felt SO special!

Chloe is 8!

Well this post is a little late.. but our baby girl is officially 8 years old. On her 8th birthday, she went back to school for the first day in over 2 weeks, she opened more presents, she got to go out to one of our local favorite restaurants (Baratta).... it was a GREAT day for her

Check out little brother- "Kung-fused Panda"... very funny!

Livin' in the NW

Well living in the NW has its ups and downs... many think its the rain- but we don't mind the rain (its what keeps everything so green)... I think its more likely the unpredictable weather we've had this winter that irritates ME!!!! We had nearly 2 1/2 inches of snow- coming down in gigantic snowflakes- I mean GINORMOUS! It snowed for hours this morning- from before we woke up around 7:30 a.m. until about 1:00 today... now here we are a little after 2:30 and can you beleive the sun is out, theree is blue sky and 99% of the snow is gone? Here are the pics to prove it!

SNOW.... in the morning


NO Snow in the afternoon...

What's up???

Lovin Siblings

Don't you just love the moments when your kids just love each other and you don't force it! I meant to post this last week... Chloe was set up in the living room on the couch and she was reading... Blake came and snuggled up (though it looked uncomfortable, he was happy to be close to his sis).

Just a few more pics of our week home after surgery- snuggling with daddy, wheelchair ride to school, and then the last picture is of Chloe with her new hobby- KNITTING! We signed her up for a kids knitting class with Ms. B at Churchmouse on BI. She's making a headband in bright orange. (http://www.churchmouseyarns.com/)

We had Chloe's post-op appt. on Friday the 13th- thankfull Chloe and I had a great day! We went to U.Village- did a lot of shopping and of course we fit in her appt. where they did a new X-ray and all looks good! They told her to only use the wheelchair for long distances and otherwise to start weight bearing on her leg and she should be walking without the walker at all within the next 1-2 weeks! After our 2+ hour appt. we went back to U.Village to have dinner (I've decided Chloe will eat ANYTHING as long as she's being taken out to dinner) and she decided to start walking by pushing her walker out too far, and walking to it... miraculously the more we shopped, the more she walked! It was so great to see her so excited to be able to start that!!

Some people have been asking if this will come back... the answer is that we hope not, but because of her age it could "maybe". We will follow up with an x-ray in 3 months and then again every year after until she stops growing. The incision site looked really good to them, and the butterfly stitches should start to fall off in about a week. We have a lot of Physical Therapy ahead of us, but thankfully Chloe loves Angie (a long time friend- http://www.davincipt.com/) and even though she doesn't like to do the exercises, we've been forcing it! We want this girl moving (and she does too... its just hard to understand the "no pain, no gain" theory when you're 8).

We're home and settled in!

After Chloe took a quick trip to the Inpatient Playroom (cool place if you ever have to be there- make the trip to the playroom- Chloe beaded 2 bracelets, made a decorated goody bag and all in about 30 minutes) she got a bit dizzy and sick to her tummy, so we ended up back in her room for a few more hours... then we had PT (they showed her how to use the walker and helped her figure out how to get up and down stairs by herself). The Physical Therapy (PT) was very empowering for Chloe. I think a lot of her fear in going home a day sooner than expected was in not thinking she'd be able to do anything by herself (for our very independent little girl that would be devastating). Anyhow, after PT, we started on the discharge process and we ended up leaving about 3:00. THANK GOD for vans with collapsible and movable seats, I don't know how else we would have fit everything- we should have taken a picture of the trunk with the wheelchair, the walker, the bags, the balloons (gigantic mylars), wow there was a ton of stuff! Then we had to figure out how to get her situated in the seat- it was a feat of pillows- love body pillows they come in so handy sometimes!

Anyhow, we made it home on the 4:40 ferry (after just missing the 3:45 by about 3 minutes). With our "medical pass" from the hospital we were able to get parked by the handicap bathroom on the car deck of the ferry because sure enough as soon as we got on the ferry our little missy had to go to the potty! We had a pretty uneventful trip home, and then on our arrival Lizzy, Maddy, Blake, and Liam had made us a banner and had the house all clean and ready for us to arrive! What a delight it was to come home to a clean home and to know that Blake and Maddy were in great hands while we were gone. Lizzy is the best (she's been a good friend since preschool)- and she's always been one of those golden friends!!

Chloe got settled into bed shortly after we had our pizza dinner from Mad Moose Pizza- thank you Shannon- loved it! She ended up sleeping ALL NIGHT LONG soundly. We even found a use for our old baby monitor- I never thought I'd need it after Blake, but I'm sure glad I held onto it. I had to wake up every 4 hours to give Chloe her pain meds (to stay on top of the pain), but everyone else seemed to sleep perfectly soundly. Even Chloe who immediately after I'd give her the medication would tell me to go away and would fall instantly asleep!

We've had a great day today- she's got lots of color in her face, she's been alert all day, she's been doing crafts (her favorite is this mosaic foam craft thing that is sort of like a color by number craft). She's listened to a bunch of music- and hasn't been interested in t.v. until this evening when she requested to watch Mama Mia! She's doing STELLAR with the walker too- as long as she has someone to help her get up and down from the couch, she is able to get to and from the potty all by herself! Its been amazing to witness how fast she's gotten her mind around being capable and then sort of enjoying the fact that she is!

We are headed off to bed now- thank you to everyone who has dropped by today to say hello. Chloe is still missing her friends, so feel free to holler and drop by this weekend or Monday if you like. We're hoping to get her to school on Tuesay- once she is completely confident on moving around by herself and in time for her Wednesday 8th birthday!!

Have a great weekend and please continue to pray and send supportive thoughts for Melissa, Maddy, and Chris- Chris is due to come home on Tuesday, but they do have a long road of hard work ahead of everyone! Thank you to everyone that has sent support and love their way- it has really meant A LOT!

We're coming home EARLY!

Chloe has done so well- she is going potty, she is eating up a storm (which I guess anyone would want to do after practically being starved for 16 hours yesterday), she is drinking, she has not once experienced nausea, she is tolerating most of the medications just fine (only having an allergic skin reaction to the oxicodone- but that is normal and the benadryl is tackling it), she has yet to experience pain over a 4 (on a scale of 1-10)... and the really good news is that they think she did so well here yesterday and last night that she'll do even better at home in her own surroundings with familiar things around her. The only problem is that Chloe is scared to go home! She doesn't think she'll be able to do anything on her own, and because we were told from the beginning that we'd be here longer, she's afraid she's being kicked out instead of being helped out! We're working on her!

We did find out this morning during the early rounds that when they did the surgery,they originally thought they'd have to take a part of her femur with the exostosis. That would have created the need for the non-weight bearing and it would also have been a reason for a TON more added pain (coming from her bone, not the incision). So, although she'll have pain from the incision site, she'll be able to put full weight on it when she feels ready, and we're looking at a lot less recovery time at home and way less time in a wheelchair, crutches, etc! This is exciting news for all of us (however, once again, Chloe is scared it is all going to hurt, so we will still be coming home with the walker, crutches, and the wheelchair for her security).

Wish us luck battling her case of the scared whinies! She's been a really brave, adorable, sweet little girl- she's been a star! But we know that the transition to home, no nurses, and just mommy and daddy will be a struggle. Pray for peace and patience for us all.

I know we had some friends and family that were hoping to visit Chloe in the hospital today, however since that has changed, we'd like to not have visitors at home until tomorrow (Friday). I know today is going to be tiring, getting packed up, out of here, over to the house, settled, meds filled, all of that, so a day of just us at home will be needed I'm sure. If you want to drop anything off for her though, feel free to drop by anything today to the house, my friend Lizzy will be there before we get home.

Have a great weekend!

We're settled in

Chloe has settled into her room. She is starting to feel pain, but we're managing it with meds of course. We've got a poster up, a big horse balloon up, some cards, and she is surrounded with all her "special" things. Anyhow, we've had some visitors tonight as well- she was tired, but didn't want them to leave (in fact tears came shortly after everyone left because she was sad to have visitors go). A big thank you is going out to everyone who came by- Chloe was super thrilled to see you ALL! (sorry for the goofy pics, but we wanted all our younger visitors to know they were appreciated!)

We've gotten our wheelchair,now we're waiting on the walker and crutches. Chloe's been eating really well (which is totally encouraging), and she's drinking lots of fluids too. Now we have the night to get through (continually interrupted by nurses, docs, and what not) but nice to know we're in the best of hands here!!! Our room is great- we got the big giant window side, we currently do not have a roommate (which is SO nice), and we are literally one door from the family room (where there are drinks, the computer, a frig, and outdoor area, etc)- so very handy.

Anyway, off into the night we go!

She's out of surgery

So we've had a long night of restless sleep and an early start for our day. We were scheduled for an 11:00 a.m. surgery and we ended up waiting until 1:15 for Chloe to go into surgery. She was great though- we played games, read books, watch t.v., talked a lot, she was really energetic and overall handled all the people that came in and out very well.

Her surgery was supposed to last 2 hours and we got paged at 1 hour and 15 minutes. We were taken a back, but thrilled it didn't go over!

We just got done talking with the surgeon (3:00) and he informed us that it was an A-typical exostoses (osteochondroma) and inorder to remove it they had to split a nerve directly behind her knee. This will create permanent nerve damage- however it will just result in a slight numbness to touch, and shouldn't be anymore than that. She handled the anesthesia well and did not have excessive bleeding, so we are happy about that. Her incision is not an "S", but an "L" and I hear it is quite large. I hope we can handle the sight of it when we do get a chance to see her.

Anyhow, we wait again... then we'll be with Chloe and we'll post more later!

Thank you for all your prayers, love, support, etc! We have felt it all!!

Love- Heather, Kent, and Chloe