Photos from Half Moon Bay

As promised, here are some photos from "A Fun Trip."

Playing at the beach with her buddy, Timothy

It rains every year but we still have fun!



Last Year

 

This Year



Anellah and I had an ER visit this weekend, I'll spare you the poopy details, but it seems to be nothing. We're hoping it doesn't come up again. The doctors were concerned about a side effect from her liver cirrhosis. Her forehead is definitely looking better despite the fact that yesterday she was overly excited and ran into a doorway with her face. I'm thankful it didn't swell up too much again after that incident.



Our Thanksgiving was wonderful, we enjoyed spending it with some good friends. Capper would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.







Bring your Kids to Work Week

Anellah was off from school all week for Thanksgiving and Daycare was only open one day due to the holiday. I'd agreed to give flu shots to employees for work so they got to come with me! I figured it was a good distraction for anyone who was queasy about needles. Anellah was the sticker-giver and babysitter. I think they both had fun.

We spent quite a few hours driving, according to the trip timer in my car we drove 9 hours in two days. As you can see, though, helping Mamma at work is tiring!

"A Fun Trip"

On our drive home this afternoon Anellah kept remarking, "A fun trip. Going on a fun trip." We spent the weekend at Half Moon Bay, just like we did the first weekend of November last year. We enjoyed playing in puddles during the rain, flying a broken kite on the beach, and playing in the waves. Most of all we enjoyed fellowship with good friends and having playmates for our kids.

We'll have a bunch of photos to post soon once everyone from the group shares photos. But here is a taste:

Rejoice

This is the day that the Lord has made,

I will rejoice and be glad in it

Psalm 118:24

This has been my mantra this past week, even when I'm not really in the mood to "rejoice" or "be glad." Today, though, it's been easy. Today has been a splendid Saturday with warm yet crisp fall weather. We're dogsitting Buddy this weekend so the kids, Buddy, and I enjoyed a nice LONG walk with a stop at the park.  We finished it off with a taco-truck taco picnic in the front yard. Anellah and I "carved" our last pumpkins this morning and they're baking right now so that we have a few months worth of pumpkin puree on hand.

Inspired to use the big swing of her own accord!

A few nights ago, I re-enacted Halloween to get photos of the kids in costume. I wasn't entirely successful but here they are anyway.

Happy Face/Sad Face Pumpkin, Anellah's request. The other side was smiling.

Clifford the Big Red Dog

The best photo I was able to get of both kids.

Anellah's head doesn't seem to be getting any better which is discouraging. The other day it even seemed to get more swollen. But it is not bothering her at all. We and her pediatrician agree that as long as it is not bothering her and she is not acting any differently we should keep her out of the hospital/clinics/medical facilities and let her carry on.

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Halloween Headache

Well Anellah doesn't seem to have a headache but it sure looks like she should. On Monday morning she got up and we noticed the side of her forehead was swollen. She and I spent the day in the Emergency Room trying to determine what the problem was while Capper stayed home with Daniel. Eventually, after lots of back and forth, we went home without having any tests done being told she probably just hit her head and we hadn't noticed.

Tuesday the swelling was worse but we sent her to school and called her pediatrician who was able to get her in for a same-day appointment. Daniel and Anellah went from the appointment straight to the hospital for some bloodwork and a CT scan as it appeared Anellah was bleeding under the skin and potentially in her brain. Unfortunately Anellah was too scared of the CT scan machine so they were sent home to wait for a call to schedule the CT scan under anesthesia the next day. Meanwhile I was in touch with her pediatrician who agreed that having the CT scan the next afternoon (when there was an opening available) was too long to wait. That evening she and I went back to the hospital through the ER in order to have the CT scan done with an ER physician administering a sedative. She was able to have the scan and the results were good, meaning there was no bleeding inside the brain. We were able to come home around 1AM.

Wednesday Daniel stayed home with the kids and in the evening Anellah was able to go to our church's event, Pumpkin Patch, because I didn't want her to miss out two years in a row (last year was her surgery). Today she was able to go to school and have a somewhat normal day although her forehead is still super swollen.

The cause of the bleeding is Anellah's liver failure. The liver problems are causing a couple issues, both of which lead to her blood having an inability to clot. The blood clotting issue came up for the first time about a year ago but has been getting worse, which means her liver function is probably getting worse too. At this point she is just being frequently monitored through blood tests. It has been a reminder, though, that she lives with chronic and complicated medical conditions and will never be "cured." It's also hard not knowing what to do, being caught between being cautious but not overprotective.

Trip 3 of 3

BBQ Chips!

Blueberry muffins (you know our lives revolve around food, right?)

I wish I had some festive photos to add, the kids were cute in their costumes last night and I SHOULD have taken Chelsea up on her offer to take our photo but I didn't. :) I also need to take a photo of Anellah with her carved pumpkin, as requested it has both a sad face and a happy face (one on each side).