Grandpa & Grandma
Perhaps the biggest thing on our agenda this past month and in the coming months is obviously your Dad's issues. The heart catheterization results were both terrific and daunting. The good news is that his heart is good, strong, and there is absolutely NO heart damage from the previous heart attacks! That, in and of itself, is absolutely amazing. The cardiologist was surprised about that finding as he had suspected that heart damage from the previous attacks were likely the cause of his discomfort. Also heart related, is the fact that the stent placed 4 1/2 yrs ago looks great and the arteries that had been blocked anywhere from 75-40% were all significantly better??? The greatest blockage is now at 25% and the others are at 20% or less...all great news. The valves are good too, as is effectiveness of pumping.
The negative of the whole ordeal is the finding of high pulmonary arterial pressures. Again, this finding at first, was pretty unsettling to me, however, I'm feeling much more optimistic now. There are two types - primary and secondary. Primary only has a life expectancy of about 3 yrs. and that ISN'T the type your Dad has. His is secondary, most likely caused by the pulmonary emboli of a few years back, his asthma, and sleep apnea. His pulmonologist is running a complete battery of tests in the next few weeks to be certain that this is what is causing his discomfort, rather that just stopping here and making that assumption and missing something that could really be the culprit, i.e. gall bladder, liver, more emboli, sleep apnea not well controlled, etc. Ideally all tests and their results should be completed for a May 20th appt. and then we can come up with a definitive plan. Until then he is back on blood thinners, trying to lose as much weight as possible, back at rehab, using oxygen at night, and doing moderate activity as is tolerated.
So - I guess this must be a warning to all of you with sleep apnea or to those of you who may have it...please get a sleep study if you snore, wake up at night to go to the bathroom, or your spouse says you breathe "funny" at night or even quit breathing. This is an equal opportunity culprit...women can have it too! And it is a major cause of organ failure, brain function, energy loss, and pulmonary hypertension. Please get is checked out and use your cpap (Joey!) every night!
If you're concerned or want to know more about pulmonary hypertension, there is a good website that can answer your questions, phassociation.org is a good resource and will help you understand more of what he's dealing with. Depending on the current tests that he's going through, Dr. DiMeo has said that he'd probably refer him to Duke University for further evaluation.
I would still like to remind each of you that I would like to have copies of your family's birth and marriage certificates for the genealogy files. And, I thought I would start to work on some specific lines for family work. I wonder if anyone would like to join me? I know your time is limited but perhaps we could break down a portion of the research into small bites and see if we can get some done so we can take family names through the temple.
Also - this Sunday is Fast Sunday and I would urge each family to add Dan and Cherstin to your fast and prayers...that they will have success in selling their house. And Winston...that he'll pull out of his downward spiral and start gaining some weight! And of course for Hyrum the Elder (Husted)...for his continued growth and development. I know our prayers, fasting, and faith (ever united) really works and The Lord will bless us individually and collectively.
Again, your Dad and I love each and every one of you with our whole hearts! We're so pleased you're "ours"!!!! Thanks for being there for us and for each other. And give the kids the biggest hugs and kisses ever!!!
Robert & Wanda
It seems like everything is the same and a month doesn’t hardly bring enough change to warrant a mention, but I suspect it does more than I know. Robert was just called as the first counselor in our branch presidency. This means he’ll be released as the assistant stake clerk and will forgo the den leader calling they had initially extended to him. This might mean I actually get to see him more than before… we’ll see. I, Wanda, on the other hand just found out that I get to go back to school in August and am extremely excited. Our stake has been given permission to run the Pathway program through BYU-I. Over the course of the next year I’ll complete 15 credit hours through Pathway and then will automatically be matriculated into BYU-I and can continue from there to complete any of their online degrees.
Joseph is still plugging away through school. Senioritis is getting worse. This week, however, he’ll be done with his AP English course and just have the three left to finish. During April Hannah asked him and Luke (a friend) to substitute for Adam and William’s class in primary. I absolutely loved walking past and seeing the kids engaged with them. How fun!
Rebekah is still working a lot. She usually closes every night but Wednesday (mutual) and Sunday. I think she’s wearing herself out, but she insists that it’s the only ‘fun’ she has right now. She just took the AP Chem exam and AP Psych exam, so here’s to hoping she’s a little less stressed. Finals will be coming up soon and she’ll have a short while to breathe before the ACTs.
Rachel has been playing soccer all month. She is on the freshman team (wasn’t able to attend tryouts) with a lot of new-to-soccer players. I’m really pleased with how she supports her teammates both on and off the field. Lately she’s really into playing with Hyrum and Joshua. I think she’s trying to be Joshua’s favorite person.
Mary is trying to finish up school. She should be done with her big research paper soon. While she’s not done as much babysitting lately (Hannah moved to Dodgeville), I’m really impressed by how well she’s babysitting for me at home. It’s really sweet to come home to the kids taken care of, the dishes done and counters cleaned, and sometimes the kids even put to bed. Next year she’ll be off to high school. She decided that she wants to continue through WIVA. This came as a surprise to me since her friends had been laying on heavy pressure to go to the local school next year.
Benjamin has also been playing soccer this month. His Wednesdays are usually shot from babysitting in the morning (for a sister in the ward) and then off to soccer by 3:30, and then to YM by 7:00. Fortunately institute is now through for a couple of weeks. Hopefully this will allow him time to finish up school. He’s been staying up late playing on his Google Nexus and tends to sleep in. Joseph likes to come home from seminary and wake him up by shooting him with the Airsoft gun. Waking Ben up reminds me of when we had to wake Phil up as kids. We would resort to pulling him off the bed, or lying to him and telling him that Dad brought home donuts.
Soccer is Sam’s sport of choice too. We actually looked into other sports with Sam, but he decided he wanted to stay in soccer. He likes the idea of raquetball, but there aren’t any courts for that even remotely close. Sam is still enjoying chess club and cub scouts. He’s halfway through his Webelos year, so we better get cracking on that. May will bring lots of field trips which he is dying to go on. This was one of the things he was hoping to experience at the local school, but they had them all scheduled for the last month of the school year.
Ruth has thoroughly loved school. She has found that her best subject is math, but her reading has greatly improved. Right now she’s into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Her favorite subject is art. She even made a mobile to hang over Joshua’s crib. Ruth has also had a lot of fun with soccer. When you sign up, it’s for both fall and spring season, and she was miserable in the fall, so I didn’t think she’d enjoy the spring. But she is having a lot of fun and her best friend from school is on her team too.
Moroni is completely finished with his art and math courses. This is always an exciting time of year for me. I’m just as excited for summer to arrive as the kids are. We found a school chart (or rather I made one) that is helping us to stay on track. Moroni and Adam, ever the buddies also have a lot of fun playing Lego Indiana Jones together. I’ll set him to his phonics or language. They’ll quickly finish and then be off on the Wii. Little turkeys. Soccer will also end for Moroni in May.
Adam has been enjoying beginning reading. I’ve known he was ready for it for a while, but there’s been no time to teach it. We purchased him a subscription on reading eggs and he’s having fun working through the ‘levels.’ He’s currently in the third ‘level’ which puts him somewhere in the twenties. Adam has also recently discovered the trampoline. It scares the bejeebers out of him. He will now get on if there’s only Moroni and Hyrum now. The big kids (and big jumping) still scares him a little. Adam’s favorite pastime is watching Minecraft videos.
Hyrum is still progressing with his therapists. This probably takes up the bulk of my time. In the last month he spontaneously said, “dough” (go) and “bay” (bed)! This is a huge step to decide to speak/communicate completely unprompted. Right now we’re trying to teach him how to play with Moroni and Adam, and also how to play and share with Joshua. Another big part of his programming is teaching him ‘tact,’ which is basically labeling objects. With his birthday in May we will be transitioning him to Early Childhood (with the school district) and he’ll be attending preschool in the fall.
Joshua is learning how to walk. He’s been cruising since he was nine months, but is finally taking steps on his own. He’s still not stable either, totally doing the mummy walk (hands forward). First words are also here. He has mamama, ball, bubu (bubble), dadada, and bu (bug). He likes to share… especially with Hyrum who doesn’t necessarily return the item.
Joey & Carlie
Joey and Gideon ran a Spartan Super in Las Vegas the first weekend in April, 9.27 miles through the desert. It was a good trip. Glory tagged along with them to Vegas. They ate authentic pizza At Settebello, went to the top of the Stratosphere and checked out the Strip and ate Cici's, they don't have one in Monterey. On their drive back, they drove through Death Valley. During their trip they listened to the book "Flags of Our Fathers" about the marines in World War II that are in the iconic picture of the flag raising on top of Mt. Surabachi on Iwo Jima. Joey is listening to another book, "A Higher Call" about a German fighter pilot in World War II, give it a listen if you get a chance. Joey is on his way to Colorado to run another Spartan Race at Ft Carson with Desi and looks forward to seeing her and her family as well as Felicia, Tom and meeting Noah. Joey has been busy at work planning a visit for General Rand, the Air Education and Training Command Commander to the Presidio, 4 star generals are high maintenance, he can't wait to be one.
Carlie has decided to take on the role of key spouse mentor for Joey's squadron, a new and different experience for her but very helpful for some of the younger spouses and especially for students’ spouses. As of late there have been some unseasonably gorgeous days, it got up to the low 80s on April 30th. Carlie pulled the kids out of school an hour early and hauled them all off to the beach. The water is chilly but it is still fun. They all got a little sunburned, very atypical since Carlie is always very serious about the application of sunblock.
Gideon is a lazy 15 year old, though he is very busy. He doesn't have a lot of free time. Joey keeps him busy with the Spartan Races... There is also seminary, school, scouts, orchestra, oboe lessons, lacrosse practice and he's finally gotten some of the lead out and started working on his Eagle project, should be all done by 21 June. In May Gideon will have his third and final concert of the year. He will also be auditioning for the honors orchestra.
Glory has still been homeschooling/unschooling. At this point she really sets her agenda of what she wants to learn and goes about learning something about it. She been learning about plants and herbs and has started to pick up some books to learn Italian, she already taught herself morse code.
Scarlett spent her second week of Spring Break at a sports camp where she was able to participate in many different sports. She has loved participating in activity days and is looking a forward to starting Karate in May.
Levi is still the active 7 year old that can't wait to turn eight at the end of May. He's working hard in Karate and should be getting his Yellow belt soon.
Reah runs wild daily with crazy hair from friend to friend. She is the happiest of little girls and knows no real hardship, though we still hear how we don't love her when she has to brush her teeth or go to bed. She loves to sing songs from frozen and we can often hear her singing and asking us if we want to build a snowman from the other side of the door.
Phil & Hannah
Things are going well in the Bainbridge household. We had an interesting (read that as stressful) spring break. There is a family in our ward who has been staying in a hotel in between rentals. They called monday morning to ask if they could come hang out, and stayed until Friday morning. The boys loved having extra kids here to play with, but I have to admit, I wasn't sorry to see them find a new house!
Orion is still doing well in school. We just got his report card for this last quarter. He is too social and it is interfering with the other kids’ education. But Orion personally is doing great in school. He tested out of the reading mastery program, which is what they do for the first graders here. And at his last reading test, he was reading 117 wpm! For someone who doesn't like to read, and it is a fight to get him to sit down and read a book, I am pleased with his progress!
William is still loving school. He has finally made a friend in his class. But he can't ever remember the little boy’s name. William is almost finished with his "Lets Play Music" class, and then he will have a recital. I have enjoyed doing that class with him, but will also be glad when it is over. The drive into Madison every week for it is getting a little old!
Oliver gave up on potty training. He really has no desire to make any kind of effort to go potty on the toilet. Sometimes, after sitting on the toilet and doing nothing, he will ask to have a diaper. 30 seconds after he has it on, he comes and tells me he is wet and needs to be changed. GROWL!!
Winston is doing well! We love this new medicine he is on! He is so happy all the time now! And even better, he is finally putting on weight. After we met with GI, we had to meet with a nutritionist. We had to start doing a high calorie formula, and keeping a food diary. The goal for the formula is to get him to take up to 20 oz a day. We are almost there! At first he was only taking about 10-12 oz. Now his daily average is 16. The other thing GI wanted us to do was meet with a failure to thrive specialist. We just met with her last week, and good news! Winston is gaining about 9 grams a day. His target weight gain should be between 8 & 14 grams a day. As long as he is consistently within that range, we won't have to put him on an appetite stimulant.
I am doing really well. One of my little sisters just got engaged and is getting married in September. I am excited to have an excuse to go visit my family this summer. On the other hand, a different little sister ran away about a week ago. Police reports have been filed, but we have not heard anything yet.
Easter was wonderful. We had a lot of fun doing the "Seven Days Till Easter" thing out of the Friend. And we loved spending the day with Wanda and Robert. We are so blessed to have them close by! Wish everyone else was closer too!
Mike & Desi
Mike- just got done with a huge project at work. It was and is under security clearance so I know nothing about it. I do know that he had to wear a suit the day of the presentation, so it must have been an important customer.
Desi- I spend most of my time in the car! I told mike that our next car needs to be a motor home. I'm looking forward to having Joey come this Thursday. I'm going to be running/trying to do the spartan race with him. I also was recently called to be the stake relief society events coordinator. Which means I'm in charge of planning, decorating and preparing food for ALL stake relief society sanctioned events. The number of events will fall between 6-8 a year. We usually have something after each general broadcast, so that's twice a year, then our stake holds an annual women's conference luncheon, then missionary zone conferences and last but not least I'm in charge of dinners for the stake presidency and any general authorities that come to stake conferences. That's the only exciting part :-)
Emily- she's most of the reason mom is in the car! She has play practice 3-4 times a week! We will be so glad when the play is over... Only 2 more weeks. Then piano one day and soccer practice twice a week with games every Saturday. She is way advanced in class and loves school as you could imagine. This past week she had a little friend in school stay with us while her parents were in DC.
Mordecai- he's the other reason I'm in the car. He gets picked up from school half day. He enjoys school but doesn't love it like Emily. I think it's because he's not as confident in himself. I don't know why because he's advanced in reading and math. We've been working on his writing, and now it's actually legible. He also has soccer practice once a week (of course it's a different day then Emily's) and games on Saturday. This past Saturday he scored his first goal ever!!! He has also recently started taking piano from mom, mostly to have the basics down before we send him to Cheryl reeder.
Ruby- what can I say... She is full of life and energy. She reminds me a lot of myself and Felicia combined. Sneaky, but shy, and very lovable, not to mention all her hair! When you ask her where she got it all from she answers with "Costco". She loves to go to stores and asks daily if we are going to any, and how many?
Ivy- she just turned 18 months and joined nursery! YAY! We also found out that's she has an extra tooth, just like ruby...except ruby had 2 and so far we only see 1 extra. Here's hoping. She's as cute as ever, but we are biased, and she's our baby. We are finally starting to understand her when she talks and she copies everything everyone does.
Dan & Cherstin
We've had a few showings or so. Other agents all say that the house shows well and is very clean and friendly feeling. No offers as of yet, but the people that last came and looked said they our house was on their short list of houses to put offers on. I guess we'll see. We would appreciate any continued prayers that our house will sell.
We had our medical processing board this past Tuesday. Because of a few "issues" (asthma and Hyrum's ears), we will have to wait up to two weeks to hear back from Elmendorf to make sure they have the resources necessary for us to PCS up there. We would have rather had this whole process started sooner, but there is only one Lt.Col. that does it for the entire base and he was out of town for over two weeks. We have a tentative appointment for TMO on the 15th of May to get the ball rolling on our pack-out.
If all goes as planned, we will leave for Denver towards the beginning of June, baptize Abby there (I believe this is news to Mom and Dad...or not by now) and then head up north from there. We are planning to camp along the way to save money and allow the kids some outdoor/run around time. We are actually looking forward to the trip up and have purchased a few new camping supplies (instant tent, and some cold weather sleeping bags).
Dan's busy training his new replacement in his office. He might also have to fly next week which I am really, REALLY dreading.
As for my kids....
Abby is doing fine. She's doing a lot of reading while we're on break. She's read a few Harry Potters, The Cricket in Times Square, all of the Ivy and Bean series (which takes her like an hour a book), and is currently working on Diary of a Wimpy Kid. She and Ellie both have a little gymnastics show scheduled towards the end of the month and Abby is very excited to be learning a routine for it. She's been walking around singing the kings and queens of England which just makes me laugh.
Emmett just swam in his last swim meet here. He will continue to practice with his team on Tuesday and Thursday evenings because I NEED him to be out and active. He's gone through spells of destructiveness of late and he's quite lucky he survived. He was rather helpful today, though. He just lost another tooth which is what makes him look even more like he got struck in the face.
Ellie is going through that four-year-old whiny stage. She turns five in a few months so it's looking like she is riding four out until the end. The other day I had to threaten to take away her dresses if she didn't start wearing shorts underneath them (because she does all kinds of crazy things even IN the dresses). She rolled her eyes at me and told me she'd just go naked. She's enjoying her reading lessons and is counting up until she has her birthday.
Hyrum is typical two. If we weren't moving, I'd probably start thinking about potty training him. He was doing great until we went to Denver a few months ago. Now he's back to holding and flooding his diaper. At least once a day we have to change his pants because he potties a stream too strong for anything to hold it back. He likes this show Paw Patrol on Amazon and is constantly pretending that he is a dog. I have flashes of Abby meowing at the age of two when he does it. His "dog" is a lot more tolerable than Abby's "cat" so I'll take it.
Enzo is still not walking. Little turd. He stepped all the way across my living room (which is not huge but still!) and yet he will not make walking his main mode of transportation. He can even stand up from sitting in the middle of the floor, though he doesn't do it often. He's just getting over another chest infection so we're all happy that he's back to happily playing on the floor for even a few minutes.
So...that's us. I'm looking forward to hearing/reading what's going on with everyone else!
Tom & Felicia
We're doing great! We really enjoyed General Conference, particularly President Uchtdorf's talk on Gratitude.
Noah is getting bigger every day and we wish it would stop. Recently he has begun following more one word commands/prompts. Like if we tell him "gabonk" he'll lean his head forward so that we can gently head butt him, or if we put his bear up to his face and say "give kisses" he'll kiss his bear though, he still won't kiss Tom or me.
Tom and I are staying busy with work/housework and callings. Tom serves as the 1st Counselor in the Young Men's Presidency in our ward and recently, I was released as Webelos Den Leader and called to serve as the 2nd Counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. However, they still haven't called a replacement Den Leader so I am doing both callings until they can get someone called.
Most recently we took a short trip over to Martin's Cove because Tom had never been. It was a wonderful experience and we definitely felt the spirit there. We are looking forward to new adventures in the coming months and to getting to see Joey and Desi at the end of the week!
Can't wait to hear from everyone else!
