Happy Grandparent's Day

Sunday is Grandparent's Day...so to surprise Nana and Papa, Mason and Landon went to have some pictures taken together. It was also time for Mason to have his 9 month pictures, so we did that at the same time. Since Papa is leaving to go hunting, we already gave them their gifts...and not a minute too soon because it was getting really hard keeping a secret from Nana!

As you can see, it was hard to get both boys looking/smiling at the same time. And Landon especially was not into getting his picture taken that day. We did get a few cute ones, though.

All the better to see you with, my dear

Mason had his eye surgery today. It was a long morning with no breakfast and no nap, but Mason was generally a pretty happy guy. The surgery itself only lasted about 20 minutes and went really well. Dr. Arnold fixed Mason's strabismus and amblyopia and now our little guys eyes and brain will work together. If you're interested in what he did you can watch a video of the procedure here .

I was able to go into the recovery room and be with Mason as he woke up. He was SO hungry he drank the pedialyte bottle the nurses gave him in seconds! Of course all the nurses kept stopping by to see the cute baby they were told was in PACU...which I have to admit, he was the cutest one around. After getting home Mason slept for about 3 hours and then had dinner. Now he's back to himself and playing with his toys before bedtime.

I know I've been pretty bad about posting updates lately...not because nothing has been going on, though. It's actually been quite the opposite! To sum up briefly, my MS flare is better (5 day course of steroids and then just being patient), Todd and I took the boat out of Whittier a few weeks ago (and survived), I've been working a lot of extra hours because of sick calls at the hospital (and taking extra Vitamin C), Mason now has FOUR teeth (the top two came in over the weekend), Todd has been working all over as rig closures continue (we're thankful that he'll keep his job though), and last weekend the weather was SO beautiful we went up to the lake to play and enjoy the last bit of summer.

I promise to get some new pics up soon!

Rules are rules?

The assembly decided to allow Mark Hall's appointment to be Fire Chief. Mayor Sullivan of course said he saw no reason to change the rule about nepotism for the muni, just bend the rule for this special case (shocking).

Irony came just one day later....now Sullivan wants to end Fill the Boot because of the rules against panhandling on Anchorage streets. So, it's ok to bend the rules for your buddy, but not so much for disabled kids once a year? Oh boy.

Gotta love politics.

Hard times for Anchorage

Unless you've been living under a rock (or you don't live in the MOA) you know that this city is facing crazy budget issues...which includes the layoffs of AFD staff. Luckily, at this point, Todd isn't at risk of losing his job, but we all know these layoffs aren't the end. 2010 is just around the corner.

Patrick Flynn wrote an interesting blog you should check out about the potential appointment of Mark Hall to Fire Chief. The assembly needs to pass a special "allowance" so this can happen because of nepotism rules...personally I hope they don't do it. I won't say much more than that because I don't want anything I say on here to negatively affect my husband (although, I should point out that this is my personal blog). Anyway, his blog is here

Next, you should check out and pass along the next blog about AFD, located here which is the AFD Status blog. You can also follow them on Twitter.

That's all for now from this AFD wife :)

Recovery

Yesterday went really well. I was in a little pain when I woke up in the recovery room, but the nurses took care of that right away. The biggest thing I remember is everyone kept yelling at me to take deep breathes because my O2 sats were too low. I have a drain in each side that Todd has been checking and emptying. I slept most of yesterday, and today I've just been hanging out in bed. So far, so good. I go to the doctor on Monday to change my dressings and hopefully get my drains taken out. I can't wait to see what I look like now! I have no idea what I'll be as far as size goes, but I can already tell that I'm much smaller (even underneath all the bandages and ace wraps).

I'll keep you all updated. As far as I can tell, the anesthesia didn't affect my MS symptoms much. My hands are a little more numb than usual, but that could be from a lot of things.

I think I may go take another nap now.