Lap Band Journey - 1 Week Post-Op

This is soo great way to go Katy!!

Additions to our...

Chicken family members! We've added two Bantam Chickens, a Danish Leghorn hen, and a Rhode Island Red hen. They are sooo cute!! I love them, and all of the chicks seems to be particularly fond of me. They follow me all around inside the coop and I have a hard time getting out without at least 3 trying to follow me.

Anyway here are the pictures say hello....
to our Rooster 'Daddy'

Our Turkens (they've gotten so big!)

'Daddy' again

'Daddy' and 'Mommy' our Bantam Chickens

Support and prayers needed....

I know that most of the people that read this blog have no idea who this woman is but that doesn't diminish the fact that she needs support and prayer for her journey. I hope that she will continue to post videos and that I can share them with you here.

Bathroom progress...

Well we're still not done but...we are a little bit closer. I finally insisted John call a plumber to come set our sink tub and toilet but he says he can't figure it out. Ugh I just want a fully functioning bathroom again ...and a TUB!! So here are some pics of the progress so far.


My new custom closet (and the fabulous wall color I chose...)

A built in cubby for shampoo bottles and such



John reading directions...a moment to capture on camera for sure!

Hopefully this beautiful tub will be put in properly tomorrow....

Chicks ....

So here are some promised photos of my chicks...

One of my Turkens... so ugly it's cute!



Not sure what breed this one is..



Learning to fly already!



Another one of my 'Turkens'

So today...

In an effort to spend more time with me, John decided our Mother's/Father's day gifts should be two bicycles. Maybe I should re-phrase... two GOOD bicycles. In other words, not vintage. We actually have four bikes already but they are all vintage except one, and that one is actually too small for us to ride comfortably. I took John's vintage Schwinn road bike out on the bike trail for a 28 (?) mile ride and found that when I got home the bike was falling apart! Something had been hitting my feet and calves periodically, but I didn't see anything. Turns out the nuts/bolts/ screws were falling off the bike. I'm lucky I made it back to the truck without having to carry the bike back. Our trek to obtain two bikes lead us to Costco on Rosedale Highway where we had found two bikes we liked last week. Today, however, the women's bikes were gone...sold out. So we drove over to Costco on Panama Lane hoping they would still have at least one in stock. No such luck. Both stores did have the bike John wanted but he didn't want to buy his if I couldn't get one too. After the purpose of buying them is so we can go out on the bike trail together with our kids being towed safely behind us in our Schwinn trailer. Since we didn't find the bikes at Costco we stopped by Action Sports on our way home and were quickly disheartened by their prices. The lowest priced bicycle we found was $350, ON SALE! Needless to say we did not buy from there. Oh well, the search continues.

In other news...

Luca is walking and actually is trying to potty train already. So far he's only gone one and two twice in the potty. And this morning he actually woke me up the use the potty (number two and one but I think one was a byproduct of trying so hard for number two). Overall a good day for Luca, we moved his crib into William's room in an effort to help them both sleep through the night without our assistance. We'll see how it goes.

William refuses to use the potty unless we catch him pushing then he will sit for number two. His pediatrician assured me that since he doesn't have dry nights yet I should expect him to be potty trained. He is also going through a very loud "NO" phase. Argh!

We have eleven baby chicks! Their mom roosted in our coop and was trying to get her babies away from the fence line last Sunday when Hank and Zoey got a hold of her and yanked her through the fence. She didn't have a chance. So John and I went out into the coop and scooped up all eleven babies and one egg. I brought them in the house and commenced mothering. A trip to Tractor Supply and we were all set to care for the chicks. So far they are doing very well, the egg however was a dud. They all seem to be content, and they quickly figured out if they chirp loudly I'll come check on them. Sometimes they just want to know I'm there... so sweet! I've researched on the computer their breeds and so far I can only say for sure that we do have four Turkens. Weird but cute in their own way!



We also have Black Australorps

Which will look like this...

And two more that I haven't identified yet. I'll post photos when they're a bit older, and I have time to take they're pictures.

So sometime soon we will be repairing and updating the chicken coop to accommodate our newest family members.

And finally our bathroom is coming together!!! PRAISE THE LORD!! Our tub came in on Thursday and John picked it up this morning. It is a true work of art, I sat in it (in our garage) for so long today. The drywall is hung, the carpenter finished the closet Tuesday of this past week, and the tile will be laid starting Monday!! I am OVERJOYED at the prospect of having another bathroom once again with a tub. A claw foot soaking tub at that. I WILL post photos when it is done.

As for me personally... the weight loss thing is going well. 15lbs down, and I think I'll probably try for another 20lbs or so. America is doing well as my service dog. I make sure to give her praise whenever she notices that I'm particularly anxious, and she accompanies me whenever I leave the house alone. Which means ...HEY I'm leaving the house! The VA is very intent on fixing my problem. I was on Paxil/ Paraxotine but the side effects were a bit extreme. You'll have to ask John, he says I was very twitchy (while sleeping) and startled easily and he claims I would tell him someone was standing in our room nightly. I don't remember, but I started 'seeing' things during the day, it really didn't bother me much but they took me off the meds. Not because I was seeing things but because they knocked me out. Funny right.... oh well.

Animals ...

So each time we've visited CALM we've missed the following animals....





but as you can see they out for all to see on our last trip. The snakes are usually visible but not this close to the glass. So William was pretty amazed by all of it.




And when we left we headed out to our favorite haunt...Logan's Roadhouse for a late lunch...yum!






PS in the photos William is eating Salad yep that's right salad.

A bit of a trim...

Luca was being complimented a little too much on what a "cute little girl" he was so I decided to bust out the new hair sissors I bought recent'y and give him a trim. It looks good so I'm happy with the end result.


Before...



After...

Camping and more...

February was kinda stressful for me, I knew our roof needed to be done and I was really freaking out about how we were going to pay for it... so we took a break and escaped Bakersfield. We went camping in Morro Bay which was actually very nice. The weather forecast called for rain all weekend but like I said we needed a break... besides it was supposed to rain in Bakersfield too. It rained the first night...ALL night, but was nice a sunny the next day....however we woke up to a tsunami advisory!! CRAZY! Although it caused some really beautiful waves, and the tsunami never hit so yay! We were able to use full hookups and really were quite comfortable the whole time, we even had family movie night the first evening since we couldn't do the whole campfire thing.









John's birthay was the 24th (and Alex...happy birthday!), so we got my parents to watch the kids and had a date night...it was so nice to be able to enjoy a meal without rushing because the kids are restless, or worrying about if they're getting enough to eat, or dodging swift hands reaching for my glass. We really enjoyed ourselves.