Graduation!!

After five years, Brian is officially a college graduate with an Associates Degree in Nursing - RN on May 17th.  What once seemed like a day very far off in the future has come and gone!  We were all so happy for him and so excited (and now so relaxed!!).  Nathaniel even took his graduation cap to school for sharing the last week of sharing :)

 Brian's dad flew up from Arizona to spend a few days with us. His sister, Stacy, and her youngest son Travis drove down from Washington and got here just in time to go to graduation - along with my mom and dad and Grandma Donna.  On Saturday we had a BBQ and were surprised by Brian's oldest brother, Terry, and his wife Theresa driving up from Woodland and my uncle Brian and his wife, Linda, drove up from Sacramento and joined all of us for dinner.  Here are some pictures from the two days:

Finally - all three boys are serious and Grace is the clown...

By this point, Grace wasn't happy with pictures.

Stacy, Brian and Dad Lee

 

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Joshua took this picture from right below the stage - this is right after I pinned Brian.
 

The happiest we could get Grace

After the RN ceremony and right before the actual graduation ceremony.

Joshua ran across the gym with Grandpa Val to get a picture of dad receiving his diploma (actually just the cover...he received the real diploma the other day)

Brian, Terry, Theresa, Dad, Stacy relaxing in our front yard the next day.

The RN ceremony

Blowing a kiss to Grace

Waving to us all as they finish the candle lighting part

Walking in to graduate

Stacy, Brian, Terry

Fourth of July

While my favorite July holiday is actually July 6th, we did have a fun July 4th. Brian set up the slip n' slide in the front yard and the kids had fun. Grace took a little while to warm up to the whole getting in the water thing, but she (with some help from mommy) finally got in and had fun with the boys. I finally figured out how to keep ponytails in her hair - I put three in and by the time she took 2 out, she'd kind of forgotten about the 3rd one :) We'd also (courtesy of pinterest for the idea, though I added our own creativity to them) made soem 4th of July decorations the day before. In the afternoon, we went to my parents for BBQ and cake (early birthday) and homemade chocolate chip ice cream (that Brian made). In the evening we went out to a friend's from church where the kids played with more friends from church (trampoline, marshmallow guns, basketball...) until it got dark and then we watched the teenage boys do a firework show and got home sometime before 11. Below are the pictures of the decorations, the water fun and a little prank.

SPLASH!

Posing for Daddy to take a picture.

smiling at grandma & grandpa when they walked over from the store

The triple pony tail...quite patriotic :)

Our festive holiday decorations (I painted the wooden flag several years ago when we lived in Winters)

Brian & Joshua like to have fun with water...and dumping it on each other when they're not expecting it (like a glass of cold water dumped into the shower)

I'm so glad that the camera cooperated and took this picture at just the perfect moment :)

Joshua's Guitar

Joshua took guitar in afterschool program last year and enjoyed it. He took it again this year and really enjoyed it and has been wanting a guitar ever since last year. So we made him a deal - if he earned half the money, we would pay the other half. So he has been doing chores and saving money for several monhts. Then, with birthday money from grandparents and great grandma, he had enough. So we went up to Oregon over the weekend and got it.  Yesterday Brian tuned it and Joshua played. He's just very basic yet, but it's more than I can do! He's looking forward to practicing over the summer so that he can play real songs soon!

Grace had to get in the fun too...she's sitting in Daddy's lap looking at the guitar book we got Joshua.

Brian's Graduation!!!!!!!!!!




Joshua took this picture of Grace and I while we waited for the ceremony to begin

Last Friday night was Brian's graduation from the LVN program.  After 3 long and arduous semesters (plus kidney stones, major bowel resection surgery, pnemonia, plueral effusion and what am I forgetting?) he has completed this first step in his journey to become an RN.  Even with all of his health problems, he maintained a 4.0 GPA and was one of the student speakers at the graduation.  We were all so happy to watch him walk across the stage. Hopefully next fall he'll begin the RN program.  This semester will be just a regular semester of classes (yeah, no biggie...microbiology and physiology, plus a sociology and a speech class...piece of cake, right?!).  Here are some pictures from that:

Dad's new Job

We got these clippers at Christmastime with the idea that I would be the one cutting the boys' hair.  But I wanted to wait until summer so if I did a horrible job, it wouldn't matter because it was summer and the shorter, the better, right?  But Grace would've been way to helpful, so Dad decided he'd do it. 

I decided he's hired and it save us about $20 every 6 weeks or so to have him cut the boys' hair.

Why our Summer has been a little different...

We had plans for this summer and none of them involved hospitals for once (the past few summers I've either been recovering from surgery (gall bladder last year), pregnant (Grace 2009), recovering from a miscarriage (2008), nursing (2007) or pregnant (Nathaniel 2006).  This year it was Brian's turn.  His Crohn's disease (which he was diagnosed with in 2007 and had a flare up in 2009), reared it's ugly nasty head again...and he was in the hospital twice up here. Once within 2 days of the semester ending (for a total of 5 days) and again in June (only 3 days that time).  Surgery was decided upon.  We headed south on the 11th of July and stayed with his brother in Woodland.  His surgery was the 12th in Sacramento at UC Davis Medical Center.  They estimated he'd be in 7 to 10 days...and figured most likely it would only be 7.  He left on the 23rd.  We spent a few days at his brother's again after the surgery so that he wouldn't have to make the 5 hour trip (each way) home and back and home again.  He had two doctor appointments that next week, so it was best to stay.  But we'd not planned on staying that long when we left. 

The surgeon he had was wonderful.  She has done a lot of Crohn's surgeries.  And she told him he was one of the worst she'd ever seen.  He had resections done in two places in his bowels and had a total of 12 inches removed.  He had them take a picture in surgery (I won't post those here) and ended up with 31 staples. 

The kids missed us, I think.  I'm sure Grandma, Grandpa and Great Grandma really did, as they took care of them for us!

One bonus was being able to spend time with Brian's sister, Cindy.  She was out visiting from Kansas and doing some rehab after a stroke she had in the Spring.  She and I enjoyed Terry & Theresa's pool :)

Recovery is a slow process, and as a nursing student, he understands that, but still thinks he should be healing faster.  And school starts on August 15th so he's nervous about that.  Lots of other things went on with his surgery and hospital stay, but this is the basics.  He shouldn't have issues with it now...hopefully...at least not for many years.  What medications he may need to be on are not determined yet, and nothing has been said about a special diet.  But it really making us think about what we eat and how much of certain things we eat.  So now, we're hoping that Summer 2012 will be one without medical type complications :)