Lots of Halloween Fun!!

So Halloween which we of course celebrated on Saturday started out with Boo at the Zoo, the highlight for Elizabeth...besides of course all the treats, was seeing Clifford the Big Red Dog. I've never seen such a happy girl! Then we went to Tony's parents house for the Johnston Halloween party. Elizabeth and Melina weren't so sure about Cassie dressed up as a dead prom queen, but Johnny did such a good job with the makeup I was a little frightened! Then we went to our wards trunk or treat with my parents. Elizabeth got really good at saying "a treat!" but who needs the trick part anyway right?! Then we came home and watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! Good times!

Pics from the longest week of my life

Here are some of the pictures from the week I was in the hospital, Tony and Elizabeth came and visited me every night, it was the highlight I looked forward to everyday I was there! I missed them so very much!

Sometimes When it Rains it Pours

Well it's been a while...let me tell you why. Friday Oct 8th I had a dizzy spell in the afternoon that passed after an hour or so, but that night while shopping with Tony and Liz after going to three stores the world started spinning right in front of my eyes and no amount of blinking could make it stop, as we were heading home I lost my stomach and the decision was made to go to Insta Care we had Ketty meet us there and take Elizabeth and after seeing the dr was said to have severe Vertigo and was prescribed basically an anit-nausea and motion sickness pill only problem was I couldn't keep my stomach down long enough for them to do anything, Tony and one of our home teachers(and great neighbor) gave me a blessing, but nothing seemed to make the world stop spinning or keep my stomach down, so by Saturday morning we pawned Liz off on the best neighbor ever at far too early in the morning and went to the ER as recommended by the on call OB, where they finally got my stomach to stay down but the world just wouldn't stop spinning. I got up to go the bathroom for them and my "walking"(with Tony and the nurse) really red flagged my ER doctor...so the tests began. The MRI lasted nearly an hour, the spinal tap had two very painful failed attempts and an emotional tearful decision to use the low dose X-Ray to finally get the needed spinal fluid, the neurologist came in and did some coordination tests which showed some lack on the left side of my body, and apparently my eyes did interesting things...I was just trying my hardest to follow the finger! By the afternoon the decision was made to admit me into IMC on the neurological floor for a possible stroke in my left Cerebellum. I spent 6 days in the hospital getting woken up around 5 am every morning to get my blood drawn, had two more MRI's, two ECHO's done on my heart, saw my OB that Monday and learned that little man was doing fine, had numerous evaluations, and worked with the physical and occupational therapists. The day I was released we went straight to the hearing and balance center for more testing, which pointed to a central nervous system problem, then I went and saw my ENT who did another hearing test and looked everything over and sent me back to the Hearing and Balance Center to confirm the previous results which it did so he sent me to a neurologist who set me up with more physical and occupational therapy at the TOSH. All in all they never were able to exactly pin point a stroke but they also couldn't use contrast with the MRI so they may just not be able to see it, so they're treating "stroke like symptoms". And in all that we had our big ultrasound to make sure baby wasn't negatively affected by all this...and they checked everything like three times over by both the tech and the doctor, and found no ill effects thankfully we also learned that healthy baby was officially a BOY!!
Shortly after I got out of the hospital Elizabeth got a "strep like virus" with a fever of 104 and was absolutely miserable, then she started coughing and sniffling and a couple weeks later she was treated for a sinus infection. She's doing well now thank goodness, and we all caught a bit of her sickness that we're all finally over it.
As of now I'm super dizzy all the time no matter what, and my left leg and arm are very weak and my left leg is super uncoordinated, I use a walker to get to the bathroom, spend all day and night in our new red recliner(as I can't stand or walk none the less climb stairs up to our bedroom) and if I have to go more than 40 feet I have to use a wheelchair as that's all my body can take. This is my first week of therapy so we'll see how long it takes to see some improvement but my PT tells me not to hold my breathe or get discouraged because I have a very long road in front of me and I may or may not get back to how I was before this. All we can do is all we can do.
I'll try and get some of the fun cute pics of the fun things we've been up to the past little while.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."

The Past Couple Weeks

So two weekends ago we had our nieces Cassie and Emily over for a sleepover as Friday was their brother Landon's birthday party and they were more than willing to leave their house. Elizabeth LOVED it! We got pizza and played the Wii. The girls were playing this dog sports game so naturally Liz was in heaven! She has a little play Wii remote that she used to "help" them win races, she got so excited and so in to it...it was so cute!! We all played a game of bowling in which little Em really surprised us all at the force she could throw the ball! Then we introduced them to Frisbee golf which we stayed up past midnight playing, it was tons of fun!(Lizabeth was of course put to bed before this) And Elizabeth woke up nice and early as not to loose any fun time with the girls! Then when we dropped the girls off Elizabeth immediately started trying to get out of her car seat but I told her we were going to go shopping so she needed to stay in her seat. Then Ketty came to say hi and Liz was done in tg=he car!! She had such a meltdown! She wanted so badly to stay with "Aunt Kee" she was even saying "pees"! It was such a sad sight that of course Ketty had to give in and take her, and the moment she said Liz could stay she was fine and happy! That girl really loves her Aunt Ketty! It was pretty nice too cause we were able to do our grocery shopping without her drama, which saved us at least an hour!
Sunday evening we had a September birthdays night for my family at my parents house with cake and ice cream, that went pretty well!
Then on Monday we took Ketty and Emily with us to get Elizabeth's hair cut by the lady who cuts their hair. She was really good! We totally lucked out that she just happened to have a doggie calender and even a doggie cape! Elizabeth did really well to just sit there and let her do her thing! We did bangs and cut her hair in an "A" line bob, it's absolutely adorable!! I love it!! Then we went back to their house and Ketty so kindly fed us dinner!

This past weekend we went up to Logan for the BYU vs USU football game on Friday then stayed the weekend to watch and listen to General Conference. The game would have been a lot better if a: BYU had shown up and b: we hadn't gotten stuck in front of the world's two rudest old men ever, who eventually we couldn't take anymore of and left with about 5 minutes left in the game. I was proud my Aggies have improved so much and did quite well, but on the other hand disappointed in my Cougars who really didn't seem to have anything put together. Saturday morning after a very nice breakfast made for us by Tony's parents Tony and I went to the USU Bookstore and got game day shirts for all three of us, but that's pretty much all that was worth it. Then we went to Gossners of course and got more flavored milk boxes and cheese.
When we got back we all loaded into my parents Pilot and took a drive up to Bear Lake for Le Baus famous Raspberry shakes except me of course I got a chocolate shake, we came back down through Preston and the leaves were a bit more colorful there. After a yummy dinner by my parents we all watched "No Reservations" in my parents Motorhome and then called it a day. Sunday my parents did breakfast then we all watched Conference there as well. Then after the session we loaded up and headed out with my parents, and spent the evening with them. When we got home Lizabeth was already asleep so we put her in bed and got out the Halloween boxes and decorated and for some reason I thoroughly enjoyed it this year! Maybe it's because I'm not in the middle of a construction zone this year! All in all it was such a great weekend!