Vaccinations

When it comes to vaccinations, there are more opinions out there that I can count. My friend recently lent me a new book "The Vaccine Book" by Robert W. Sears , which I have yet to read. Overall I feel vaccinations are very important, though many raise questions about how many a person should get, when they should get them, etc.

And that brings me to the flu shot. This is not a "mandatory" vaccine, though it is often recommended. I had influenza once as a teenager and let me tell you, it was miserable. Since then I have been motivated to get my flu shot annually, though I missed a few years of it in college.

Today I am attending the funeral for 13 year old Katie Haggard. Their family used to live in our ward (before we moved here) and we actually met them when we moved to Connecticut. They are an amazing family. While visiting some friends here in Washington with her mom, Katie started feeling sick. Her mom took her to the doctor and within an hour she had almost passed out from lack of oxygen. Katie had MRSA pneumonia. MRSA is a drug resistant form of staph. The disease hit her lungs hard and she was put on ECMO (life support). ECMO is okay for awhile, but if you are on it for too long, it can create problems of its own.

So how does this relate to the flu shot? Doctors in this area are saying when immunocompromised by something like influenza, people are more susceptible to MRSA (which normal healthy people can be carriers of). They are encouraging people to get their shots.

So would a flu shot have helped Katie? I don't know. I don't think you really can spend too long on questions like that, because you really don't know what the circumstances were that led to the disease.

My heart has broken over and over this week for their family.

Katie passed away on Easter with her parents by her side, bitter-sweet in light of the holiday and the hope that comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal families.

undo

Yesterday I dropped some papers and my first thought was

Ctrl Z

Have I been spending too much time on the computer?

8 Months

I feel like there is an explosion of new things MaryP is learning to do. Every day it seems she figures out something new. I was certainly surprised to see her standing in her crib a few days ago!
She is a delight to have around. When I take her places people often comment on what a happy baby she is - she loves flashing her smile. She also loves to jump. And jump. And jump. Maybe she will more jump then walk when the time comes. But I'm not encouraging walking. This crawling business is keeping me busy enough! Exploring has also produced some bumps and bruises, but I guess that's part of the learning curve.




MaryP generally prefers regular household items (such as the pot we were playing with below) to colorful plastic toys, though she enjoys her toys if there is no wooden spoon or such available.

She has been sick the last two days and I believe she is much more pleasant to be around then I am when I'm sick! She gets that from her father. We sure love our sweet girl!!

Geek in Pink

One of the things I really respect about my little brother is that he is a go-getter. It's motivational for me. When he was little he started a face painting business and actually made some money. When he was a little older he decided he wanted to get his black belt so he started in Tae Kwan Do and several years later, black belt. He may be skinny, but you don't want to mess with him! :) He decided to audition for school musicals and was the lead his sophomore year. He's not afraid to try new things, even if it means falling down sometimes. He always gets back up and keeps going. His freshman year of college he joined an a capella group. They were ok. After his mission he and one of the other guys decided to form a new group so they held auditions and got some good responses.

Here's one of the songs, Geek in Pink**, that they performed at the BYU a capella jam in the fall. For a start-up a capella group, I think they are pretty good!! My brother is the whistler and some background singing in this one. I'm so proud of him for always being willing to stretch himself and try new things. He's already accomplished so much, I'm excited to see where he will go in life....

**I'm experiencing technical difficulties - my lack of internet savviness being the difficulty. Until I can fix that you'll have to trust me, it's good!

Mobility accomplished.

For your queue

If you are looking for a good book to read just by yourself or with your kids, here are 2 I'd highly recommend.

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

This is not your typical Dave Barry writing. It is the story of before Peter Pan, and how he became the flying boy he's known to be. The chapters are short and action packed. My book group read it (before I showed up) and it's fun for adults, but is technically a children's book. It stirs the imagination. It is recommended for 10 and up because the bad guys are bad (though with comic relief, of course) and scary things do happen (how could they not with pirates and such). I know I would have loved, loved, loved it as a kid. At the end of each (short, kid friendly) chapter you wonder, what next?!! I give it 2 thumbs up. *As a side note, the next 2 books after this one have a much darker bad guy. If your kids are nightmare prone like I was, I'd say stick with book 1, it's fun and has closure.

The other recomendation is for Alcatraz Verses the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson. Again a kids book, but Wood and I read it together. It's a quick, fun read and while it's definitely aimed at kids, some of the jokes are pretty funny for adults too.

So there you go, if you have no good books on your queue, here are two. But you don't have to take my word for it (bud-duh-dump-dump.)

Ski Colorado

Last week we made our way to Colorado to spend time with my parents and to ski. Things went so, so well!

For starters, it was a miracle (and I really mean a miracle) that we were able to go at all. Wood has to request leave (he can't just announce when he's taking time off, he has to get special permission) and he has been really busy working on his qualifications. Both of us thought he wouldn't get leave, but he put in the request anyway. We were amazed when it cleared.

Vacation planning is in my blood (it's genetic?) and so I'd already compared airline prices. We didn't find out that we definitely had leave until a few weeks before my parents were going skiing. Thankfully Southwest still had their amazing deals going and we were able to purchase very affordable tickets, hooray! We did not purchase a seat for MaryP, but since Southwest does not have assigned seating and there were open seats both ways we were able to take her in her car seat on the plane. One, I feel safer knowing that she is buckled in (though obviously if I had to I would have just held on tight). Two, she's much more likely to entertain herself in her car seat rather then on my lap. She was a good baby on both flights and enjoyed chatting with the people around us. Things just worked out so well.

I've missed skiing. Last year we didn't go at all because of the pregnancy. I'm not a pro at it by any means, but I've been skiing since I was 5 and I enjoy it.

*As a side note, one of the humbling things about being married to Wood is that he is just so good at everything he does. He's picked up on skiing really quickly which, while wounding my ski ego, makes it a ton of fun to ski together. He's so talented! :)

Anyway, growing up my family used to get up early, drive to the slopes, get dressed in all of our ski gear in the car, ski all day with a brief lunch break in the crowded, stuffy lodge, and fall asleep on the drive home. Skiing for multiple days and staying up in the mountains is a totally different experience. You wake up, have a relaxing breakfast, check out what the weather is like, finally decide to get ready, walk on out to the slopes, ski, come in for lunch, maybe a nap, and decide if you want to go back out in the afternoon or if you'd rather relax inside. Talk about luxurious. It was so fun.

Mom and hubby happened to be reading the same book

- the race was on to see who could get ahead.

Part of the invitation we were given was that my parents would watch MaryP so that we could ski together. It was nice to get a vacation for me, and MaryP loved her grandparents and all of the extra attention. I don't know if it was the altitude or attention, but for the first time in awhile she finally slept through the night. (Unfortunately with the grandparent factor gone, the waking up in the middle of the night has resumed....rats!)

One of the cutest things to me was that when my dad would give her horsie rides on his knee and then would stop and put his hands down, MaryP would reach out for his hands and start bouncing on his lap as if to say "again, again!" I also got a kick out of seeing my mom with MaryP in the elevator (as I was coming in) going to check out the building. Talk about living it up. Around here it's "I need you to play with your toys while I _______" (fill in the blank with some task). We do play together, but she sure had a lot more attention last week!

We skiied Copper Mountain. I wish I would have taken the camera out with me. The weather was perfect (30's-40's) and the views from the top of the lifts were absolutely spectacular. I can't even describe how amazing it was to look out over a snow covered expanse of the Rocky Mountains. Breathtaking. Oh, and since it's not spring break yet there were hardly any lift lines. Were we spoiled or what?!

Here is a picture I found online. It doesn't do the view justice, but you get the idea.
So we're already talking a fabulous ski vacation. But to top it all off as a birthday gift my parents watched MaryP one evening so that the two of us could go out to dinner. It's been awhile since we've really had a date and we haven't seen much of each other recently. So it was a perfect gift.

Sure there were little glitches here and there, but why dwell on those when, as you can see, things went so well.

Thanks Mom and Dad for a great time!