Okay...I've been really, really slow to update our blog. We've been a wee bit busy.
First, we moved right before Thanksgiving. Below is a picture of our AMAZING kitchen! I absolutely LOVE it! It makes cooking/baking so fun!
Speaking of baking: I've been baking tons of stuff! For example home made rolls and breads.
Proof that they turned out:
It is the recipe that my Grandma Penrod used when she worked at the school making lunches. These rolls are awesome. These did not look as good as Grandmas or my Mom's but they sure tasted awesome!
Alan got his wish for his birthday...he got a kitty. Her name is Munchie (& she was being uncooperative in each shot I took of her). She is a good kitty but she does have some schizo tendencies.
Her favorite toy is a rope like tassel that came around a blanket that Al got from his work for Christmas. She will chase after it and even do a run and skid around a corner to get at it.
A couple weeks before Christmas, Alan had to have surgery again on his wrist. The original repair had developed a lot of scar tissue around the tendons and they were stuck to the bone with the scar tissue. So he had it cleaned up and it is doing MUCH better.
My work had a Christmas party and the theme was DI Formal. We had dinner at Jean's house (which is awesome) and then went bowling. It was hilarious! The best party yet. (The lady on the left is Jean - - her dress has Christmas ornaments hanging off the bottom. Louis, the only guy in the picture, got his super swanky coat from DI!)
We spent Christmas Eve at Alan's sister's house doing Fondue (super yummy) and then we drove through the night to my parent's cabin in Island Park. We arrived around 2AM (I believe). My brother, his boys, and my brother-in-law cut down this BEAUTIFUL tree before the rest of the family got there and decorated it. It was gorgeous.
I hounded my family for some pictures of it decorated because we are notorious for packing our camera with us and then not taking any pictures.
My favorite Christmas gift was my new wheat grinder!!
This grinder makes grinding a whole lot easier than my hand crank one and the flour is so fine! Just like store bought. I have a killer recipe for whole wheat bread that I make at least once a week. I would make more at a time but we don't have the freezer space! For anyone looking for a new refrigerator here is some advice....the side by side have more usable room that the ones with the freezer on the bottom. We bought a new fridge for the house that was stainless steal. It has the freezer on the bottom and it wouldn't even hold what we had in our old freezer and this thing was BIGGER! So deceiving!
Anywhooo....
Alan injured himself again this last Wednesday evening playing volleyball. His boss plays on an inter-mural team and wasn't going to be able to make one of the games. He asked Alan to sub for him. So the last thing I said to him was "be careful and don't hurt yourself". I was more thinking about his wrist that had just been repaired. I was afraid that he would injure it while bumping the volleyball. So I get this call from him saying "I think I blew my knee out." Sad thing was that it happened AFTER the game! They were just practicing spiking the ball. He pushed off his left foot in prep to spike and felt like someone hit his knee (outside) with a ball really hard. When he came down his patella had dislocated and was on the left side of his leg. He had to straighten his leg out and pull the patella (knee cap) back into place.
We took him to TOSH (the orthopedic specialty hospital) the following day and had it evaluated. We had XRAYs and then opted to also have a MRI. And it was a good thing that we did too. The doctor who saw us first thought that Alan had ONLY dislocated his patella not that he had any other damage done. The MRI showed that his patellar tendon had almost completely torn & it was only hanging on by a "couple strands". Even after the specialist got the results of the MRI he still didn't understand the severity of the damage. It wasn't until Alan (very bluntly) said "so you can rehab this thing even when I can't even lift my leg?? The doc looked very confused, grabbed the MRI scan and took them into the hall to show to a surgeon. The surgeon came in and said, "yup, you torn your patellar tendon and you need surgery."
You can see from the anatomy picture above the patella tendon and how it connects to the patella (keeping it in place) and ultimately meets up with the quad muscle. Al's patella tendon was almost completely disconnected. He also torn the retinaculum (fibrous tissue on side of knee that helps hold patella in place.
And he sprained his MCL. To fix it all, they had to drill anchors into his knee cap and then suture the tendon to the anchors.
Needless to say, he is in some pain...drilling into any bone is no fun. I don't think he expected it to hurt this much b/c all of this other surgeries he has not needed to take pain medicaiton, but bone pain is MUCH different.
Here he is chilling in the massage chair.
He wanted to show off his fancy new gear....Yea, he doesn't look very comfy does he?
The rehab is supposed to be a real pain and he is not expected to be back to 100% for at least 3 months. He is pretty much going nuts b/c he can't do anything.
Last, but not least, I cut off 9 inches of my hair.
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I was a little shocked at first...notice my tentative smile. Kind of like..."What did I just do?" It took some adjusting but I really like it. Here is a crappy self taken photo of the back.
Thanks Vanessa for giving me a great new due!! Love it!!
That's all for right now.
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