Holidays and this and that.

 Hello friends, I'm sorry it's been so long, just a lot of busyness of life plus navigating around all these crazy restrictions. Thanksgiving was nice and quiet.We were going to have relatives come, but one has to take immune suppressing meds, so taking a flight wouldn't be a very good idea, so it was just us.Several days before Thanksgiving we put up all of our Christmas decorations. That took three whole days. It was nice to have it all done before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving the kids helped make the food we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, yams, pies and much more.We also watched several movies, ate a delicious meal, called relatives and then played games. It was wonderful and such a fun day.

The Christmas season was enjoyable although we all missed the usual things we normally do.We missed concerts and plays, Disney on ice, parties and get togethers and hockey. We did do some caroling outside of a nursing home.The people were so thrilled.We went to Zoolights and Port Gamble and went around neighborhoods looking at lights.We unfortunately didn't make it to Spanaway lights.Too many seizure days.We enjoyed spending time together,watching movies,making cookies and a gingerbread house, and sometimes going out to eat.

We still unfortunately have to eat outside in a tent when eating out so ridiculous! You can't sit in a restaurant social distanced apart but can all be crammed in a tent together it makes zero sense.Christmas eve and day were very nice.We watched movies and in the morning had our traditional Eggs Benedict and Strawberry Belgian Waffles.Ariel helped make the turkey and we opened gifts.Unfortunately she started having seizures and spent the rest of the day in bed,but at least she had a great morning.

 

She did end up getting nerve blocks before Christmas.My hubby got me an exercise bike for Christmas I wanted.It feels good to get some exercise.I miss ice skating and going to the gym,so it's nice to have this as we are in the throws of winter and it's way too cold to do much of anything outside.No snow yet though.

Michael hanging out at Port Gamble.We sure missed their Country Christmas event this year.

The deer family love hanging out in our yard getting the last of the apples from our trees.

 

 An amazing neighborhood display.

                        Getting a much needed nerve block.

             Singing carols for the residents of Cottesmore.

Hanging out at Bass Pro

Ariel loves this tortilla blanket Daniel got her.He also got her a yodeling pickle,which she also loves.Two days after Christmas Michael and Daniel got baptized.I was getting ready for church when Ariel had a Generalized Tonic Clonic or Grand Mal,so I wasn't able to go,but fortunately I was able to watch it online.

After that I did a deep cleaning in the house and took all the indoor Christmas decor down.It always feels nice to have a bit more space.Our house is not very big and with six adults living here it gets a bit crowded,especially since we're indoors so much in the winter.I put up some winter decor and got everything ready for New Years Eve.Even got my nails done.I've been getting them done since this summer first time in my life.It feels good to have pretty nails and toes.My gal Kissi does an amazing job.

We decided to get takeout from The Old Spaghetti Factory one of our favs and had some chips and dips,appetizers and dessert.We played games and watched movies and popped our poppers and blew our horns at midnight.The following day I made a prime rib dinner with twice baked potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls and sparkling cider and we all had fun opening crackers with party favors in them.

Since New Years we've been dealing with a lot of seizures from both Ariel and Daniel.Ariel started a new med that seems to have done nothing but make her seizures worse.We've also had some major family health issues.She has had more nerve blocks.She gets a new one on Monday and Gilbert had surgery for the third time on his foot.Hopefully it was finally done right this time.Before the surgery we celebrated his birthday.

Ariel finally got her new front tooth.She was supposed to get it like a month before,but unfortunately started having seizures at the dental office and so we had to reschedule.There's promise of things starting to open back up.Hopefully, Daniel and I really miss skating.

 Gilbert will be home for the next several months and I'm going to be reorganizing again.It's just challenging with everyone being home and it being too cold to use the yard.Nicholas is still working and loving his job.We will be celebrating his birthday soon.

Thank you for the continued prayers for our family.

Linn

Jan/Feb updates.

Hello friends well as usual things are always crazy busy around The Marrero household.

 Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great one.

 Our New Years Eve started with taking Ariel to get casted from her injury on Dec 11th she had a seizure in the bathroom causing her to bang her arm on the toilet and tub.My kids bathroom is pretty small.After several trips to urgent care where they pretty much said oh it's just a sprain and blew it off it kept getting worse more painful and swollen.Finally after many phone calls and fighting with our HMO I finally was able to take her to The Sports Medicine specialist.

 He did an ultrasound and discovered she had something called post traumatic fat necrosis.He said it's an injury that takes like 3 months to heal from.So he wanted her casted to prevent further injury from seizures.He was so nice and kind and understood our frustration.

 

When I took her to get the cast unfortunately it turned out the P.A Ortho seemed to think we were there for a second opinion and once again blew everything off like her injury was no biggie.Due to Ariel's seizures she gets injured a lot.Over the years she has had many,many breaks and sprains none have behaved like this one getting worse and more painful over time instead of better.He was not going to cast her until he made a phone call to The Sports Medicine doctor who told him he better.

 It was all very frustrating and Ariel was just very upset after that appointment,so I got her this stuffed elephant to compensate.After that we ordered Chinese food and got our usual items for root beer floats and cupcakes and came home.We pretty much just watched movies and did a few confetti cannons at midnight.

Other happenings this month Daniel joined a new hockey team,we had our annual bowling party with The Seattle Thunderbirds,which is always a blast and celebrated Gilbert's birthday.

                                Happy Birthday to you!

Ariel had so many doctors appointments .because her injury just was not looking better.The only good thing was my dad had given me gift cards for IHOP so Ariel and I were able to take advantage of those before appointments and our daughter had given us movie gift cards,so we went and saw Mary Poppins and Into The Spiderverse.

We also went to several hockey games one where our good friends The Andrusiak's were there.Their son Zack used to play for The Seattle Thunderbirds.

                             Teddy's for the teddy bear toss.

Other happenings were Ariel getting a bone scan,because the doctor was concerned she had something called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.It's where your injury gets discolored,it actually becomes a different color and just deep burning pain.So she got an injection and then they took some pictures and you had to wait 3 hours and take more pictures.So we went to lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory one of our personal favorites and then used our gift cards to The Cheesecake Factory.

                                    Getting scanned.

Unfortunately her arm lit up like a Christmas tree and with all of her other symptoms the doctor diagnosed her with CRPS.That a whole other ballgame that she has to get nerve blocks and go to physical therapy for.

Other happenings were going to our annual zoo banquet that was held in the new aquarium and having a Tiki party there.It was so much fun there were even live dancers and Daniel was called up to dance with them.

Nick's birthday was on February 3rd he is at Fort Sil,so we weren't able to celebrate with him,but did call him and gave him some money to buy himself something nice.

              Then our biggest event hit Snowmageddon!

 Here in Western Washington we don't get a lot of snow.It's a rare event if we get more than a couple days.When we do get snow it's usually not much and it usually melts quickly.The news kept saying it was coming,but we've learned not to trust them because they often over hype everything and it turns out to be nothing.Check out Youtube and search for the news caster in a canoe where she's talking about flood waters in her canoe as two guys stroll casually behind her and the water is only a bit over their ankles.It's pretty funny.

Oh and this is on the heels of a very rare never heard of tornado that hit in December in  the town we live in and did quite a bit of damage.Anyway we were pretty stocked up had plenty of food, gas for the cars, firewood and such well it did happen and we ended up with two and a half feet of snow.It was totally crazy.Our power went out twice 6 and 17 hours no fun at all,but at least we had heat as several people didn't and I felt so bad for them.We also had to unfortunately cancel several of Ariel's appointments.Oh and hubby is still recovering from foot surgery he had in December.

We did manage to have some fun sledding and making snowmen.Daisy absolutely loves the snow.Unfortunately she's so tiny and because she has wavy hair it just makes snowballs on her and she gets buried.We also kept throwing out peanuts for the squirrels and bread for the birds.

                                                    Some snow fun.

 

Michael's snow penguin

Hopefully it just keeps melting there is still a lot on the ground.It all started a week ago Friday and we were finally able to get out on Wednesday.Thursday was Valentine's Day,so I had to get out to get our traditional heart shaped pizza.We also had cookies,chocolate and opened gifts.Ariel has a lot of upcoming doctors appointments.So hopefully the snow is done for the year.It is pretty to look at though.           

 So that's the news for the last couple of months.I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!
God bless,Linn