Frenchie's back surgery went fantastic!

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to keep you up to date on how Frenchie is doing. The surgery went fantastic and the doctors are very pleased.

We stayed over at a friends house wednesday night since we had to be at the hosptial at 5:50 in the morning to prep Frenchie for his 7:30 surgery. Frenchie went through prep and very little nervousness. He came out of his surgery at 1:43 and as you will read below did not get to his room until 5:30. The doctor came and explained that everything went fantastic.

everything went very smooth with the exception that his room was not ready after surgery so he had to stay in the recovery room for 4 hours and listen to about 20 different heart monitors going from all the other patients! Frenchie's dad stayed with him last night and helped to keep the nurses on track. Needless to say the overnight nurses were very weak on their performance in regards to helping Frenchie. They did not have him switch positions every few hours like he was supposed to so he was on his back since he had gotten out of surgery at 1:30 Thursday. We have let the staff know the issue and we will make sure those issues do not happen again for the rest of his stay.

Today however is going better. One of the doctors from the surgery came in and checked Frenchie out and said everything looked great! Frenchie is also managing the pain and getting ready to get up and walk so I will let you know how that goes! As for me, I am glad that yesterday is over. It was very emotional to sit in the waiting room and not be able to physically be next to the person you love to comfort him but spititually We were next to each other the entire time!

I am so proud of him! I could have never gone through what he did as calmly and patient as he has! He is one tough cookie! He is going to put his brace on for the first time so I will write later!

BEWARE of rattlesnakes in AZ

There was a place in Arizona that actaully had baby rattlers in a box for people to see! CRAZY!.....

HAHAHAHAHAHA....just kidding it's just baby rattles! :)

Hot Air Balloons floating across the Arizona sunset

In the Evening, there are hot air balloons that float over DW and DH's home. Some nights the sky is peppered with hot air balloons.

However, this night there were only 2 balloons out. There was one morning that Frenchie and I saw 6 balloons floating over the foothills that we were hiking on.

The company that owns these hot air balloons has 4 different designs that are on the balloons.

However, all of the balloons that we saw had the cactus design on the balloon. We did not see any of the other 3 designs.

And if you wanted to you could take a ride on the hot air balloons for the bargain price of $175.00 per person!

It was very cool to see how amazingly beautiful these hot air balloons looked amidst the Arizona sunset!

Mimi's Cafe

Wednesday night in Arizona we went out to eat and decided to try a restaurant that of course we had not been to but a place that DW and DH had not been to also. They had driven by this placed Mimi's Cafe, and every time it was packed. We went there at about 7pm so the main dinner rush was over and we did not have wait to get seated. Our food was fantastic!

DW and DH's burgers were terrific and very HUGE!

My regular size Cobb Salad. It was a very cool presentation because instead of putting all the ingredients on top of each other they were arranged vertically on top of the lettuce!

Frenchie with his gigantic sandwich. Frenchie was impressed the the mushrooms in his sandwich were so big that the mushroom covered the entire length of the bread.

The decor at Mimi's was as delightful as the food. When we looked above our table this is what we saw:

Outside there were absolutely gorgeous flowers!

It was a fantastic and relaxing evening!

Phoenix, AZ - We miss you!

Last week we spent the week in Phoenix, AZ. For spring break Frenchie and I decided that we needed a much needed vacation. We stayed with our friends DW and DH and we had a blast! We did so much, took so many pictures, and have so many things to tell you that I will have to break up the vacation into multiple blogs!

So DW and DH picked us up from the airport and that afternoon we were off to Tommy Bahama's in Scottsdale. Here is the outside of Tommy Bahama's. upstairs there is a patio and down stairs also has dining outside. During the lunch hour, fabulous burgers are served but I could not get over the extraordinary view from our table.

While we were in Scottsdale on Sunday we walked around Keirland Commons (DW and DH help me correct the spelling please :) which is the shopping area around Tommy Bahama's.

Do you notice the clouds or lack there of? It is the middle of March!

Since it is the Easter season all over the shopping area there where grass sculptures cut and shaped into Bunnies.

There is a bar down in the area called Oceans, so it is only fitting that outside the bar and restaurant there is a sculpture of gold dolphins.

Don't worry more amazing photos are on the way!

Christmas 2007

Happy New Year Everyone!

We had a wonderful holiday season. Christmas Eve was again wonderful with family members enjoying the evening. Frenchie decided to try a new oyster soup recipe as opposed to the previous years of the milk mixture and oysters. This year was a broth filled with the aroma and taste of vegetables, oysters, and tortellinis. Some liked it and some are politely and silently reminiscing about the traditional past. We of course still had the awesome rice casserole and A delightful pineapple dish. And again my mom out did her self and had a variety of decadent chocolates which are impossible to refuse!

Christmas day Frenchie and I went over to my parents house in the morning and had lunch with my parents and spent a lazy afternoon - Frenchie and my dad took long deserved naps and my mom and I made angel ornaments for our Christmas trees (for next year). Quite relaxing and quite enjoyable.

That evening we went to Frenchie's parent's house. V wanted to play Playtion2 so Frenchie packed up the game brought it with us. We had a fabulous meal and enjoyed sitting around opening presents as the roast was cooking to perfection. We did however play a little trick on V... She has been adoring and dreaming about our puppies ever since we got Petit and Blanche. We needed to wrap her present up and could not find a study box so as Frenchie and I were sitting in the living room contemplating what to do, we both looked at the traveling dog cage...The perfect size to fit her presents... So, in to the travel cage the presents went! When we arrived at the house we pretended that the cage (which was covered with a blanket) needed to go in a warm spot and of course we could not have it in the house since the "puppy" would bark. When it came time for her to open her present, her step father brought in the cage and V started to get all excited. She had red cheeks from getting all excited and a big grin on her face, which was promptly eliminated as soon as she lifted the blanket. Yes.. we could end up on the naughty list for that trick...but...it was totally worth it! Sorry Santa!

R and D with the apron that I made them..from the looks of things... R followed the advice on the apron!

Here is Frenchie with his new shirt combo...It looks really familiar though...and I just can't figure out from where....

The other surprise that night was the ACTUAL reason the Playstation2 was brought over. Dave and I had been up the the Mall of America for our annual first date a few weeks earlier. While in GameStop I commented on how much fun a certain game would be to play. Well, Christmas day I open up to find the game that I had wanted a couple of weeks earlier...DANCING WITH THE STARS!

Here is Dave with the DANCING WITH THE STARS mat...Looks like Mario Lopez?????

We had a wonderful Christmas with our families. We are blessed to have them in our lives. Yet we still remember and miss those that were unable to be there with us. We celebrated together in spirit!

Joky and Jordan's Wedding

I have been horrible about keeping up with the blog so forgive me if this is more of a reporter style than more of a story...

My cousin's got married on Nov. 24th in LaCrosse. My sister and niece came up for the wedding and stayed the weekend. We had thanksgiving at our house and then the next day Anne, Squirt and myself headed up to the Mall of America on Black Friday...Yes you read right...Black Friday. It actually was not as busy as we were expecting it to be but as much fun as we were expecting!

Saturday was off to LaCrosse to celebrate my cousin's wedding! We timed it just right so that Squirt had some playtime in the pool and then it was off the the wedding! The ceremony was absolutely wonderful and I wish I had pictures but just as the ceremony started I decided to check and see if the camera was going to work and guess what?........it did not work! So sadly to say there are no pictures of the actual ceremony but we have great family pictures that we took at the reception.

Here is my sister, my dad and myself, I think this is one of those few select photos we have with my dad and all of us dressed up!

Funny thing is that this is the first time that I can remember in my 25 years of existence that my dad has worn a different color shirt and tie besides blue! Way to go Dad!








Me and my sister...









...and me and my cousin!

We had a wonderful time in LaCrosse and can't wait to go back!