Ella turns 10!

Every time one of my kids get older I am just amazed at how old they are getting.  It was just the same with Ella this year. I can't believe that she is 10 years old already.  Really?  This is crazy.  I was still recovering from my surgery so all of the party had to come to me.  Ella had a fun birthday.  She had a party the weekend after her birthday.  She took her friend swimming at the swimming pool.  She had a blast! 

Ella felt spoiled from her family. She got exactly what she asked for.  She got a fuzzy poster to color, a movie, one of the dork diaries books, and Disney Infinity for the wii.  

Natalie made Ella her cake this year.  

I am just so happy to have Ella in my family!  She is such a kind, loving little girl and I can't imagine not having her around.  She still loves to cuddle.  She loves to play outside.  She loves to hang out with her siblings.  She wishes that she was a big girl and I wish that she would stay little forever.  I love you Scoobs!

Happy Halloween

This year at Halloween time I couldn't participate in the whole Trick or Treating thing because I had had surgery the day before.  The kids were on their own this year.  They still had a lot of fun trick or treating and walking around the neighborhood.  They got a ton of candy too.

Ella went as "Willie" from Duck Dynasty

Tyler went as a hobo.  They both did a great job putting together their costumes.  The best thing about this Halloween was that there wasn't snow on the ground and it wasn't that cold outside.  It was nippy but not nearly as cold as it has been in years past.

This and That

There has been a lot of things going on in this house.  But some of it is not worth a whole post on so I just am throwing some pictures out there.

Natalie wanted me to take a picture of her and send it to my mo because she is wearing the shirt that my mom got her.  If your child wants you to take her picture at 16 take it and then blog about it because it doesn't happen often.

Natalie got a certificate for participating in Football.  It was a fun night to Nate and I got to spend with her.  We got to have dinner and watch a highlight reel of the football season.

This package came from my mom and dad for Tyler and Ella's birthday.  My dad ordered Ty this knife clear back in July off of Amazon.  We waited and waited and waited for it.  My dad would call every few days and ask if we got the package yet.  Of course we hadn't.  Finally after waiting 3 month for the package he contacted Amazon.  They informed him that the company went out of business and that he would not be getting his package.  Which would of been nice to know I don't know say 2 months earlier.  He had to find Tyler a new knife.  Tyler was super excited about getting his knife.  He loves it.

Ella got her birthday present at the same time.  She got a whole bunch of jewelry from my mom.

Here is Ella wearing some of the earrings that my mom got for her.

I just liked this picture of Natalie so I had to throw it in there.

For Young Women in Excellence each of the girls stood up and spoke about one of their projects that they had worked on for the year. Nichole talked about her restaurant management competition that she did and Natalie talked about Flag Football and about working hard to get on the honor roll. I am so proud of both of my girls and how hard that they worked this year toward their Young Women in Recognition award.

Look Ma two shoes.  This picture was taken 2 weeks after surgery (it really should of gone in my previous post) but I am in a pair of shoes.  Not one shoe but two!!!

Tyler got an award at school for having perfect attendance for the first quarter.  Go TY!!!

Ella joined her school choir and practiced after school every Thursday for 2 months to get ready for a singing performance.  This particular performance was a gathering of all of the schools in this area including the high schools and middle schools.  It was fun to watch all of the kids sing.  

Natalie and Nichole had some friends over to help paint some decorations for the stake dance.  They were very tired by the end of the night.  They decided it would be fun to take a nap together on the couch.  It doesn't look very comfy to me.

One of my least favorite things about living in AK is that it gets very cold very fast here.  This was the first day that we hit negative weather.  It was even colder then -7 that day but this was the only time that I was in the car to be able to show you.  It's days like this that I prefer to take Ella to school rather then wait with her at the bus stop.

Nichole wanted to be excused for the assembly at school.  I sent her in this note.  She didn't accept the first two versions of the note but was fine with the third. She told me what to write every time. In case you can't read it the first note says "This note is to excuse me from the assembly.  Nichole's Mom"

The second version says " Nichole says "I Jessica Musil would like to excuse Nichole for the assembly today",  There is that good"? Jessica Musil

The acceptable note says "Third times the charm I excuse Nichole Musil from the assembly."

Tyler wanted to make a folder covered in Duct Tape.  He worked really hard on it and it turned out quite well.

Ella doesn't mind having her picture taken.  She even takes selfies.

I love looking over and seeing these two boys having some quality time together. Even when it is playing on their ipods.

It's Surgery Time Again

Three days after I got back from vacation I underwent surgery again on my ankle.  This time I had some bone spurs removed that were making it so I could barely bend my ankle at all.  In my right ankle I have a normal range of motion think 70% in my left ankle I had 4%.  Which makes a lot of things in life very hard to do.  For example going up and down stairs, sitting down on the couch, or going up a hill (think walking flat on one foot and on your toes on the other ).  It has made for some painful times.  He also went in and cleaned out the never ending arthritis inside my ankle.  

Surgery day is always a very stressful day for me.  But to help alleviate some of the stress that I was going to be under and also my family I held a meal party where everyone in the family helped cut, chop, brown, and saute enough food to make 20 freezer meals.  This started out as something that I was only going to make a few of.  Top the 2 weeks post surgery that I would be non-weight baring.  Then it turned into having enough extra food that I was able to make more dinners.  On top of that the amazing ladies in my ward provided food for my family for 5 days.  What a stress relief that was.  And take my word for it I have some very good cooks in my ward.

The day of surgery arrived and I had to be at the hospital at 6:30 in the morning.  My surgery wasn't scheduled until later then that but I had to get the prep and pre=op stuff done for the day.  I changed into a gown and sat around in it for a very long uncomfortable amount of time.  My sweet husband stayed with me until they took me into the pre-op room.  After that he headed to work for a little bit and came back to wait for me at the hospital.  In the mean time because Ella would be home and unable to take care of herself waiting for the bus Nichole stayed home with her and went to school when the bus picked Ella up.  It's such a blessing having kids that can drive.  Parents with kids who can't drive let me tell you what a joyous day it is when they can!

After they took me into the pre-op room I had a consultation with an anesthesiologist about my options of drugs during the surgery.  Then the waiting game began.  I waited and watched as patient after patient left to go and get  their own surgery and I was still waiting for mine.  My friend who works at the hospital who didn't know I was having surgery that day walked by me and stopped to say "hi" for a bit.  That was nice to be able to get my mind off things for a while.

Finally it was my turn.  They wheeled me into the surgery room and I drifted off into a drug induced sleep for the next however long it took for the podiatrist to do the surgery on my leg.  When I finally came off the drugs I vaguely remember several people standing around me talking to me and about me.  One of them was Andrew my friend that said hi to me earlier.  I'm sure he just wanted to be around me to see if I said anything funny while I was coming to.  I apparently told the nurse that I was going to have to hit her.  But it was in a friendly way.  If there is a friendly way to threaten to hit someone.  They asked her when she graduated and she responded last year and they asked from High school and she said no.  I said good because if it was from high school I was going to have to hit you.  Like as in a your so young and I'm so old type of way.  Anyway about 20 minutes later when I came to all of the way and I was much more aware of things I asked her if Andrew was around  a little while ago and she said yes and that is when she informed me that I threatened her.

I got home from the hospital around 4 that afternoon.  It was a LONG day! I have to say that I do have the most amazing family that is so good at taking care of me.  They waited on me hand and foot and helped me out without complaining.  The next afternoon I was in a sever amount of pain.  My foot felt like it was going to fall off and none of the medicine that the podiatrist gave me worked.  I tried to call the office to let him know. I left messages but he never called me back.  The post op floor called me to see how I was doing and I told them what was happening.  The nurse was very concerned and told me that he would hunt down the podiatrist right now to figure it out.  I got a phone call back from the nurse and he told me that the doctor said that all he will do for you is tell you to go into the Emergency Room to have them rewrap my leg or if I can hold out until the next day I can go into the clinic to have them rewrap my leg.  I was in so much pain but the thought of crawling up the stairs, going down the steps to the garage, they crutching it into the ER was just unbearable to me.  I suffered with the pain and by the next day it was gone.  I will tell you though that I was miserable that whole night.  And I was one very unhappy patient.

I went into my 1 week post-op appointment and things were looking great.  I graduated from my ugly cast thing as seen below to a boot. I was partial weight bearing at the time.  I was not able to get my stitches taken out but was able to get the cast removed and moved into a boot.  I was also allowed to be 50% weight bearing.  It sure makes getting around the house and the stairs a lot easier that way.  Although I do have to say that I had a pretty sweet set up.  Marissa let me use her mini fridge and I kept it by my couch.  I was able to keep my lunches in there.  That made things so much easier.  I went back to the doctor a week later and he took my stitches out and told me that I could walk.  I also started Physical Therapy that week.  Which was super easy and all done at home (and was that way for a month). 

Viva Las Vegas

During the summer I got an email from a travel sight about some travel deals and I saw that a trip to Las Vegas was one of the deals.  The trip was at the price where I couldn't justify NOT buying it.  Okay so there is a lot of things that we could of done with the money but really with Nate working full time and going to school full time during the night we had to get away.  Let me tell you it was just what the doctor ordered.  After making the purchase clear back in April we ran into some complications when it came time to go.  Like Nate's working having an exercise scheduled and then having to pay more to change the days on the tickets.  Go Figure!  But we worked it out.  The kids spent their nights at The Murphy's house so we didn't have to worry about them. The flight to Las Vegas was a steal for a reason.  We had 2 layovers and spent almost 18 hours traveling.  That part was exhausting.  We left our house in Alaska at 9 pm and didn't make it to the hotel until 5:00 pm the next day.  After we arrived at the hotel we cleaned up, rested just for a bit and went out on the town.  OK honestly we were exhausted so we did clean up and we did rest for a little bit but our night on the town consisted of walking across the strip to New York New York (we stayed at The Excalibur Hotel) and eating Italian food at the restaurant there. We then walked back to the hotel and gambled a little bit (well Nate did while I watched.  I have a hard time loosing money.  I don't enjoy it as much as Nate does that's for sure).  We then crashed for the night.  

The next morning I got up bright and early and met my friend Ginger to go wedding dress shopping (I have several friends that live in Vegas so the deal I had with Nate is that I could do anything that I wanted during the day in Vegas and he would just gamble and we would meet up in the early afternoon for the rest of the night).  It was great to catch up with Ginger.  It has been years since I have seen her.  Seriously it has been almost 8 years since I saw her last and a lot of things have changed since then.  That evening Nate and I went to see the free shows on the strip in Vegas.  We also walked through different hotels to see what those looked like.

In the airport in Seattle.  It was our first layover.  We also stopped in Phoenix.

The fountain show at The Belagio.  It was awesome.  Nate and I saw the show 4 times.  It was probably my favorite part of the strip.

The fire/volcano show at The Mirage.

The next morning I didn't have to get up as early so I slept in for a bit.  I did meet up with two of my friends for lunch.  I saw Mindy Elison and Angela Passey.  I haven't seen Mindy since she moved from here 2 years ago and I haven't seen Angela since she left Mountain Home about 5 years ago.  We met up at The Cheesecake Factory in Caesars Palace.  It was nice to catch up and visit with them as well.  I sure have made a lot of friends living the military life.  Some I have lost contact with while others I can go years between seeing them.  Non the less I have made some amazing friends and getting to see them is always a bonus in my book.  These are some of the statues and fountains in Caesars Palace

Later that night we met up with Nate's cousin and  his wife for dinner.  We went to some restaurant that was a big mob hang out.  The food there was very good.  I ended up getting the kitchen sink Caesar salad.  It was super tasty and huge.  Nate got Veal.  He liked his salad better.  After we got back from dinner we went to see Chris Angel and his magic show.  Let me say it was the cheesiest thing that I have ever seen in my life,  I would not go to that again if they gave me free tickets.  But I did get to spend the night with my husband so that was a bonus! I took this picture outside the Luxor which is where we saw the Chris Angel show.

The next day was all about us! We spent the entire day together.  We went to A Hash House A Go Go for breakfast.  It was really, really tasty.  My only complaint is that their was too much food.  We then walked over to The Venusian and went to the National Geographic 50 most memorable photographs.  That was my favorite thing we did in Vegas.  They had the pictures displayed as at least a 3 foot by 4 foot photo.  Each one had a short biography about the photo, how it was taken, why it was taken, and who it was taken by.  Some of the photos brought me to tears.  They were truly amazing.  I walked out of there inspired.  I love how photography speaks to people or at least it speaks to me.  

We went back to the hotel and just hung out for a bit.  I went shopping to find souvenirs for the family while Nate did his own kind of spending money.  We took a short rest  because we had reservations for dinner at 4:30.  Yes that was the only time that we could get into the Gordon Ramsey Steak Restaurant. OK I am lying we could of gone at 10:30 at night.  I thought that 4:30 was the best time.  Let me just say that the food there was just outstanding.  The waiter brought us out 4 different kinds of bread to try.  He also brought out the different kinds of steak that they had to offer. Nate and I ordered the seared pork belly for an appetizer.  The pork belly was my favorite thing there.  It just melted in your mouth.  It had an amazing flavor and was all around very tasty.  We got the Beef Wellington for our main dish. Which is a fillet Mignon wrapped in a phillo dough. You bought your side separately so we got asparagus and another side that I just can't remember now.  We walked home from the restaurant and stopped to see the water show twice at The Bellagio.  The rest of the night we just hung out with each other and enjoyed each others company.  

This light fixture is supposed to simulate the movement of Gordon Ramsey's hand as he is making his famous Beef Wellington.

And this my friends is the world famous Beef Wellington.  It is melt in your mouth amazing.  I do have to say that it is a little hard to eat since your steak can come out of the dough that it is wrapped in.  Which is what happened to mine.

The next day was the most stressful part of the trip.  I get myself so wrapped up in travelling and the stress of it that I make myself sick.  We made it to the Las Vegas airport in plenty of time.  We made it to the gate in plenty of time but our flight was delayed.  Because of this we missed our connecting flight.  But unfortunately for us we couldn't get that fixed until we got to the next airport which happened to me Los Angelos.  We were supposed to go from LA to Phoenix to Anchorage instead we went from LA to Seattle to Anchorage.  It ended up being way better for us because we got to sit by each other from Seattle to Anchorage and we had the row to ourselves too.  Plus we ended up getting in at the same time.  When we got there we found out that the flight we would of been on was delayed for 2 hours.  The only tricky part was that they lost our luggage.  It went to Phoenix and we did not.  The airport ended up bringing it to us the next day.  

The trip to Vegas was EXACTLY what Nate and I needed! I am so glad that we made that trip!