kidney stone(s)

 He is all smiles in this picture.  

That's because he is doped up.

I am pretty sure he can now empathize with his laboring patients.

Robert woke up around 2am on Tuesday morning in severe pain.

He decided by 4:30am that his pains were the real deal, so he woke me up to take him to the hospital.

Through labored breathing, I heard, "Kim, I need to go to the hospital - I have a kidney stone."  

After a CT scan, they discovered that Robert had a 5mm stone in his left kidney and a 3mm stone in his right.

They did lithotripsy to break up the stone in his left kidney.

He gets to look forward to lithotripsy on the other side in the near future.

hiking

Haley, Mia, and Addi were my hiking partners a couple of Saturdays ago.  Besides being rather warm and having somewhat of a bathroom emergency, we enjoyed our morning hike up to the Wind Cave.  I'm not sure this is my favorite hike, but it is conveniently located, easy to access, relatively fast, and most importantly, it has a bathroom at the foot of the trail!  Major bonus!

random pictures

We have a no TV (no screens) rule in the house during the week.

Even though there seems to be a lot of complaining about this rule and it is often broken, it is nice to see that, when forced to, the kids will use their imaginations to entertain themselves.

I think that, if I got rid of every toy in the house except for My Little Ponies and sticky tape, Quinn would be quite content.

 Quinn has started a jazz/tap class on Wednesday nights.

Even though her class varies in size from week to week, she is loving it!

 Here is Haley on her first day of classes this semester.

She has a pretty light schedule this year except for a math class that she is working on.

 Robyn and her friend Shea went on a campout a few weeks ago.

This picture made me laugh - they look like little people.

 Robyn showing her little bro some love at the football game.

 Apparently Quinny learned to tie her shoes in kindergarten.

Hallelujah!

I have very little tolerance when teaching kids how to do this.

The only bummer is that I've been tying her shoes for her for who knows how long.

 A rainbow after the torrents of rain lately.

55th wedding anniversary

We had a nice celebration the other day here at the house.

Grammy and Grandpa have made it to 55 years!

Grammy said, "It's hard to believe that much time has passed."

 Ashley made all of the desserts and brought and arranged the flowers.

The brilliant orange roses popped against the creamy white assortment of flowers.

When I first saw the cake with the flower petals on top, I thought they were real petals.

I was wrong!

Ashley created those gorgeous petals out of gum paste.

Not only were they beautiful and realistic looking, they were tasty!

I'm not sure how it happened, but I didn't get a picture of Rick and Shana's girls.

Trust me, they were there!

When their girls get with my girls and then team up with Allison, the squeals, giggles, running, and screaming (yes, screaming) reaches a pitch that can only be described as shrill.

They REALLY enjoy each other.