March

I drove by the yearlings and they seemed to be on display for  me! 

Miss June has no trouble bossing a calf (or anything else) around.  Kory said he told her to trail that calf in and she demanding a sorting stick. Ha.  

She was so pleased with her self that she used the "Sharp sticky thing" to move the hay for the Mama in the chute while her calf ate.  For lots of different reasons and situations, they have to put the cow in the chute/head catch to keep her still.  They open up the side and the calf steps up on that little platform and can eat with the Mama standing still. If the calf is needing help sucking or something, they can be right there close to help it eat.  I always tell/tease Kory that he's totally a Bovine Lactation Consultant.  

Here's the calf getting a nice meal and the Mama eating the hay Jaylie gave her.  Everyone is pleased! 

The homeschool group that we meet with on Wednesdays has a music class and the kiddos had a music show one night.  It was fun to see them perform and have fun.  

Sayler and Hayven came to town during their spring break! Yay for us! 

When they're together, they all love to jump on the hay bales.  

Hayven and Quinn are such sweet buddies.  

What I wouldn't give to know what they were discussing here.  

The most fun thing happened to me! I got ZERO pictures and I'm SO MAD.  But one day, Kory said "You have surprise company coming to visit.  You'll go to Billings to pick them up on Thursday." So fun!!!!  So me and Jaylie set off to Billings to the airport to pick up "the mystery guest" as we referred to her.  I walked in the aiport and looked for a familiar face.  I saw KASEY WILSON!!!!!! One of my dearest and best friends had flown from Texas for part of her spring break.  What a friend! It turns out, Kory and contacted her a few months ago because he knows this is a difficult time of year. I spend a lot of time without Kory, doing all the parent stuff alone, and we all get pretty worn down.  He knew Kasey would be a dose of fun and a great boost for me.  What a man! We had a great time while Kasey was here.  We said SO MANY WORDS and had a great time.  She got to see a calf born and we showed her a little around town. It was such a fun visit and so good to have some time with her.  All of the things Kory was hoping the visit would be it was that and more!  Of course she didn't come empty handed, she brought these glasses for the kids! 

Miss Pouty girl didn't get her way.

Towards the end of her visit, things got a little crazy.  Kanyon had been complaining of his stomach hurting and saying there was a porcupine in there.  By Saturday afternoon, he couldn't walk, laugh, cough, or anything else without it hurting really bad. We were all quite uncomfortable because this was VERY similar to how his shunt infection started in Seattle.  We saw our PCP on Friday and got bloodwork and X-rays done.  Nothing really alarming showed up so we just kept on rolling hoping for improvement.  When things were worse on Saturday, we talked with the Neurosurgery team in Seattle and went back and forth on what to do.  It was frustrating for everyone because we didn't know if anything was going on, but after what we'd all just been through, we were scared that it might  be happening again.  So we talked and debated and the Dr's said they really wanted Kanyon's shut to be tapped so that they could test the CSF to make sure there was no infection.  No one was going to feel very comfortable until that was done.  Somewhere in there, we decided that me and Kanyon would just fly to Seattle and see how he was and they could see us in the clinic on Monday.  If we got there and things were worse, we could go to their ER.  So we bought tickets to Seattle and hurried to get to Billings.  Poor Kasey was with us through all of this, so she went with us to Billings.  She was going to be flying out early Sunday morning anyways so thankfully it didn't cut our trip too short.  On the way to Billings Kanyon had this really weird episode that scared us both.  I didn't want to get on  a plane with him like that so we just went to the ER in Billings.  This was SOOOO me and Kasey.  She has been with me through so many medical appointments, it was almost comical that she was along for this one.  They ran a few tests in Billings, but couldn't find anyone that was comfortable tapping his shunt.  SOOOOOOOOOOO they sent us to Seattle.  Kasey left the hospital late that night.  She was able to use our car to get her to the hotel and airport.  The care flight team got to us around midnight and we headed out to Seattle. I was annoyed that this was happening and PRAYING this was NOT the same trouble we'd just had.  The flight was smooth and we got to the ER there at Seattle Children's about 4 am.  The ER doesn't know night or day so it was confusing.  Different people were in and out checking things out.  New X-rays, etc.  A neurosurgeon came and tapped the shunt and we waited and waited.  Around 9am they told us the fluid was negative so that was good. But they wanted to keep him in the hospital to see if we could figure out what was going on.  Kanyon kept asking "Are we going to spend the night here?" We DID just spend the night there but he didn't know it.  We got to our room and one of our old nurses was our nurse and she was literally dancing a jig to welcome us. 

Here we are back in our all to familiar position of hospital bed+hair twirling. 

 We were relieved that there wasn't an infection so that took tons of stress off of us. Somewhere in there I missed an entire night's rest, so the first night we were in the room I was HAPPY to SLEEP!  We spent a couple of days trying to figure exactly what was going on, but we never could figure out exactly what the problem was.  There was some inflammation on his intestines and a few other things, but nothing that gave us a lot of information.  After a couple of days, he got better and decided that we could head home.  While we were there, we were able to meet with the program director for their Tone Management Program which offers some surgeries and programs that we are looking into for Kanyon. I was glad to have those visits face to face so at least we got something good from all of this.  

While I was gone, Jaylie was kissing Murphy, as usual.  

We had a much easier flight home.  Some friends in Billings had taken our car to their house to save us on parking $$.  They returned the car so that when our flight got in at midnight we had a car waiting.  The car had been washed and a bag of snacks was in the front seat. Such thoughtful, helpful friends.  Since it was super late, we got a hotel in Billings and crashed that night.  We headed home the next day a little baffled as to what had happened but mostly just REALLY glad it was no big deal.  We have since found a Neurosurgeon in Great Falls that will tap his shunt if this were to ever happen again.  Yay.  

In the rush of leaving for Billings, we DID NOT TAKE A PORCH PICTURE WITH KASEY! I'm still not over it.  

Here we are in the care headed home from Billings.  This is how Kanyon travels and it makes me laugh every time.  

We did lots of elevator riding while we were in the hospital.  We went to the gift shop and Kanyon picked out a couple of things for Q and J.  All of this doesn't just affect Kanyon, these 2 go through their own disruptions when this sort of thing happens.  We just wanted them to know we love them and are proud of how they handle things even when its hard.  

Thus ends all medical drama.  I hope to have nothing more to report for a very long time.