Daddy Daughter Dance

Mark took Sarah to the Girl Scout Daddy Daughter Dance. It was a western themed dance so Sarah borrowed cowgirl boots and a plaid shirt from a friend. Mark borrowed a belt buckle. Guess we're still not that Texan after all! Mark also sported a new black cowboy hat that he got in OKC. One of the NAPA jobbers was appalled that Mark has lived in Texas for so long and didn't own one. So he bought Mark (and another DC guy) $300 hats! Yee haw!

Spring Break 2014

For the most part, it was dull. We didn't plan anything because I wasn't sure how I would be feeling at this point in my hip surgery recovery. Then, I ended up feeling pretty good and disappointed that we didn't go anywhere. Our SA connection could only get Spurs tickets for Sunday night (the night before school started again) so that didn't work. And Mark was feeling pretty Ho-Hum about his big birthday that Friday. We worked on Scout projects and played video games on the cold days.

On the nicest day of the week, we went to Rockledge Park on Lake Grapevine with friends.

For Mark's birthday, we went to Twelves Stones in Flower Mound with one other couple. We had a blast and ended up closing the place down. It helped that the manager was the dad of one of Sarah's friends who brought us free champagne, port with bleu cheese and walnuts, as well as a dessert for the birthday boy.

Sarah ate a green bean!

And liked it! Just had to document in case she forgets this in the future!

Hippy Chick: Post-Op Seven Weeks

Great news today! My surgeon said he couldn't hope for a better recovery and was pleased with my progress, my new x-ray and the way I was walking. I am approved for swimming, biking and the elliptical machine! I can take a bubble bath! I should aim for a 30 minute walk every day!

I explained that it was harder for me to do exercises and stretching with my "good" leg than it was for the "op" leg. In reviewing the non-bionic side of my hip x-ray, he said "well, it's shot so it's up to you when you want to replace that one. We just need to wait at least three months to reduce the chance of infection."

Wait. What?

He thinks my "good" leg (which is now my bad leg) is ready for replacement already? I was hoping to get three more years out of it, not three more months. So that was disappointing. But since we've already met our deductible for 2014, maybe it makes sense to do replace it later this year. That's a big decision I'll have to think about for a while though. I'm not in as much pain with that hip, but it's not flexible (making exercise and shoe tying more difficult) and it probably won't get better over time.

To be continued...

First Class Scout

Jacob continues to progress through the ranks of Boy Scouts. He just earned the rank of First Class ... which is about the half-way point to becoming an Eagle Scout!

Girl Scouts: Thinking Day

Sarah's troop participated in Thinking Day for Girl Scouts. Kind of a multicultural celebration where each troop teaches the others about a country. We chose India (because France was taken, and because one of the girls is Indian). The Indian family has three girls in it, so between those three girls and the mother, they had enough sizes of "salwars" that each of the girls in the troop had one to wear.

We prepped over several meetings; researching and creating our display, making SWAPS, animal masks, learning some Indian dance steps, and doing henna. The girls did a terrific job with their presentation, and were the only troop to dance! At the end, other girls were asking them to teach them some of the steps!

Special thanks to Tonya (who was visiting from San Antonio and got dragged to the event) who took all these pics!

100 Days of School

Lucas had to create something with 100 items for the 100th day of school. He wanted to use crayons and started to glue them haphazardly to a sheet of flimsy copy paper. The paper was soaked with glue in 30 seconds. So we switched gears and moved on to cardboard! I'm not proud to say that most of these crayons came from restaurants - maybe we eat out too much? We did recycle the 100 days of peace t-shirt that Ethan wore for the 100th day of school in Kindergarten!

Hippy Chick: Post-Op Weeks 3 & 4

This was not the return to tennis I was hoping for ...

The good news is that I was able to graduate from my walker and move on to a cane. Mark sent this pic from Walgreens with the choices. Can you guess which one I picked?** Which CANE! Not which box of condoms in the background! LOL!

Had a huge breakthrough in PT recently! I was really struggling to raise my op leg knee up while standing. And one day this week, it was like the hip flexor muscles came back to life! I can comfortably raise my knee 20+ times! It's still much harder to do it lying down, but I'm getting there!

**I ended up with the pink cane. It's actually covered in hot pink roses and is pretty ugly, but it was adjustable height, and had a cushioned handle. And it matched my sneakers! I don't need it to walk around the house much, but I will continue to use it for a while if I'm limping, sore from PT, or going to walk for a long distance.