What's up

Sunday we had the opportunity to bless Zaida. Due to the over stimulation that seems to occur every Sunday at church we set forth a plan which we thought was fool proof to ensure happiness and sleep for the baby. Eden took Zaida during Sunday school and fed her so she could fall back to sleep and thus be in a state of rest during sacrament meeting. However, Zaida, upon finishing her meal determined herself to be in high spirits wanted nothing to do with sleep and went about her time smiling and attempting to laugh, which turns out to be a lot of heavy breathes and squeaky sounds. Then sacrament meeting began and with the opening hymn so did the face of irritation. Zaida started to frown, then grunt, then scream. I took her out and tried to quiet her in the hall but she thought voicing her opinion was more important. Luckily there was another baby blessing so they went first. Eden came out to assist with damage control and almost had her back to sleep when the bishop went to the pulpit and invited us to come forth. The hand off woke Zaida back up and she cried through the blessing. It was a great experience, albeit stressful with the screaming, but we still like her.

After the blessing we went back into the hall for more screaming. I took her down to the kitchen where we had her vibrating chair thingy and placed her in it. She immediately stopped crying and started to smile and coo. It was almost like she was saying, SUCKER, it made me laugh. I finally got her back to sleep and we enjoyed the rest of the day with family and friends.

Other news for the week, include Eden's graduation this Friday. I would like to congratulate her on completing her Masters. She is amazing and I look forward to hearing everyone call her Master Eden. (You call people with PhD's Doctor, so why not people with Masters, Master?)

2 months

Here are some of the latest pictures per the request of her cousin Jane.

Happy Halloween

Zaida was a horse for the ward holloween party

This is an outfit some of the sorority girls gave her. They said they bought it because the skeleton glows in the dark and they wanted me to be able to find her if I went in to get her in the middle of the night.

Meetin' and a Greetin'

Zaida has been off her oxygen for a week now and we haven't had any problems with her at all. Her two week appointment went well and things are great, the best part is that she doesn't have that annoying little moniter attached to her foot beeping all the time for no reason other than that she wiggled.

Due to Zaida's new portable condition we took her this weekend on her first outing. She went an met all of her great grandparents from Kaysville all the way up to Blackfoot. She even experienced her first trip in the mountains to see her great-grandpa Tom's cows, even though she slept the entire time. So here are some more pictures of little spike.

Home at last

Sunday evening we were finally able to bring our little girl home with us. It was much prefered to the arrangements of staying in the NICU any longer. In the NICU she was having about an episode a night were she was in such a deep sleep that she would forget to breathe and the nurses had to give her a little oxygen to bring her out of her little spells. That being case, they sent us home with oxygen and a moniter to watch her. The only part we don't like is they have to be on her at all times even though her episodes only seem to be happening between 12:30 and 2 am. On the bright side she didn't have any issues last night with her breathing but that might be due to the fact that she was awake during her favorite hours instead of asleep. However we are going to look at it possitively in that she is done with this whole mess and just waiting patiently for us to take her off the oxygen.

Here she is sporting her oxygen in her car seat ready to get out of Dodge.

Update

After writing our last post we have had some little problems with Zaida and her lungs, but she is on the up and up and things are looking better. When she was born and sucked in some amniotic fluid, it went into her lungs and she got some pneumonia. Also due to the the fluid, her lungs weren't staying very inflated so the doctor put her on high-flow air, which is a mix of oxygen and something nice to help push extra air into the lungs. She had to have an asperator on her nose and it made her look like a distant relative to miss piggy. Due to the high pressure air being pumped into her lungs to dry them out, they had to stick a tube down her throat into her tummy to ventilate the extra air.

Due to all these tubes, she was unable to eat anything and was just given an IV to help deliver her nutritional needs and antibiotics. The tubes and asperator also made it so she had to stay in her crib and we couldn't hold her, talk about a helpless feeling to just look down at her and not be able to comfort her very well.













She stayed on the asperator until this morning and then was just given a nasal canula which was still delivering a high-flow air. The canula caused her to work harder and tested her oxygen to see if she was able to breath more on her own. She did very well on that and they used another nose canula, but this time-low flow air. Then about 2 this afternoon they took her off the oxygen support all together. It was then that we were finally able to hold her. YEAH!!!!

At about 6 pm they allowed her to have her first meal and she now seems to be sitting fat and happy. We fed her again at 9 with a bottle and will keep feeding her every three hours through the night. Now that she is eating and sleeping better we hoped that she will be able to keep on improving so we can take her home.

This has been quite the experience so far, but luckily we have an amazing doctor who got on top of treating her with antibiotics as soon as he thought she might have an infection that quick action has really helped her progress as much as she has in her first days of life.

Thank you everyone for your love, support, and prayers.

She's here

After determining that she had to make a grand debut in life late, I am pleased to report that Zaida Fern Summers was born this morning weighing in at 8 lbs. 12 oz. As all of you should be interested to see what she looks like I will now post some pictures and then recall the events of last evening.









We weren't able to snap many pictures before the nurses deemed it necessary to take Zaida away to the NICU due to her lack of desire for oxygen. She didn't want to cry when she came out and thus didn't expel all of the juicy fluids she has been living in for the past 9 months. However the doctors aren't too concerned anymore and she shall be fine. Unfortunately these pictures don't show the beautiful long blonde locks on the top of her little noodle.
Now for the story.... Sunday early in the morning Eden thought that she had started to feel contractions. So to combat those she went about her regular activities for the day. We went to church, went and ate dinner with some friends, went on a walk, then at 7 I had to go on visits for the EQ. I came back at 8 and Eden informed me that we should start to get ready to go to the hospital. I wasn't sure that going to the hospital was yet necessary due to the fact that the contractions weren't that regular, of course, I had been gone for the last hour. We gave Eden something to eat and slowly got ready to go, at 8:30 however her water broke and I was then a firm believer that it was go time and kicked it in gear, throwing bags in the car and racing around like a crazy.
We got to the hospital about 9 and then waited until Zaida made her debut at 0453.

My sexy skull

It has been a few days now since the surgery and I must say that I am feeling pretty good. The pain meds that the doctor gave me made me sick to my stomach so I stopped taking them on Thursday night and luckly haven't had any real pain. I believe this is due to the fact that the softball crunching into my noggin also decided it should smash the nerve, so the left half of my forehead is numb. This is probably also the reason that I never realized that the thing was fractured. The doctor reattached some of the nerve endings while I was cut open so I should get the feeling back sometime. The second picture is a nice little image of my head looking down. on the right side of the picture is where the break is. The orbital was broke in about three places and the break also cause the sinus cavity to cave. There should be black signifying air behind the left eye (right side of picture) but there isn't.

This 3D scan of my skull I think is pretty cool. Not only does it show that under all that skin and tissue am I an extremely attractive skeleton, but it shows the break really well. They put a 4cm piece of mesh titanium on the bone secured on each side and then attached all the peices to it. The mesh is suppost to help the bone grow through and be stronger. That is about the jist of it as far as things go here. I will get the stiches out next Friday and hopefully it will be looking good for the arrival of the runt sometime around the 23rd.

What happened to your eye??

With the consent of Sir Jason Denson I have stolen the title to one of his previous, half true stories to tell a tale of what occurred to me on the night of September 2. While playing in a city league softball game I was sliding ever so gracefully into second base when out of nowhere I felt a large hard object hit me in the head right above my left orbital. It turns out that said large hard object was the softball that the outfielder flung at mach speed to the second baseman. Unfortunately for my cranium the second baseman possessed snail-like reflexes thus missing the ball entirely and allowing for the collision with my noggin. Following a few minutes of lying on the dirt I stood up and was asked by the ump if I knew what day it was, my reply was "who cares." I only said that because I was unsure if it was Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday and it was a convenient way to cover up this fact.

I was taken home to my bed to wait out my concussion and shock with nothing but a little ice pack and an ibuprofen bottle. I determined that I would have a black eye and nothing more.

This is what I looked like about 3 hours after the incident. After a night of unrest I went out to my research the following morning and chased cows out of the pastures and down to the corrals to weigh them. I didn't feel too bad so I figured I was well on my way to healing quickly and properly.

As of Saturday I had an extremely attractive shiner that was the envy of all rednecks at the demolition derby, it should be noted that this derby was finer than any derby heretofore attend by myself and received a solid 10. However Sunday the swelling began to go down and there was a noticeable dent in my forehead. Concerned for my good looks Eden determined that I need to go to the doctor so I made and appointment for Tuesday.

The doctor took a look and decided that a CT scan was in order so today I went to the specialty hospital and had the scan done. It turns out that due to the impact of the ball on head I broke the orbital bone above the eye in several places. I was sent to see a specialist and he determined that surgery was a necessity so tomorrow morning I am going in to get a metal plate strapped above my eye. I figure this is a good thing because it will help serve as a shield for future eye on ball encounters. As soon as we get the pictures of the CT scan back I will post picture of two of the fracture only because they look really cool. Wish us luck.

For the inner gymnast in us all

Trip to the Redwoods

A few weeks ago we went with Eden's family to California to visit her aunt and go up to the Redwoods. While we were there we went to Mt. Diablo which is a fun little Sunday drive destination if you are in the Oakland area. On the mountain is an area that I believe is referred to as Rock City, or something to do with similar. We got to climb on the rocks and that was a fairly jovial time had by all.

Monday we went to Six Flags and enjoyed the animal shows that they had although I must say that I was a little disappointed with the shark feeding that they had, it was not nearly as exciting as I thought it would be, boo to them. We did get to go on two rides, a Tony Hawk roller coaster and of course one of the greatest rides of all time, bumper cars.

-Disclaimer: we did tell her not to go on the ride but she wouldn't be excluded from the bumping of cars.

On Tuesday we were back on the open road as we drove up through the Redwoods and went on the Ave. of the Giants, I was impressed with the overall size of the trees, they were huge.

The most amusing part of the entire trip took place while we were at a ranger station. They had a board that listed all the animal sightings for the past few days and down on the bottom of the list after deer, moose, elk, birds, and other fairly uninspiring animals my attention was drawn to these words "albino bear cub" I thought to myself could it be? I have never heard of such a thing, however the words following made me begin to laugh hysterically "could have been a husky". The moral of the story must be that all husky owners must keep their dogs leashed whilst in state parks as to not give off the illusion that an albino bear cub is in the area.

Tribute to Technology

As we continue to prepare for the arrival of our little bundle of joy, we, and when I say we I mean mostly Eden, have come across some items that make me proud to be a man. This vest is the brain child of two men in Colorado that wouldn't succumb to society and carry a sissy diaper bag with flowers, instead of conforming they created THE diaper vest. What more could a man want when dealing with children? It has places for diapers and bottles and even a changing pad slips in the back. If you really want to watch the demo movie of all it can do, go to www.dadgear.com

Minority wins

It isn't often that the minority wins, but in the case of guessing the sex of an unborn child, nobody really knows. However in the poll the minority of the people guessed that we would be having a baby girl, and on Tuesday when we went to the doctor they confirmed the minority to be correct. She apparently looks healthy and is on schedule so I guess we will wait for her debut at the end of September. By the way now that we know she is a she I don't think I can call her Cletus the fetus, so if anyone knows any girly names that rhyme with fetus let me know.

Helga, Lars, or Elvira?

This posting is a special little tidbit for all you in the blogger world. Think just because you look at this website your are in the know....About a month ago we told our families that Eden was pregnant and due September 23, at that time my three genius brothers decided to take it upon themselves to name the said child. Each of them was kind enough to choose one of the names mentioned in the title and enjoys referring to the child with the name they have chosen. My dad was also kind enough to think of some names but we won't mention them. Which of the three do you like? Until our child is born I think I will affectionately call it Cletus, why you may ask? Because it rhymes with fetus and that's what it is.

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4000 miles and a blown tire

So for those of you who want to know what a tire looks like after exploding I present exhibit A, or more commonly known as the picture to the right. My parents and I went on an excursion over spring break that took us through 7 states with our furthest east stop beinging in the quaint little villiage of Beaufort, Mo. were we picked up my calves. On this trip we also stopped and bought some sheep (what says family vacation like looking at sheep?) while also making a little time to back track and visit my brother Ryan and his wife, Rachel (aka Sis) who live in Coralville, Iowa.

On the way home while nearing the metropolis of Cheyenne I was driving my Dad's pickup while pulling our stock trailer. We were just getting up to freeway speed when BOOM, the back drivers side tire blew, luckily I was able to coast us to a stop and we didn't loose control, that could have been a touch messy with all the critters in the back. This little fiasco ended up being a three hour delay since we couldn't find anyone to get a new tire from, and since they thought they might have a problem just patching up the one we blew, but we made it home safe later Saturday night.

Cattle Barons

Here are some pictures of my latest project. Most people will have crafts or some other whimpy thing, but I buy cows (very manly). These little critters are Lowline Angus and are considered miniature cattle (okay, maybe not so manly). They will only grow to be about 40-42 inches tall and originate in Australia. My goal is to get a large herd of them to run with my sheep and then buy a large farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere to live out the rest of our lives far away from civilization (just don't tell Eden). Or raise them for show and to sale, I guess that would work too. I will go pick these calves up in Missouri over spring break and the others are in Idaho and will be born in the next few months, if you can't tell I am pretty excited about this.

Snowmobiling Yellowstone

While attending the Utah State Fair in September I won a snowmobile trip for one. It came with a two night stay at a crappy little hotel. Free food vouchers, at a restuarant that wans't even open yet, and a ticket to the worlds greatest little theatre ever. They had one screen and played one movie, with a running time of a week. Luckily while we were there the film of chioce was Beowulf- not recommended for anyone.

Okay, it really wasn't that bad. The resturant down the street accepted the vouchers. We also got a discount on Eden's trip so it was worth it.

We went the second day that the park was open and were the first group of snowmobilers in. It was pretty amazing to see all the snow that they already had. It was also neat to be able to see all the wildlife so close, it is different when the buffalo are walking down the road when you are on a snowmobile, as opposed to in a car.

While we were in West Yellowstone we also went to the Imax. We were expecting it to be a hit with all the people that attend in the summer, but we were the only ones in the theater when the movie started. Just imagine a six story movie screen all to yourselves. The only other highlight was going to the Wolf and Bear discover y center. The wolves were boring. They only wanted to sleep and lounge in the sun. The Grizzly Bears we another story. They are all big time posers. Whenever they saw the cameras come out they seemed to stop what they were doing and look at you with a big smile.

Graduation

In December, Adam graduated from Utah State University. Adam graduated with a BS degree in Animal Science. I am so proud of him. We have finally reached a milestone, a degree. It gets us closer to moving out of little Cache Valley.

Our family celebrated by attending both USU's Commencemnt activities and the College of Agriculture Celebration. I hosted lunch, a baked potato bar, at our house and had a wonderful time visiting and being with family.

Adam's next move is to continue with his schooling. He started working on his Master's Degree in his last semesters. Estimates Graduation will be in May 2009 in Animal Nutrition.