Fall miscellany

 Swallowing a rainbow: Tuesday, August 29

Rebekah pretends to eat the rainbow visible from our driveway.

 Tasty burger: Wednesday, August 30

Rebekah poses with her Crown Burger in Utah. Andrea and Rebekah went to Utah for a couple of days so Andrea could have lunch with a few of her college roommates. We stayed at Aunt Susan's house overnight.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple: Thursday, August 31

Rebekah and Andrea pose outside the Oquirrh Mountain Temple on that same quick Utah trip.

 Black beauty: Thursday, September 7

Rebekah shows off an amazing find at D.I.

Eastern Idaho State Fair: Saturday, September 9

Andrea, Winnie, Ana and Seth check out the petting zoo at the fair. Rebekah had just moved to college, and Miriam opted to stay home.

 Sub selfie: Thursday, September 14

Andrea before heading out for her first sub job of the year: a half-day at BHS choir.

Idaho Falls Symphony in the Park: Saturday, September 16

Miriam and Andrea at the annual outdoor concert at Freeman Park. We ate Pitmaster Barbecue and listened to the symphony play some popular Broadway tunes.

 Cat hat: Monday, September 18

Toad wears the hat Winnie wove for him on her loom.

Homecoming parade: Friday, September 22

Ana waves from the ballroom float during the annual homecoming parade.

McKall poses with the mysterious can of liquid we received from one of the homecoming floats. Seth and Andrea watched the parade at Summit Hills Elementary and found McKall (who teaches 1st grade there) so we could stand by her and visit for a minute.

Furry friends: Friday, September 22

Peach and Toad nap on their mat in the shop.

Tautphaus Park Zoo: Saturday, September 23

Winnie gets up close and personal to the serval.

Seth, Andrea and Winnie swing near the penguins.

Andrea and Winnie on the swing. Rebekah had received free passes to the zoo for playing a gig there with the Jazz House Big Band. She used one ticket to go on a date with another friend who also had free passes. We used the other three passes for us.

Dying pants and snuggling a cat: Monday, September 25

Ana dyes fringe pants for her Latin open costume.

Andrea and Toad hang out on the porch swing.

D.I. treasures: Friday, September 29

Seth and Rebekah pose with the awesome masks they found while shopping at D.I.

BYU-Idaho date: Thursday, October 5

Ana and Andrea in the jungle room at the BYU-Idaho greenhouses.

Posing with some of the apples we picked at the orchard where we also ate our picnic dinner.

Ana and Andrea meeting up with Rebekah at a jazz jam session in the Snow building. We were just stopping by to hide some homemade goodies in Rebekah's instrument locker when we heard music coming from one of the rooms and investigated. We found Rebekah there.

Blast Off! date: Saturday, October 7

Miriam tries her hand at the claw machine while Winnie and Seth watch.

Eating Orange Leaf after playing laser tag, rock climbing, mini golfing, air hockeying and arcading at Blass Off!

Shirt cat: Saturday, October 7

Miriam smuggles Toad into the house and her shirt.

Bring a stuffed animal to work day: Wednesday, October 11

Seth poses with his Cthulhu doll that Rebekah crocheted. Seth and his coworkers had a contest for the best stuffed animal, and Seth won. 

NJHS induction: Wednesday, October 11

Miriam is inducted into Praxium's chapter of the National Junior Honor Society during a ceremony at the Rocky Mountain auditorium.

Vaccination lag: Friday, October 13

Ana sleeps on the couch after getting her COVID booster the day before. Those seem to hit her hard. She stayed home from school that day.

Peach porch time: Saturday, October 14

Ana, Winnie and Miriam hang out with Peach on the porch swing.

Winnie's handicrafts: Sunday, October 15

The family shows off the hats and socks Winnie made for us on her loom.

Pocket cat: Saturday, October 21

Toad fits nicely into Ana's oversized hoodie pocket.

Fairview T-shirt quilt: Wednesday, October 25

The T-shirt quilt that I made (Frances Merrill quilted it for me) to donate to the school's fall carnival silent auction.

Back to BYU-I: Thursday, October 26

Ana carefully pores over all the minerals and gems in the Romney building. We went back to BYU-Idaho because when we had our date there earlier in the month, the planetarium show was sold out. Ana really wanted to learn about black holes, so we came back up only to find out that the show was sold out again despite us arriving earlier to get tickets. Luckily they had a second showing that we were able to make. 

Corn maze: Friday, October 27

Andrea and Winnie pose at the New Sweden Farm corn maze. Andrea dropped her credit card somewhere (not in the maze) and had to pick it up later once she realized it was missing.

Shoulder cat: Friday, November 3

Toad on Seth's shoulders in the shop.

Stake dance: Friday, November 10

Seth DJs a stake dance at the Kearney Building. The stake YM and YW presidencies asked if he could do it rather than paying $600 for a professional DJ.

Dylan gets a body: Saturday, November 11

Our mannequin head (named Dylan) perches atop Winnie's head.

Warm cat: Saturday, November 11

Toad stretches out on the heated mat in the shop.

Cat (and dog) nap: Sunday, November 12

Peach, Toad and Seth nap in the back yard after church.

Saturday chores: Saturday, November 18

Ana bakes delicious goodies on a Saturday.

Winnie vacuums the stairs.

Miriam dusts the entryway.

Dibs: Sunday, November 19

Ana preserves her choice of leftovers for lunch after church by keeping them in her pocket.

Peach loves: Sunday, November 19

Peach licks Seth's head in the shop.

Fall concerts and performances

Dance and band. So much of our lives revolve around them. We don't have marching band competitions or halftime shows to go to this year, but Rebekah had several concerts in Rexburg to make up for it.

Ana at halftime: Friday, October 6

This year the white team's routine is a medley from Guardians of the Galaxy. The girls were supposed to have Mantis costumes from Amazon, but they turned out to be cheap and laughable, so they put together these high-octane costumes. Ana says dancing in pleather is undesirable.

Ana with the team before their performance.

Dancing on the field

Ana and Miriam at Festival of Trees: Monday, November 13

I couldn't shoot pictures for several weeks because my arm was in a sling after my rotator cuff surgery, so it was nice of Grandpa Scott to shoot pictures at this annual event.

Ana dancing their Guardians of the Galaxy medley with white team.

Ana dancing a Jackson Five medley with the Mini Bees.

Miriam dancing "Can't Stop the Feelin'" with her Stingers team.

Ana dancing "Divas and Dorks" with gold team.

Rebekah with symphony orchestra: Tuesday, November 14

Parents, grandparents, sometimes a great-grandma and sometimes sisters went to Rexburg to hear Rebekah's concerts.

Rebekah playing second trombone during their performance in the Barrus Concert Hall. The symphony orchestra also performed on Thursday, October 12 and Saturday, December 2 as part of the huge BYU-Idaho Christmas concert with guest performer Adassa.

Miriam with RMMS band: Wednesday, November 15

Miriam performed with the concert band, symphonic band and percussion ensemble at this end-of-trimester concert in the RMMS auditorium.

Miriam petitioning the patrons of the concert to donate money to the band program so they could buy a new xylophone that didn't give the student fiberglass splinters.

Miriam performing with the band.

Rebekah with chamber brass: Thursday, November 16

Rebekah played with a brass quintet in the Snow Recital Hall. She also played with Sound Alliance (the auditioned jazz band at BYU-I) for a masquerade and a family Christmas concert. We don't have pictures from those.

Grandma and Grandpa Scott talk with Rebekah following her chamber brass recital.

Rebekah posing with the members of her quintet. Rebekah found out that she beat out a senior trombone player for a spot in the top quartet this semester. She said the music for this recital was the hardest she had to learn this semester. 

Andrea's shoulder surgery

My right arm had been giving me trouble for a while ... a couple of years, in fact. I had to quit serving overhand at my weekly volleyball games with friends because it caused too much pain. That helped for a while, but eventually I went in to see a specialist because I'd wake up in the night with shoulder pain and even tasks like chopping vegetables were affected.

The doctor diagnosed bursitis with impingement. He said I could (1) go to physical therapy, (2) get a cortisone shot or (3) have surgery to fix the problem. I thought it made the most sense to start with the least invasive treatment, so I started going to physical therapy. I went for months. At first, I saw improvement, but over time I kept wondering when the problem was going to be solved. Eventually I brought it up to the PT who suggested I go back to the specialist.

This time, the orthopedic surgeon said that the bursitis symptoms may have been masking another problem. He suspected that I had torn my labrum and ordered an MRI.

You'd think someone would have informed us how a shoulder MRI works, but they didn't. So we were confused when they led me to the X-ray room at EIRMC. They patiently explained that they have to inject dye into the shoulder before the MRI to see where the problem lies. After the X-ray-guided injection, I was led into a room and told to take the Valium the doctor had given me prior to the MRI. 

(Valium side note: When the doctor ordered the MRI, he asked if I had any questions. I asked if my head would have to go in the machine. He told I would go in head first. I asked for medication and he delivered. I'm not claustrophobic when it comes to most things, but when I thought I'd have to go completely inside the machine when I was 15 for my knee, I panicked. And when we go into the Wind Cave, I opt not to even look at the part where you'd have to army crawl through a tiny opening.)

I've never had Valium before; it felt like a weighted blanket was covering my brain. I closed my eyes and sang Primary songs in my head for the duration of the procedure, and everything turned out well.

I got my MRI results back a short time later. The doctor said, "Your labrum isn't torn." I thought, "Hey, that's great!" Then he said, "Your rotator cuff is torn." I thought, "Wait. Isn't that worse?"

He recommended I have surgery within the next month or two. Despite having shoulder pain for years, I didn't expect my life to be turned on its head this quickly. But we scheduled surgery for November 2--after our cruise and in time to be out of the sling by Christmas.

The day of the surgery, we wished the girls goodbye before they left for school and Seth drove me to EIRMC. I was awake long enough to be rolled in to the ER and transfer myself onto the table. I woke up in recovery, and it didn't take long for my shoulder to start to hurt. I consented to a nerve block, which was a good decision. I couldn't feel anything in my right arm for hours, but I made sure to start taking my medication before it wore off completely. The prescription-strength stuff was welcome, but it didn't hold a candle to the block. The first few days post-op were spent taking pills every four hours and learning how to stack pillows in the recliner we borrowed from Grandma Hendricks so I could sleep comfortably. 

The first time I left the house was the following Tuesday (the surgery had been on a Thursday) to go to a stake Relief Society presidency meeting at the church. That was enough of an outing for one day. The next day I went to Fairview to conduct a student council meeting. That was enough of an outing for that day. Gradually I started being a normal person again by going to church, shopping and even subbing with my right arm in a sling. 

Some things I've learned from this experience:

• No matter how high-tech and comfy your sling is, it will absolutely drive you crazy sometimes. Sometimes it's the abduction pillow that seems to squeeze your ribs. Sometimes it's the back of the sling that seems to dig into your elbow with all your arm's weight resting on it while you're sleeping. Sometimes it's the strap that goes behind your neck that seems to dig into the side of your neck. And sometimes you won't even notice the sling is there at all.
• Doing things lefthanded or onehanded is hard but not impossible. And sometimes you can use your right hand even though it's in the sling. As long as it can reach what you're working on (like typing this blog post), it's handy.
• You'd think having one good hand would be enough. I quickly learned that a lot of tasks require two hands, and you can't always do your two-handed work at sling level. Seth (and occasionally Ana) had to put my hair in a pony tail or a clip whenever I wanted it up. 
• Don't think you can save yourself time by keeping the recliner in the reclined position when you get up in the night. That may result in the recliner tipping backwards when you go to lie back down, and you may fall and hit the back of your scapula on the desk. And you may cry because it hurts so badly.
• A wedge pillow in bed is more comfortable than a recliner.
• When you finally get the sling off after six weeks, you will still be incredibly gimpy-armed. I tried to insert the key into the van's ignition at the orthopedic surgeon's office, and my right arm wouldn't reach. I'm still driving onehanded for the time being.

Pre-op at EIRMC on November 2.

Eating a graham cracker post-op.

Settled in the recliner after coming home from the hospital.