Home Sweet Home

We landed in Chicago about 5:30 on Friday, 6/18 after a one hour plane delay circling at 36k feet waiting for huge storms to pass through Chicago. We then drove home in a yet another terrific thunderstorm (some of the craziest lightning we've ever seen!) and arrived at our house around 11:30pm Friday night 6/18.

It's been a crazy week getting our schedules turned around and taking care of the kids and household. Vivian was a bit under the weather for a day after getting here, but she's good now. Ken and the boys made it to Marty (Ken's brother) and Paula's wedding on the 19th. Looks like it was beautiful, and I'm sorry to have missed it, but it was right when Vivian was not well so she and I stayed home. This week we hit the ground running with 4 medical appts., taekwondo and swimming lessons for Jaret and even mowed the lawn once. Ken is back to long days at work. However, we have been so blessed with much help from friends taking care of the boys this week and Grandma's help and a yummy casserole! Thank you all so much!

Things are getting better slowly but surely with jetlag recovery. At first we were like zombies by 6:00 in the evening, but we're getting to where we can last longer than the kids' bedtimes.

The boys are adjusting fine to Vivian...Jaret wants to help, and Isaac wants a little more attention himself. Vivian has just finished an antibiotic and will see the pediatrician again next week. She needs some vaccines that aren't done in China. She will also start physical therapy July 19th. The cardiologist (Dr. Zittergruen) is arranging for Vivian to have an angiogram done in Iowa City at the hospital and then her surgury can be discussed. Her "China diagnosis" was tetrology of Fallot, but Dr. Z says it looks to be more a "truncus arteriosus" case. These are similar but with different emphases. There is a large hole between her lower ventricles which needs repaired and an overriding aorta valve, but the mystery in Vivian's case is how the blood is flowing to the lungs (could not be determined in the echo cardiogram, hence the angiogram).

She will have the angiogram in the next few weeks and from there they will talk to us about what and when she needs done surgically.

The photos show Vivian in her carseat for the first time, our three munchkins (wow, we have 3 kids!) playing, and lastly eating with chopsticks...Jaret chose the stab method for meat and the scoop method for rice, and Isaac used a dangling mid-air method....basically, the boys had us in stitches laughing so hard. Yes, we got Chinese food...I was actually missing it!