Surgery, hover boards, & drywall

The last month has mostly entailed my mom's surgery/recovery, and a whole lot of drywall. There's been some other stuff, too.

Here we are, the morning of the big double knee replacement. My brother Kevin and I act like juveniles whenever we're together, so I'm sure my mom was just thrilled that it was the two of us that were at the hospital with her all that day. 

Pre-op

 Funny coincidence: My mom's orthopedic surgeon also happens to have been Nils' mission president. He doesn't remember Nils, but sure is good at pretending he does. We saw him a few years ago at Costco, and Nils talked to him then. It was obvious he knew that an "Elder" was talking to him, but had no idea which one. So of course, on the morning of our mom's surgery, my brother HAD to remind the doctor that my husband was one of his missionaries. The doctor graciously asked what his name is, and then said, "Oh yeah! Ok...yeah!" Then we took a picture together, because, you know, that's normal. He really is the nicest guy ever. An excellent doctor, and he was an excellent mission president, too. He straightened Nils, and my mom's knees right out. ;)

The surgery took many hours, so we went to Kevin's house and rode hover boards. Also a normal thing to do. We made it back to the hospital in plenty of time, don't fret.

My poor mom. The surgery went well, and her knees are fantastic. Her recovery was complicated, however. Right after the surgery, she started suffering from excruciating nerve pain in her hip and groin, and no one could figure out what was going on. She couldn't lay on her back because it hurt the nerve too much, and sometimes the only comfortable position was sitting on the edge of her bed. She suffered with this pain for weeks and it was horrid. No complaints about having BOTH OF HER KNEES REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME; it was this random nerve pain that nearly killed her. She was put on some crazy pain meds to control it. After a couple of weeks on that, she stopped taking it and went through withdrawals, which made her nearly lose her mind. She's home now and still recovering, but is doing much better. It will be a couple months still before she can get back to her normal routine, but she already notices a huge difference in her knees. 

Take care of your knees, kids. 

In other news, Anders made the high honor roll. We're pretty sure he was switched at birth, because there is no way he's our biological child. He's in all the honors classes AND gets on the high honor roll? Switched or not, we'll keep him, so that he can support us in our old age with his millions.
P.S. Anders loooooves jr. high, for real. Again- switched at birth.

Went to parent teacher conference, and this was hanging in the hall outside Ava's class. Between the high honor roll and Ava's New Year's goal to "reall the scriptures", we were feeling a little braggy.

Here's little old lady Ava on the 100th day of school.

Anders wanted to go to the Salt Lake Temple to do baptisms. Nils and I were married here and haven't been back inside since (we usually go to Timp), so it was pretty fun to go with our boy. He really wants to go to the Provo City Center Temple, but we'll probably have to wait until it's not the coolest temple in town. So many temples around here! #templeproblems

The other big news around here: DRYWALL. We had about 4 billion sheets of drywall delivered. They put it in the garage, and I tried helping bring it downstairs. Drywall so heavy. I lost my ability to grip after about 45 minutes, so I wasn't actually that helpful. Lots of guys from our street came and helped, which was so nice. Nils has been working his hiney off in the basement. There's only one bedroom left to drywall, and then we'll have the mudders and tapers come. It's gettin' real around here!

Hey- Happy Leap Day. Such an exciting day.