Update on our Building Project and John's Hernia Surgery

Our Girls New Play Area

Our building project at Cedar Blue is nearly completed.  We had hoped that the last few details would be done by now by alas, our builder has had some serious family issues and has not been able to get it done. Maybe before winter sets in?  

The Girls Love Hanging Out With John

The patio is done and is wonderful.  John was able to install vinyl fencing with gates around it so the girls have a place to run without being tied up and they are safe.  

An Expanded View of our New Digs

In the Spring we will start in on some better landscaping.  I would like to put some drought-resistant evergreen shrubs that only get about 3' high around the patio.  We also want to put in a stone walkway from the patio out to our drive. I was also thrilled that the knockout roses I had to pull up to do this project actually came back to life after moving them to the bed around the storm shelter.  

They have a huge patio yet there they are in the chairs!

At least we were able to get all this done and the boat and waverunner winterized before John ended up in surgery!  So onto that story.  About two weeks ago on a Wednesday evening he started having serious abdominal pain.  It was serious enough we decided to head to the ER.  While there things got interesting. Two police officers and two suspects all had been shot and arrived at the same ER about the time we did and the hospital went into lock down.  So things seemed like they just slowed down for all the rest of us.  During this time John's pain let up and we asked if we could leave as we knew this was going to be a long night.  They convinced us to stay for some labs and an EKG which were normal so they released us and asked that we followup with the doctor, which John did the next day.  After more scans, the doctors felt like the problem was caused by an incisional hernia they could see that resulted from his emergency surgery in 2008.  His pain did return and stayed with him almost a week but he trooped on while waiting on the doctors.  The decision was made to do outpatient surgery and that was done on 10/21/14.  All went very well and we were home five hours later.  John even walked the dogs that night!  The surgeon actually found two hernias close together so fixed them both.  A 2-for-1 special!!  John has experienced some uncomfortable abdominal pain on and off for several months so hopefully this fixes that.  

John will be off work for a couple of weeks while he heals up so the girls will definitely enjoy having him around.  Next week we move to our friend's home to help her out for a couple of weeks while she has surgery.  Taking care of all her dogs and cats will be a challenge for her for a bit.  In the midst of all this I have one major project left to train the lady that replaced me at my old job and hope to get the majority of that done in the next two weeks.  It has been a long haul trying to get the ladies in the office all trained on what I did for so many years.  I'm hoping the fact that I rarely get a call or an email is a good thing and that they are feeling comfortable in their jobs.   

I hope everybody has been enjoying the beautiful Fall weather like we have.  It has been an awesome Fall with warmish days and cool evenings and a bit of a nip in the air at night.  We have fluctuated a bit from air conditioning to using the heater which means temps have gone from mid-80s to upper 40s at times but that's okay.  I wonder what winter will bring.