Eastertastic

We had a bright and cheerful, pastel-colored, bunny-shaped weekend, filled with the joy of Christ's resurrection!

Awesome eggs

Awesome cake

Awesome egg hunt

And Ben even got to teach our neighbor Ira how to smash confetti eggs!

Happy Easter everybody!

Ben's Medical Adventures

Ah, Ben. He's not a boring child. He's a generally healthy kid, but he does have more than his fair share of odd medical interventions... like when he aspirated a Lego... or when his own framed picture fell from the wall and sliced him right between the eyes...

Not boring.

The past few months have brought us another round of medical adventures with Ben. In December he started losing vision for a few minutes at a time. It happened once or twice a week, seemingly randomly.

We've been through some scary worst case scenarios, an MRI, EKG, several specialists, and a whole lot of fainting spells and as of Thursday we think we finally have it all figured out - it turns out our kid is just allergic to standing up. At least, that's how I translate "orthostatic intolerance," right?

Apparently this isn't an uncommon thing to happen during adolescence, Ben's symptoms just came on in a way that led us down the (incorrect) ophthalmology and neurology route first.

Basically what happens is that when he stands up, his autonomic nervous system doesn't compensate effectively for the gravitational shift and he gets tingly hands and feet followed by muddy vision and hearing and culminating in syncope or near-syncope (passing out).

There are lots of silver linings here, especially compared to all the scary stuff we were concerned could be going on. Treatment is pretty simple, he's learning to recognize when it's coming on so that he can sit down until it passes, and he should outgrow it in a few months or years.

Plus he has cool photos of his brain to show for the ordeal.

Thanks to everybody who has been praying for and with us through the past few months. Your care and support has meant so much.

And on the up-side, we've already met our deductible for the year! Free doctor's appointments for all!

Frozen on Ice

By WanYing and Sasha

We went to Frozen on Ice and we were on the first row, so close to the ice! We got pictures right in the front of the row.

My mom let us each have $20 to spend. We spended them on cotton candy, snow cone, Dippin' Dots, and a toy Sven. That's what we buyed with our $20.

This a picture where we're really close to the ice. The ice had a big huge like it was shaped as a snowflake on the ice and they made little sparks of soap came like down and it was pretending to be like snow.

This is the picture of all the characters, including Minnie, Mickey, and Donald. Minnie loves love stories and the Frozen story is a love story about two sisters. And Elsa at the end of the movie she figures out how to take away winter.

They were skating with a reindeer costume on. There had to be two people in them and there are little eye holes so they can see out of those but it's hard to see out of. And there were platforms there and they standed on that. It was really cool. They had to train a lot, I bet.

This is the part where they're going up the mountain and they're getting attacked by wolves and Anna throws his sleeping bag at the wolf and they jump off a cliff and the wolves stay there. And they're trying to get to Elsa's castle but they don't know where it is so Anna could fix everything up because Anna thought it was her fault to push Elsa too far and she took her glove and she waved "stop!" and some ice came and it turned black and they propped ice up.

There was blank spots when it was really dark so then they could move the props.

This is a picture where Olaf is singing In Summer. He singed about what he would be. In the middle of the song there's a part where he goes right to a puddle, "In the summer I'm gonna be a happy... snowman" but he's actually going to be a puddle.

This is the picture we're taking with Grammy and we're right in front of the ice again. Mom was sitting in the seats so she could take the picture.

We had a great time at Frozen on Ice and after we left we had lots of fun talking about it.

Two Days, Four Seasons

There is so much I love about Utah, but the fact that I can ski one day and ride in short sleeves the next is pretty close to the top of the list.

You may recall that I received a free day's ticket to Snowbird as a result of my podium finish at the Snowbird Hill Climb. It was time to use it!

We had plenty of time to take the perfect selfie as the Little Cloud lift was stopped for 30 minutes. Sigh.

Just when you think you couldn't love your kids any more, you snag a shot like this and your heart explodes with pride.

And here's me and Sasha doing a nice 24 mile spin on the tandem the next afternoon! Spring cycle training has begun!

WanYing's Gotcha Pi Pie Day

From greens...

...to Pi day pie...

...the girl knows how to enjoy the finer things in life!

Happy 4th Gotcha Day, WanYing! We are so grateful that you're a part of our family - thanks for making Pi Day even sweeter!