Memorial Day Weekend

We had a very busy memorial day weekend. There was so many things to celebrate. 

First off Friday late afternoon we drove down to Orlando for Justina's (Our cousin) high school graduation.  She graduated Saturday morning, it was so great to be able to see he walk the line and get her diploma. She graduated with honors and we are so proud of her. After the graduation we went back to there house and had a big graduation party. There was lots of swimming and squirt gun fights going on that day.  The weather was beautiful and the pool was just the right temp. We got up bright and early Sunday morning so we could start the drive back home.  On our way to Orlando we saw some signs were we could pick our own blueberries. So on the way home we stopped and had a lot of fun watching Garet pick blueberries for the first time.  We had a lot of green blueberries in our pail when we were done. I think Garet just like the look of the green ones instead of the Blue ones.  It was so much fun.

When we got home Sunday we did some relaxing the rest of the evening.

Memorial Day was very nice. We did not have any set plans so we were not in a rush when we got up Monday morning.  We decided that we were going to go to Matts moms house to do some swimming and cook out.  It was not a big party and that was so nice.  Garet was able to get used to the water since there was not a bunch of people in the pool splashing around.  This was the first time that he let go of us and was swimming around the pool with his floats on all by himself.  He did such a great job. It is so cool to see his face when he learns something new. He was so proud of himself, all he kept saying the rest of the day was " I was swimming all by myself" So awesome.  We have to be careful with Garet and how much he swims. He gets tiered a lot faster than normal and then does not understand why he is not feeling well and has no energy.  This means a very crabby Garet. He was ready to go home by about 6 and fell asleep for the night on the way home. It was an early bed time for everyone last night.  Overall a very nice weekend. I can not wait till vacation in July.

I love long weekends.

Garets Shand Visit

Good morning all

Yesterday was Garets bi-monthly appointment at Shands with Dr Fricker.  These days seem to get longer and longer.  I think this is just in my head since Garet is at the age that he does not like going to the dr.  We talk the entire way to Gainesville about what they are going to do and he is all good with. He asks me if he is going to get any ouchies at the dr. He does not get upset as long as I tell him that there will no ouchies.  When we go to Gainesville he really does not get any ouchies just a couple test that they stick sticker all over him.  Well after talking to him in the car I thought that the day would go smooth. Not so much.  We got there and only had to wait a couple minutes to go back and get his weight and height.  Garet is now 36 inches tall and his weight is 26lbs. He started to get a little whining while we were doing that. He did not like when they put the oxygen sensor on his toe and said it was an ouchy when they took his blood pressure. Once we got back out to the waiting room he was ready to go home.  All he wanted to say was time to go home. All done.   We finally got to go back to a room and they came in to the EKG.  As soon as the tech walked in the room he started saying NO WAY.  She tried to talk to him and get him comfy with her but no such luck.  We have found that with Garet you just have to do the test. As soon as he sees what you are doing and that it is not hurting him then he relaxes and lets you finish.  This is what we finally did after the tech tried for about 15 minutes to tell him it was not going to hurt.  One test down one more to go.  The next thing we had to do what to have an ECO done.  This one is normally a little harder. We have to go to another room and he has to sit up on a table for about 15-20 minutes or so.  They do have a tv in this room and we always pick out one of Garets favorite movies to take with us in hopes that it will help him to be calm.  This time we took the land before time movie.  Dinasours are awesome.  He screamed for about a minute and then he realised it was not hurting and he was missing his movie because he was crying. He still had to sit on my lap or in this case lay down with me for the entire test but at least I did not have to hold him down to the table this time.  I think a couple more times and he will understand that at this dr's he does not get ouchies.

  Onto the important stuff. Dr Fricker said that the walls of his heart are starting to thicken a little bit. This is good as long as they do not get to thick.  He heart is still working at only about 35%. This has been very stable for the past year.  His body seems to be compen sating very well for the low heart function.  As long as he continues to grow and eat wall then we will just watch and wait.  Overall a pretty good appointment.  Hopefully it will be another 2 months before we have to visit over there again. 

Thank you to everyone that has been continuing to think and pray for Garet. He is so special to us and is an awesome little guy.

Fun Comparison

I really enjoy looking back at pictures we have taken of Garet and than look at them compared to the new pictures of Reed.  Here is a picture I pulled of Garet at his Baptism and now Reed with the same cute outfit on. Fun Fun. I hope you enjoy the comparison as much as I do. 

Reeds Baptism 05-15-2011

 Here is Reed before church getting ready for his big day

 Papa Charlie (Paster Charlie) Baptising Reed

 Mommy and Reed

 Daddy, Mommy, Garet and Reed (The Howard Family)

 The Howard family with Reeds Godparents. Julie, Justina and Nick

 Here we are with Pastor Bryan and my dad. These two performed the baptism

 Papa Charlie, Matt, Reed, Lydina, Grammy Rose

 Lydina, Garet, Justina, Matt, Julie, Reed and Nick

 Lydina, Matt, Reed and Granny

We had such a great day cooking out after Reeds Baptism. The weather was so nice. I was so worried that it was going to rain on us. All week long there were saying that it was going to storm on Sunday. We got very lucky that it did not rain.  We cooked out hambergers and sausage dogs at the house after church and had a great time hanging out with friends and family.  We had a great thing to celibrate. We are very blessed that we have two great children in our lives and they fill it up with so much fun and love.

Here is Garet going donw the water slide. It was a little breezy that day so he did not do it to many times before he got cold and wanted to go inside and change.

Thank you to everyone that came out and helped make Reeds baptism a special day.

Try to keep up HAHA

 Here we go. I wanted to create a new blog page that included both boys and not just Garet updates.  I am really excited about keeping everyone up to date on what is going on in our lives.