Halloween

Hooray for Nana!! She went to Anslee's school costume parade and Halloween party. After the party Nana took Anslee home to play with her. Anslee said that was one of the greatest days EVER.
Anslee is helping clean out her pumpkin. This is one of the many expressions she made for the camera. Keith always does a great job carving the pumpkins!! Andrew didn't want to dress as something scary but he didn't want to be anything babyish. He decided to be a biker.

How cute is our little ladybug?! This is probably the last year she dresses like this. I have a feeling next year it will be something like pop star diva!

Growing up too quickly!

Anslee enjoys a very busy social life!
At a birthday party this last weekend, one of the mom's walks up to me and tells me that her son says Anslee is his girlfriend. Anslee changes who her "boyfriend" is all the time so it is fun to meet the current one! He is a cutie!

His mom said she can tell Anslee really keeps him in line... Hmmmm. I'm not really sure that's a compliment!

Anslee is such an independent, assertive child. I think it will help her go far in life, but I'm not so sure she will get along great with her mother in law!

It's raining, it's pouring.....

It has been raining for days now. I don't want to complain because this is a lot better than the drought we were dealing with. BUT... Andrew, Anslee and all the children in my class are going stir crazy!!Luckily Herschel doesn't really seem to mind the rain at all!

A new family member...

We were so sad when Buster passed away on August 26th. He was 14 years old. If you loose a dog, the greatest book is Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant. We cry every time we read it. (I know you are supposed to underline books, but I can't figure out how to on blogspot!!)

We rescued a dachshund named Molly right before the end of the school year. We kept her for a

little over a month and tried to potty train her, but we couldn't. We couldn't even crate train her. We felt horrible when we took her back, but after talking to the rescue people, they reassured us that they would find a home for her. She was rescued from a puppy mill and had more issues than we were able to help her with.

We really thought we might not get another dog, but we missed Buster so much that we all knew we needed a family pet. We looked at a lot of rescues and asked many questions. Finally we found the cutest little 4 month old scottie puppy. The lady who rescued his mother owns a puppy training business. She said he was born in her house and she trained him for the 4 months she had him. He is pretty much potty and crate trained. She already named him Herschel Walker and it stuck. Glad we're Georgia fans!!

Andrew is so excited because he's always wanted a "fetching dog". Herschel loves to play fetch. Keith has already taught him to heel and sit when being walked. He has the funniest little personality and he fits perfectly in our family!!

If anyone is looking for a dog or puppy, she rescues and breeds dogs. I can give you her name. We found her on the site kijiji under the pets section. She also has a web site. With Herschel as an example, she does an incredible job with puppy training!!

Bamboo for the pandas

In June I saw a Zoo Atlanta truck outside with bamboo. So being nosey I asked what they were doing. The employee told me that they go all around Atlanta collecting bamboo from private landowners for the giant pandas.
I found this on the Zoo Atlanta website:

Donate Bamboo!

Our giant pandas, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, have vigorous appetites, dining on bamboo 10-16 hours a day. They require a variety of bamboo species and with a 220-pound-a-day consumption, a significant supply. We are always seeking donations of bamboo from private land owners.
We can only accept bamboo that has been harvested by Zoo Atlanta in order to make sure it meets our harvesting standards. To enquire about donating bamboo located on your property, please call the bamboo hotline at 404.624.5884

We went to Zoo Atlanta yesterday. Today and tomorrow (Aug. 8 & 9) are Family Free Days for City of Atlanta and Fulton County residents and employees. They are expecting about 16,000 visitors! I'm glad we went yesterday, as I think everyone was waiting for these two free days. It wasn't crowded at all for us.
If Zoo Atlanta does keep the pandas long term, I hope they are built a better habitat. The zoo in Chongqing, China has big outdoor areas for their pandas.

Watching the orangutans is one of our favorite things to do. Did you know they have the longest childhood of any other animal?

One other interesting thing we saw yesterday is that the naked mole rat had babies that morning. They live like ants in a colony, so just the queen has babies (every 82-90 days!!) and all the others are just workers. The last time she had babies, none survived because they were constantly stepped on by the adults and the queen stopped feeding them. I'm crossing my fingers for these little ones. They were so interesting to observe!!

Another Family Member

I'm so excited! Keith's sister and her husband are expecting baby #3!

Rosemary Beach

We had so much fun at the beach. I love ending summer this way!

Just some highlights...

Swim lessons were successful! Anslee was a fish in the pool. She has no fear at all!

Andrew and his cousin flying kites.

Going crabbing at night.

These "Blue Button Jellyfish" were all over the place this year. We were nervous about getting stung until we looked them up and found that they really aren't jellyfish at all.

The cousins all cooperate to build a sandcastle.

Anslee just doing a little happy dance on the beach.

Taking a walk with Granddaddy.

Andrew was able to catch 3 small fish with a net. He was so excited!

Eye update

This is after the surgeries. Even though it was not fun having my eye sewn closed for a week, I was so excited that it wasn't closed for the eight weeks the doctor predicted. Rosemary was so much more enjoyable with the use of both eyes. My skin looks horrible because it had tape all over it for a week which I was allergic to! Now all the stitches are out and no more hospital visits for me!!

Scroll down the blog to see what happened before this.

Swim Team

Anslee is taking swimming lessons. She calls it swim team because she says only babies take swim lessons. When my friend Sandy took her one day this week, she told Anslee she couldn't wait to see her at swim team. Anslee whispered to her that it was really swim lessons, but not to tell anyone. She is such a quick learner and is doing great!!

Be Prepared! If you have a weak stomach don't look!!!

These eye pictures are worse than before! They even make me feel a little ill!!! But I've had some requests for pictures, so here goes....

If anyone knows a way to hide the pictures until you click on them, please let me know!

To fill up a little space so you can choose not to see the pictures I just want to say thanks to everyone for bringing meals and helping out with Andrew and Anslee. Taking Andrew to camp and Anslee to swimming and for the playdates, etc. My family feels so loved!!

This first picture is when I was at the Mohs surgeon. The shots into my eyelid were the most painful thing throughout this entire process!! My eyelid is puffy because of the local anesthesia injected into it. This was done on Monday.



This next picture is after the Mohs surgery was complete. If you look closely (not that you'd want to!) The white part is a special cotton gauze to fill up the hole that the plastic surgeon

fixed on Thursday. My eye is extra wrinkly because it was packed with gauze that has just been removed prior to taking this photo. I went to see her on Tuesday (the day after Moh's was done) so she could decide how to reconstruct my lower eyelid. Keith took this picture today (On Friday).

Prior to the surgery, the plastic surgeon said that she was 99.9% sure that in order to repair my eye it would need to be sewn shut for 6 to 8 weeks. Luckily we ended up on the .1% side. As it turns out she was able to take a little bit from both of my upper eye lids to repair the outside of the lid. They take from both eye lids so that after I have healed my eyes will be symetrical. Thus the stiches on my open eye. She also made an incision on my laugh line next to the eye, seperating the inner layer and streching it over to repair the inside of the eye lid. The doctor said basically it looks like a little quilt work under the patch ~But I am prepared for anything when they remove the gauze on Thursday!!. She also put temporary stiches in to hold my eye closed until next week so that the eye lid will remain still and repair itself more quickly. Next week about half of the stiches will be removed and I will have full use of that eye!!!

DON'T FORGET TO WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES!!

While we are talking about medical stuff...

Keith and I noticed that Anslee had some places on her palms that were itchy, peeling, round places. We just found out my neice had impatigo and were worried that Anslee had it too so Keith took her to a children's medical health place when he got home from work.

They just returned and she has Papular Urticaria which means she is ultra sensitive to bug bites. This is a condition that when Anslee gets a new insect bite, the sites of old insect bites react almost as if they had been bitten again. When I looked it up, the medical journal stated that this is most common in asian people, usually children.

She got a mosquito bite the other night and by the time we got home, it looked like she had 15 or more. So now this all makes sense!

Just thought I'd add more medical stuff you've probably never heard of :-)

WARNING ~ Gross eye pictures!!

OUCH!!! Today I had surgery to remove skin cancer from my eyelid. I am going to type this whole thing out so that hopefully you won't see the pictures unless you choose to see them and scroll down. I don't want to gross anyone out!

I noticed a red scratch on the ledge of my inner left eyelid about 5 months ago. It didn't hurt, and I didn't remember scratching it. I would check it periodically to see if it was still there. I wasn't really worried, because who has ever heard of anything going wrong with your eyelid?!

In late April I woke up in the middle of the night and started thinking about my eyelid. I thought that I should figure out what was going on. So I googled eyelid cancer and couldn't find anything. I checked a few other keywords and again found nothing. I went back to bed feeling okay.

The next morning I got worried again and after searching for about 2 hours I found a picture that looked similar to my eyelid. The picture was of a basal cell carcinoma. I know basal cells almost never metastasize but they spread and can majorly destroy the skin. I waited until the dermatologist office opened and called. They had an appointment in two weeks but I started crying and they saw me 2 hours later :-)

My dermatologist looked and had me make an appointment with an eyelid specialist. Who even knew there were eyelid specialists?

I saw the specialist and she made an appointment for surgery two weeks later after school was out. She had me try an antibiotic steroid cream for a week, but that did nothing, so on to the surgery.

Last night, Nana took Andrew and Anslee to spend the night and to go see Up today.
Keith and my mom took me to the hospital today at 6:30 am. My surgery was 9:00 and lasted almost an hour. The doctor cut a pie shaped wedge out of my lower eyelid. It stings and I can feel the stitches rubbing my lower eyeball (YUCK!). My throat hurts from the breathing tube, but other than those things, I am fine!

I go back to the doctor in a week to have the stitches removed and to find out if they got it all.
If they didn't get it all, we are talking major reconstruction with my eye sewn shut for 6 WEEKS! Don't worry I'd post pictures of that too :-) If you have an extra prayer, please pray that all of it has been removed.

The reason I wrote all this and am putting these pictures online is because I had such a hard time finding any information at all about this. I hope this helps someone else...

The moral of this story: PLEASE wear sunglasses! The lower left eyelid is the most common place for eyelid skin cancer due to the glare while driving a car. The specialist said she used to only see this cancer in 70 or 80 year olds, but now she is getting a case a week in 30 and 40 year olds. Scary, huh?

I didn't get a before picture of my eyelid, but it looked similar to the second picture here . Mine didn't really come all the way to the outer eyelid yet. Everyone who looked at my eye had such a hard time seeing it, they were suprised I found it. Luckily I found it early.

If you have any concerns about your eyelid check out this site or this one.

Happy Memorial Day

Today we are thinking about Paw Paw and Pop Pop who fought in WWII. We miss both of them so much!

We had a great weekend with our friends who came down from Asheville for the weekend.

The dads and big boys went to the Braves game while the moms and little ones shivered at the pool!

Only two weeks left until school's out for summer!!

We are all three ready to be out. Andrew has been counting the days but after we decided to have his birthday party the last day of school, waiting until the 22nd to arrive is almost more than he can take!! Luckily he has some fun days coming up.
I love teaching school, but by this time of the year the children are finished learning and it is really hard to keep them focused. I'm not sure what grade I'm teaching next year. Right now it looks like third.
When we tuck Anslee in bed at night she asks if tomorrow is a school day. Most of the time she loves school, but now she's done too. Her teacher has started writing the children's names on the board if they misbehave. Today when I picked her up, there were 5 boys names and hers written down. I talked to her about it and she said "Oh mom. Let's talk about this when school's over." I found out that during rest time is when she usually has a hard time. She stopped napping years ago!

My sister's farm

Some friendly faces welcome us to the farm!

Moonie and Bean going on a ride.

Anslee wearing the beautiful crown Bean made.

Bean and her favorite pet.

Uncle Mecho and Andrew picking dandilions to make wine.

Keith gives a thumbs up to pork.

Andrew enjoys holding the baby goat.

Moonie had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb... This is the lamb Moonie saved.
Anslee loves Moonie's lamb.

Follow us! We'll lead the way to the barn.

Showing Anslee that goats aren't scary.

Gathering eggs...and chickens.

Heading back for lunch.