Halloween 2018

The kids enjoyed Halloween with their Fritel Grandparents in town. Mom took the day off to run to volunteer at schools, make chili and setup/teardown the neighborhood party, and go trick-or-treating.

First up ... Julia's school parade and party.

Next ... RJ's school party.

Neighborhood party ...

Julia trick-or-treated with Dad, Mom, and two boys from the neighborhood. But she was just as interested in watching It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

RJ trick-or-treated with the Gray's and a bunch of kids. RJ, Bradley ... and Geoff outlasted most everybody and ended up cashing in as people were trying to dump candy after a smaller than expected crowd of kids.

Counting the candy ...

Dad did not eat any candy on Halloween ... but I'm not sure how long that will last.

Kidney Stone

Oct 30, 1:05am - Ouch

Perhaps the scariest thing this Halloween season was the excruciating pain I woke up with at 1am on Oct 29. The pain was a mix of really bad gas pressure mixed with being kicked in the groin. After the pain persisted for 30 minutes, I ended up in the ER. The Dr. quickly diagnosed a kidney stone ... and the CT scan validated the findings ... a 3mm stone ... and 2 more blips in the kidney.

Oct 30, 4:00am - Whew

After the scan and some pain killers, I couldn't feel a thing ... so I went home and got 2 hours of sleep. There was very little pain in the morning, so I loaded up the truck and drove to work.

Oct 30, 8:00am - Ouch Again

Big mistake. When I got to work, I spent 2 hours lying on the floor ... throwing up in my office trash can.

Oct 30, 11:00am - Intermission

After taking some nausea meds and Tylenol, the pain was very mild, so I headed home and did some work.

Oct 30, 3:00pm - OUCH!

Pain was back and I threw up again ... even with the Zofran. The next 12 hours were particularly fun ... the most comfortable position involved pacing around like a zombie. I did this for about 6 hours. Even watching TV was out because I couldn't focus.

Oct 31, 4:45am - Pop

While pacing around the kitchen in the dark, I felt a tweak in my side and a split-second pinch at the tip of my urethra. And as quickly as it came, the pain subsided. Self-diagnosis ... stone had moved to the bladder.

Nov 2, 12:05pm - Plink

After peeing through a strainer for 2 days, I decided to give up on catching the stone. Since I was still pain free, I figured that the stone had somehow dissolved. So of course the very next time I urinated, I saw a black object go plink into the urinal. And yes ... I reached in and got it.

Nov 2, 7:00pm - Closeup

I wasn't keen on sharing this with the office, so I waited until I got home to take a look ... GROSS!

Tenniversary

10 Years and Counting

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with a short re-commitment ceremony at the St. Luke Chapel. Then we hosted an informal dinner (Moby Dicks's ... yum) at our house for all our friends willing to brave rush hour traffic on a Thursday night. Most people (except the re-groom) made it to the ceremony on time.

We didn't take any pictures ... but Doug did get a new ring that he is getting used to ... after a 4 year ring-wearing hiatus.

A few days later, grandma Diane and grandpa Farmer Bob came to visit and we took a family picture

Construction - Back Porch

After the kitchen and back porch project, there was some not very useful space on our back yard. In addition there was some ugly black drains. So we got talked into building a porch. In addition three of the new drains were linked together underground and directed to the main drainage ditch.

Oct 16: Part one involved some excavation

Oct 21: Progress - foundation and wall

Oct 23: Putting stones on the wall

Oct 29: Here is the ditch where the drain pipe can run