Halloween 2012

The weekend before Halloween we had a spooky dinner party with The Jensen's.  Lisa, who is one amazing creative woman, made some fabulous Halloween themed food and decorations!  We ate dinner, watched a movie and carved pumpkins together.  I think we have carved pumpkins with them for the past 4 or 5 years!  Later we put all the kids to bed and watched a non animated movie :)  Love Halloween traditions!

Since I flew down to CA on Halloween, costume and trick-or-treating duties fell to John.  He came through big time!  He did a better job with the make up than I could have ever done! Jackson was a skeleton and Baron was a pirate.

Colby's Brain Surgery

Less than 2 weeks after John started back at Vestas and just a few days before Halloween we got a phone call from my dad at night.  He told me he was on the way to the hospital because they had just found a big tumor the size of a peach in Colby's brain.  WHAT???  That is something you NEVER expect to hear.  It was totally out of the blue, completely unexpected. This is a perfectly healthy and active almost 16 year old boy.  They weren't sure what type of tumor or much of anything that night, but would be doing an intense surgery the next morning.  That night was the most sleepless night I think I have ever had.  Between all the worrying and praying and still getting up to nurse a 4 month old a few times, I hardly slept at all.  I'm not even sure how I was able to get up, get ready and get Jackson to school the next morning.  I definitely felt like I was in a state of shock.  On the way home from dropping Jackson off, I stopped at my really close friend, Kim's house.  She knows me so well and could tell something was seriously wrong.  She sat me down and listened while I cried.  Then she did the best thing ever.  She hugged me and told me that I needed to go down to CA to be with my family and that she would watch my boys and take care of everything back here.  She even right then and there found and helped me buy my flight and make the needed phone calls to everyone.  I don't know what I would have done without her! I needed a steady mind and hand that morning to help me figure it all out.

The next day, Halloween, I found myself and Morgan on a flight to California.  My older sister Shannon picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the hospital where Colby was recovering from surgery from the day before.  The surgery went as best as it could have gone! When they got in there they discovered it was a cavernous angioma and not a tumor.  They were able to remove it all just in time.  He is expected to make a full recovery.  He came so close to dying, but he is going to be just fine, thanks to many prayers, fasting and divine intervention.  I won't go into too many details about what he had and his recovery here because while I was down there I started a blog for just that:

colbybaron.blogspot.com

I am so grateful I was able to go down there and be with him.  All of my siblings were able to make it down there within a day of his surgery and be together.  It was a difficult, yet miraculous time.  It was such a blessing to be able to witness the outpouring of love and support from all of our family and friends as well as the miracles that aided in his recovery.  I will never forget that week I spent down there.

Colby really enjoyed seeing Morgan in the hospital.  He brightened right up when he saw her and wanted to hold her, even if he had a hard time remembering her name at first.  This is my favorite picture I was able to capture during the visit:

We are all feeling so happy and blessed that Colby is now doing so well!!

Pumpkin Patch 2012

I love Fall in Oregon.  It is so beautiful!  We especially look forward every Fall to the pumpkin patches. They are always a blast and this year was no exception.  We went with the Janeways this year as in year's past and had a great time!

John's Job Situation

Just wanted to get this down in our family journal to remember and explain.  The company John works for, Vestas, is based out of Denmark.  The European economy crashed big time this last year and Vestas has not been doing so well ever since.  They have made a TON of cuts every few months.  Sept. 27th they cut a whole floor full of people- enough to have to lease out part of their brand new building they just renovated.  We were so grateful to make it through all the cuts the other months, especially with a baby coming soon and with all of John's health concerns and testing going on.  We got all our major medical bills and tests and hospital trips in just in time too.  On the 27th, John was finally let go.  His boss had fought hard to keep him, but the big heads in Denmark said someone in their department had to go (there is only 3 in the tax department- John has been there the least amount of time, so they axe fell on him).  We were obviously devastated and very freaked out right at first.  I could not stop shaking for a few hours.  John was heartbroken.  But then, we both felt that quite peace and confirmation that this was all for a reason and that everything was going to work out for the best, and soon.  After just 3 stressful weeks of job searching and interviewing, it all did work out, for the time being at least.  His former co-worker at Vestas decided just 2 weeks after they let John go, that she no longer wanted to stick around and went ahead and accepted a job offer from another company.  That very day she put in her 2 weeks notice, John's boss from Vestas called him up and told him he wanted him back.  He even offered him a promotion in both pay and title.  We both felt like this was a good solution for the here and now- probably not for long term, but to keep that paycheck coming in again for a little while until we can figure out what we really want for our family.  It has been a tremendous blessing to have those paychecks as well as the health insurance and we are very grateful things did indeed work out so quickly.  Unfortunately, John has worked far too many stressful hours since he has been back.  He is the only one doing all the grunt work that has to be done now.  He even had to work through most of our Christmas vacation in California. So, while we appreciate the work, we are hoping to make some positive changes for our family in the near future.  And that about sums it up!