Phase Three

Hola!

Well, another milestone for Kara this week-- Let's recap.

First it was the Nightmare on Memorial Day: Broken leg -- 7 sheets of drywall, roughly 400 lbs. fell on her leg and broke both bones a few inches above her ankle.

Phase one: huge thigh cast, heavy-heavy, using a wheelchair for the last 3 weeks of school.

Phase two: shorter cast, below the knee--MUCH lighter, mostly on crutches but sometimes in the wheelchair. And waterproof! Swim, shower--get in the water and it's fine.

Now, for phase three. Last Thursday (drum-roll, please)...she got the cast cut off...

...and she got an "Aircast," like a ski boot with an air bladder in it. She can inflate it, or deflate it to her own comfort. She can take it off to SLEEP at night! Yessssssssssss! If she's just sitting around for awhile on the computer, or reading, or watching a movie, she can take it off. Or if she's in the water to shower, or in the swimming pool to play (gently, still, no horseplay or serious racing/pushing off the side or anything).

The amazing thing for me is to look at the xrays and see actual growth. Yes, even in this past month, her bones have been growing together and over time will grow straight again. You can see right at the break, little spider-web-looking new growth is filling in. (Go ahead, enlarge it--it's really cool!)

This aircast will be on for at least 4 weeks. (Yes, that will pretty much be her WHOLE summer, sigh...) But we are happy for the good news on growth. She walks around withOUT crutches, and that's pretty cool, too.

Here is her cast-less leg. Her healthy leg has a calf--just by walking around each day, your calf muscle stays toned. She hasn't used the other calf for 6 weeks, so it kind of disappeared.

In Other Whitesell News, David gets to go to a Leadership training this week in Phoenix, with 6 other students from his school. The rest of us will drive to Washington D.C. on Tuesday, and he'll meet us later in the week. He and Frank will attend a couple of days of the Scout Jamboree while the rest of the family tours a little.

Frank and I spent Saturday in the garage fighting mold and mildew: throwing stuff away, making donation piles and putting previously boxed items into plastic bins.

(Did you ever wake up and say "Gee, I sure wish I could go through all the vivid and tedious MOTIONS of moving, without actually moving?" If so, you have got to try this! It's such a rare treat... :0) )

Stay cool this week! Kari

New York excursion

Hello!

We drove in last night from a few days' road trip to New York! Not the city, this time. We'll save that for another vacation. We drove "Upstate."

PALMYRA. We started out with Palmyra, a tiny little village, which has an annual pageant. This show, depicting different scripture stories, has cast members dress up in ancient time period costumes. With 800 in the cast, a huge set up on the hill, and 6000 chairs down on the field below, it's pretty impressive!

There are also a lot of church history sites right around Palmyra. We got to visit them during the day -- the Smith family home, and the printing press building where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed.

Then we saw the pageant that night.

NIAGARA FALLS. After Palmyra, we had to zip up to the border, and visit Niagara Falls National Park. Frank and I had been there previously (and I went with my family when I was in college, too). But we wanted the kids to go, and I could actually visit often and not be tired of it. What a beautiful place! It's a popular spot for people from all over the world. But even with so many tourists, there are enough trails and activities that we didn't feel like it was too-too crowded.

The Canadians may be a bit biased, but in this case I think they are right...the Canadian view is better. If you can, you should take a passport and view the falls from the Canadian side -- you can see more of them. Also, New York has not built up hotels and tall buildings RIGHT next to the falls as much as Canada has. If you stand in Canada and take pics of New York, your photos will have more trees and fewer neon-sign buildings.

The American Falls are the straight stretch, then Bridal Veil Falls are the small ones to the right of American Falls. Horseshoe Falls curve around at the other end, like a horseshoe.

It's all beautiful, though, either side. They light up the falls at night, and 3 nights a week they do fireworks over the falls. Frank took some great night-time shots. Here's one of them.

Here is everybody before our "Cave of the Winds" walk, where you get ponchos and sandals to walk right under the falls.

We also rode the "Maid of the Mist" boat. It takes you into the mist of the Horseshoe Falls.

We had good weather for the trip--only got rained on when we were driving a few times.

We have such beauty in this country. I could visit national parks every week! This one was also very clean. With so many people visiting, that was a pleasant surprise.

Another perk on this trip: no stomach flu. :)

Have a great week! Kari

Time Away with the Fam

Hola!

Well, we made it back. My family had our every-five-years-or-so family reunion at Aspen Grove Family Camp in Utah! I put our backdrop on the header. Just beautiful.









Of course there are tons of activities at a family camp, and the best part was that I didn't have to cook! :) One of Teresa's highlights was the High Ropes course:

















The cousins tried out slingshots.






One of Kara's highlights was being in the pool--yes, her cast is truly waterproof! Unlimited time in the water, if she wants.








We took a morning to go horseback riding.

















And here is Frank playing horseshoes...he's actually pretty good.











The flights to and from were of course loaded with adventure, from construction detours getting us lost so we almost missed the first flight, to delayed flights later in the day, to losing our luggage! Luckily, the losing luggage was on the way BACK, so we could just come home and have them bring it to us another day.

The one big bummer was the stomach flu. :( We hit the very unusual week where stomach flu spread like wildfire through the whole camp, for Pete's sake! Our week, there were a total of 450 campers attending. Probably 75% of the campers caught this silly stomach flu at some point during the week. Of our 21 who went, only 3 stayed healthy. All the others were sick in bed for 24-48 hours during the week sometime. Kara's age group had 22 kids in it, and one day they only had 6 show up! All the rest were sick in bed.

Oh well, what can you do about that...? (Wash your hands, for one thing...but THAT's another soap box for another blog entry, of course--)

After a lovely week in cooler, dry temps, we are now back to the humidity of the east coast.

Have a great weekend, Kari