The road to recovery...

Exciting stuff...

Brent had carpal tunnel surgery last week (on Tuesday April 15th). 

His hands/fingers have been going numb for a long time, but over the last year it has gotten to the point where they are also sending shooting pains up his arms at all times of the day and night. After a ton of assessments and therapy and adjusting he finally was referred to go in for surgery. 

They were able to squeeze him in the schedule earlier than we planned, but this earlier time was a day I had class. So I wasn't able to be there. This really caused me a lot of anxiety, but Brent assured me he would be fine. He had someone take him to the appointment at 8am and pick him up. Directly after his surgery (in Corvallis) he went to a function for his work...in Portland. Who wouldn't go to a work function directly after surgery? Crazy man.

After my class ended on Tuesday night (7:25pm) I drove straight to him. I arrived late, but he was still waiting up for me. He wasn't in a lot of pain yet, but he could feel a pressure in his arm and knew that it would start to ache the next day.

We headed home the next morning so that he could spend his recovery time at home.
We tried to take our time getting their though.
In true Brent fashion he had to stop by one of his stores to do some work
 (he is always working, even when he is "off").
While Brent "worked" August and I went for breakfast at an Elmer's a few blocks away...

Brent got done working and walked over to Elmer's to join us.
While Brent and I split an omelet, August got this pancake masterpiece all to himself.
We headed home over the Santiam Pass.
We stopped by the Detroit Dam which we pass on our way.
It is a good place to get out and stretch our legs...

Brent was in good spirits even though I know it was starting to feel a bit sore.
I was amazed at how natural Brent was using his left hand. It really didn't seem like his right was the dominant hand because of how well he handled everything with his left. Watching him button his pants, brush his teeth and eat left handed...I was impressed.

I have stopped here before with the boys, but Brent never had. It was nice to see a father and daughter fishing off the dam. They caught a fish and let August oogle over it for a good few minutes.
The gentleman was very informative of the best times to fish there.

My handsome guys!
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Let me just say, It was amazing having Brent home for this chunk of time.

We did a lot.

We had to do some car shopping, yard work, tent mending, summer planning, parent teacher conferences, and then there was Easter.

Brent was able to do a lot of playing with the boys.

The Easter bunny brought August a new bike...

I was so excited to mow the lawn!

After a good mow it was time to start watering...
August took this as an opportunity to play in the sprinkler.

 Lions and tigers, and bears OH MY!
There are a ton of different birds coming around too.
I am going to try and get better pictures of all of them. So far there was this guy, a blue bird very skilled at getting worms.

The bees are out with a vengeance. There were thousands in our apple tree blossoms. Mitch called me over to stand under the tree you could hear a gentle humming, like someone using a leaf blower a block away. I tried to take a picture of them just buzzing around, but I'm not sure I captured any of them.

My mom gave Brent an early birthday present...a Magic Bullet.
Brent has wanted a juicer or a smoothie machine for awhile.
 This was awesome. We made some great smoothies...

The boys got to decide what they wanted and made their own concoctions.

 (Our Easter celebrations are another entry/post/blog...)

Needless to say the weekend was awesome but we eventually had to take Daddy back to his apartment so he could get ready and go back to work.
Driving home ended up begin quite the adventure on its own.
The plan was to drive to Corvallis early Monday so Brent could make a chiropractic apt. and drop off his car (because he had been rear ended awhile ago in his company car), then I would head home Tuesday in time for me to make it to my class in the afternoon.

Well what actually happened...Monday we headed out to drive back to Corvallis early like 6am.
Since Brent finally got the green light to take his car into get fixed.

However, halfway to Corvallis we realized we had forgotten stuff at the house that Brent needed.
We pulled over to try and decide if we wanted to turn around go back home and miss all the appointments, or to keep going and drive home later that day.

We decided to keep going to Corvallis.
We made it to Brent's chiropractic appointment and dropped off the Volvo.
We started driving BACK home so Brent could get the things he needed and about 20 miles out Brent jumps up and says "dang it". He realized he had forgotten his wallet in the Volvo.
So we turned around (again) and went back to get his wallet.
After that we made sure we had everything we needed and began our trip back home...again.
It was one of those days when you could be frustrated and cranky, or just laugh at the circumstances that life throws at you.
We chose to laugh...

It was a great drive.
We took our time.

We stopped at several places to get little moments of peace.

We just sat on the warm rocks and took it all in.

It was so quiet and you could just relax listing to the sound of the water running by...

Brent's damaged back end...apparently its going to take two and a half weeks to fix that...

 Brent and August found a frog in a little puddle of water. I caught it so August could hold it.

He wanted to take him with, but we explained that he needed to stay in his "home" so Aug put (threw) him back in the puddle.

Different colors of moss on trees

 This made me really want to go rafting!

Sitting watching the water...I can't wait to hit the Rogue this summer.

 Through the green mossy trees we made our way to Sisters, Oregon...

We even found out why the Chicken crosses the road!

There is our new car!

There is Mount Washington

Suttle Lake...drive by

construction in Sisters

Our new car from a different angle

 So we stopped to eat lunch in Sisters.
It is a great little western themed town.
They are doing a lot of construction right now so it was pretty empty.

We saw a sign that said homemade soup and got pretty excited.

We entered a cute little place and the woman running it was incredible.

She started out by saying

"Welcome sweetheart, you come for lunch?"

Her accent was so thick. It sounded more like "Velkum sveethrdt"

She gave us samples of everything before we ordered and was so accommodating.

Once our food was there August had a hard time wanting to eat instead of explore...

She came over and gave him bites...(fed him)

She told him he couldn't have any ice cream unless he ate his lunch.

 She called herself his "New Grandma".

We are definitely going back to this place!

So much fun...

Try listening to her talk...
She was a character.

August did a good job eating and we were able to get ice cream.

We made it home in time for me to take a test for my oceanography class (online).
Brent's arm is feeling okay. He hasn't had any more shooting pains.
His thumb has gone numb still, but they said it can take up to a year of lingering numbness.

We'll see if he is saying the same thing after a week of working one armed.