28 October 2014

October Pack Meeting

I am the Wolf Den leader in our ward. Cub scouts, y'all. The Wolfs are the youngest boys and I only have two of them right now. Our ward is mostly old folks.
Our stake does this thing called "family week" where (usually) the first week after Fast Sunday there are no during-the-week meetings like mutual, scouts, relief society, etc. I say usually because sometimes it gets moved, like in November "family week" is the week of Thanksgiving. So for scouts, we do den meeting twice a month and then the other week is pack meeting. Now, before I got this calling I didn't know anything about scouting. I still don't know much. But I especially didn't know anything about cub scouts. I would have been 15 when my brother finished cub scouts so I'm pretty sure I wasn't paying any attention to him. It's been crazy to try and learn all this stuff and they are changing the program for cub scouts next year.
Anyways, for October's Pack Meeting, we had a guy from our ward who is a BYU Chemistry professor come and do some experiments for the boys. They loved it. He did liquid nitrogen, fire, explosions, elephant's toothpaste, chemically-made slime, and more. 





Tyson and I were in charge of doing homemade root beer with dry ice. Tyson's family does it every year and it's one of Tyson's favorite Halloween traditions. I was glad to do it for a whole lot of people so they would drink lots of it. And they did. The boys thought the dry ice was cool and everyone liked the root beer.

Since it is almost Halloween, we invited people to dress up in their costumes if they wanted to. A lot of people didn't but William and I sure did. Tyson came to pack meeting straight from work so he was off the hook.


William even made a new friend. The young women were having their mutual activity at the church tonight, too. I didn't get this girl's name but she and William are buddies now and she told me she would love to babysit him sometime. I gotta figure out who she is!
We had a lot of fun at pack meeting and I'm grateful for a calling that is stretching me instead of yet another music calling. It's nice to do something different for a change.

26 October 2014

Cravings

I haven't been having "cravings" like the stereotypical pickles and ice cream thing. But there have been a few things I know I can always eat without any heartburn and some things I probably shouldn't eat (again, dang heartburn) but do it anyways. And then there's the things I wish I could have, but can't. So here's the list (the categories are all jumbled together):

1. Eggos with peanut butter and syrup
2. Bagels and cream cheese
3. Beef tamales from Tito's Tacos in L.A.
4. Pineapple chicken curry from Thai Mango in Sandy, Utah
5. Queso Fundido with beans and rice from Milagros
6. Tuna fish sandwiches
7. Crackers and cheese (I blame Wallace and Gromit.)
8. Celery
9. Apple chips
10. Peanut butter and boysenberry jelly sandwiches
11. Milk and cereal
12. Grilled tuna, mashed potatoes with sour cream, and corn from Texas Roadhouse
13. Thanksgiving dinner
14. Apple pie a la mode
15. Funeral potatoes and ham
16. Applesauce
17. BYU Chocolate Milk
18. Chocolate ice cream
19. Strawberries on angel food cake with whipped cream
20. Jamba juice smoothies

18 October 2014

William's Leg

On October 4 William and Tyson were playing with William's cousin and somehow William's leg got squashed. And by squashed I mean broken. I was sitting right there watching and I couldn't tell you exactly what happened. In fact, we heard three loud pops that we thought maybe came from his knee since that's what he was holding while screaming in pain. Turns out his leg was broken: a spiral tibia fracture. 
See? Pretty bad. Luckily they didn't have to set it since there wasn't a lot of movement. 
He was so unhappy. We had tried to give him some medicine before we left the house but he wouldn't take anything. And he was shaking and crying. They finally gave him a shot of morphine and that really helped. He even fell asleep for a little bit. They put him in a splint and told us to go to an orthopedist in a week after most of the swelling had gone down. We got William into a guy here in Orem the following Thursday and had the cast put on. William cried the entire time we were there. To be fair, we had to remove the splint to do x-rays and then we moved him into the casting room. We tried to get him to pick a color for his cast but he said "NO!" to every suggestion. So we went with green.

See? Sad boy. He held my hand so tightly the whole time. It's been a little over a week since he's been in the cast. We had another appointment this last Thursday (his one-week mark) for more x-rays to confirm that the bones hadn't shifted. Luckily everything looked great which means no surgery. He'll be in the cast for three more weeks. After that we'll do another set of x-rays. If everything looks good he'll be put in a walking cast or boot for another two weeks. When all that is done he should be cast/boot free before Thanksgiving.
He's not supposed to put any pressure on his leg at all. We got a kid wheelchair so we can take him to church in it and to preschool. I'm still waiting to hear from the transportation folks if they will take him to school in his chair or if I have to drive him. I know they pick up a kid from William's class who is in a wheelchair so they have the capabilities. We'll see what they say. It was fall break the past few days so no one was there to answer the phones.
William has learned how to scoot around on his bum so he can still get around in the house. He likes to sit in his wheelchair sometimes just to watch a movie.
My dad bought us a Radio Flyer wagon and shipped it to us. I took William on a walk today in it. He loved it! We're going to take him trick-or-treating in it, too. 
William is a heavy kid, the cast makes it worse, and I'm not really supposed to be lifting heavy things these days, ya know? There are some times when I just can't do it at all. We've been blessed that William is a naturally happy kid so once the swelling and pain went down he perked right back up. It was really hard for a while because he didn't want to do ANYTHING except lay in his bed and watch movies. At least now I can get him to agree to go outside or in the car with me. His eating is still a bit iffy sometimes. But I sure love him and I'm glad we can entertain him while he's not allowed to run around.