Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas Eve

This is not our normal Christmas Eve. We are usually in Albequerque lighting hundreds of luminarias. Thanks to me and sharp stomach pains that sent me to the hospital we were in Phoenix. We opened gifts Christmas eve so that we could get on the road to Albequerque Christmas morning. Here are a few shots of our evening! :)
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Friday, November 14, 2008

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Halloween


Halloween Payton was a lady bug - so so cute!






Jakob and his friend Alexa

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Vegas

Saterday we headed out to Vegas for the AOA conference. Eldon, Payton, Mama and Papa all hit the road with me. We drove up Saterday and checked into the Palazzo WOW! They only have suites. Thanks to Wyeth we all throughly enjoyed the room and the wonderful view of the strip! I worked the conference Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday while the rest of the crew played in vegas. It was a great trip to Vegas complete with multipule trips to the outlet mall and a wonderful dinner for Eldon and I at the Capital Grill.
www.palazzolasvegas.com

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Dad out of the Hospital

Yea dad is better and on his way home to Page! : ) He stayed with us last night, is hitting the road today and will be in his own bed tonight!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Today we are doing a lot better. His pain is less and he is walking more! He has still not passed gas :( But after talking with all of his doctors they say we need to be patient. The bowels will wake up when they want to and there is nothing we can do to speed up the process. They say let them rest and they will start on their own when they are good and ready! - Still waiting


Yesterday - Monday we had some disapointments. We were hoping that his bowels would start moving and maybe passing some gas. But to our dismay he was vomiting and they had to use an NG tube to suck out of his stomach all those ice chips and apple juice. His bowels have not yet woken up and so the fluid had no where to go. So, we are patient! Good news is just around the corner we know it!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hospital Check Dan Brown

Dan is recovering well. Today he was up walking around his pod. He is doing three walks per day around his pod (he is on the 7th floor pod D). He has had great nurses and is getting better every day. There is still a significant amount of stomach pain. They cut a good 4 plus inches on his right side where the illiostomy bag was. He has some staples but the wound looks really good. Today he went for an MRI to look at a possible reason for numbness in his limbs. For the last month or so he has had numbness on his left side fingers and toes. We are thinking it is because he has had to sleep on that side not to disrupt the bag on the other. The good news is the MRI did not show anything significant. So, now we are going to consult with his oncologist to see if it could still be the after effects of the chemo. In the mean time the hospitalist has increased his vitamin intake. He thinks there could be a possibility with his weight loss over the past year and the bag he might not be getting the right nutrition from his diet, plus why not add some vitamins! Nutrition deficiency can cause nerve damage - wow learned something new today. He is still on ice chips and apple juice waiting for his system to start up again. They say it takes time and adding food will not speed up the process. So, we wait with our one apple juice slushie every 8 hours. We are waiting on gas! Yep Gas as soon as he starts passing gas and getting all that air they pumped into him during the surgery out he can start on a full tray of clear liquids. Right now his cheif complaint is that from his two surgeries his belly button is now a little off center. He keeps telling the nurses he won't be able to wear his speedo. Ha ha ha ha dad!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Dad's Surgery w/ Dr. Brown

Dr. Brown said that patient Mr. Brown did great! They did an illeostomy reversal and cleaned up some scar tissue from his last surgery. The great news is that is all they did!:) Dr. Brown said that since there was nothing visible on his scan there was no need to cut him open to go check things out, just do a quick reversal. They also looked at his colon and there was a small pocket there that they stapled up. He is doing well today and had been upgraded from ice chips to apple juice - he likes it frozen. He was requesting his apple slushies before he was even admitted. Jessica has been with him all day today - thanks Jess! Mom and I got flu shots on Thursday and with mom's low immune system she got sick yesterday afternoon. She said she was not going to the hospital today but ended up feeling better this afternoon and went for a short visit. Hopefully she will be better tomorrow. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danbrown1

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Thief

Thief thief thief - This morning Eldon and Payton went out to the car and found it had been broken into. The driver side door was badly damaged and the window shattered. Everything was thrown around and the car was trashed. Through the clean up we found that they had taken Eldon's wallet and that was it, nothing else. The remote to the garage was still there all our CD's (I guess they didn't like Sugarland!). There were gift certificates to local restaurants, my fleet fuel card, the car seat but they only took the wallet and my spare change. It was parked in the drive way and my dad's Jeep was right next to it maybe three feet between the two. Our morning consisted of calling the bank, my fleet mgt, Phoenix police, the credit cards and a host of other people to get every thing shut off. We found that they had already used one of the credit cards to make a long distance call to a correctional facility in Texas.
UPDATE -
We got a call from Clay, Eldon's boss saying someone found the wallet! :) Yea! There was a business card in the wallet and that is what they called. Turns out the person who found it was our neighbor two doors down. Everything was still there (even a free banana split from RD's)except for the 3 credit cards he had. So really we are not out anything Wyeth is taking care of the car and we have the wallet back, just a big hassle!

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Moo Moo Palooza

Payton, Eldon, Sunni, Beetle, Becca and I headed out, way out to Mesa to the Moo Moo Palooza. We had a great time on the Stechnij Dairy Farm. It was their 30 year anniv and they were throwing a party. The girls got pet the goats, donkey, ducks, rabbits, horse, turkeys and the baby cows at the petting zoo.

We all took a hay ride around the farm and learned that with their near 1000 cows they produce 4,000 gallons of milk a day. They also milk the cows 4 times a day! We enjoyed Free milk too! It does a body good. Take a look at pictures from our fun day on the farm.

Hospital Check

What is happening? Hospital check this month - other than me - My sister Jessica she had a really bad spider bite on her foot that sent her to the ER. Her foot was as big as a watermelon, well not that big but she had to be on 3 different antibiotics. Then my grandmother Bebe has been in twice she is being released today from her second trip. Then our cousin Chrissy was in this week with two fractures in her vertebra. Finally, my dad is scheduled for surgery this Friday. We are really excited he is getting his guts put back in. Whew! I saw a shooting star last night coming up the 51 and I wished for Health for the whole family! We need it! :) Health and happiness to all!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Surgery 9/5/08

Eldon and Jess had to work Saturday so we decided to hit the cabin in Prescott on Saturday night for the night and cool off a bit. We met at Tara Thai for dinner and it was great. Maybe in my case too great I felt like I had eaten an Elephant but Jess said I didn't eat THAT much. All night I could not sleep my tummy hurt so bad. Then next day we got up and it I was still in a lot of pain. We packed up and decided to head back to Phoenix just in case. When I admitted to myself that this pain was worse than labor we drove to the ER. We checked into the JCL Deer Valley ER at 1:30pm on Sunday with a white blood cell count of 21,ooo 21 thousand! By 8 pm I was in emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. I am now at home recovering for the next two weeks and feeling a lot better!:)

Monday, September 29, 2008

Nevada Weekend



Wow what a weekend. I am still in shock we fit it all in. Thursday night 9-25 we left Phoenix headed for Page, AZ. Spent the night with Jama and Papi. Friday morning we woke up and headed out to Mesquite, Nevada for the NISA Native American World Series of Softball. Eldon was playing with Nations a team he is usually picked up on for this tournament. The girls (Sunni, Monica, Beetle, Teresa, and Brandy) were playing on a coed team as well as a women's team. Friday night the boys played at 10pm - they won. So, they played again at 3pm the next day. We woke up Saturday morning with some time to kill, we headed to the visitors center and found out that Nevada's First State Park was only a thirty min drive towards Vegas. So, we hit the road south. Check out the pictures in the slide show! The picture above - Eldon with Payton under Poodle Rock. We went on some great hikes saw so many wonderful rock formations and a ton of petroglyphs! We raced around the park and speed back to Mesquite for Eldon's 3pm game -they won. Sunday, the boys played at 8am - lost and then at 10am and lost -they were out. The girls team was out but they were still in it for coed. We decided to hit the road to Vegas were we stopped for a short trip to the Factory Outlet mall - not quite enough time there - then dinner in Kingman and arrived home Sunday night around 11pm Phew! What a fabulous weekend for the Cranks :)

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

My 1st Photo Shoot


Maggie Lusk- My 1st real photo shoot! What a wonderful subject. I had a blast and would love to do more. Thanks Maggie and Niki :)

Guts

Yea dads guts are being put back in!!! We just found out - a good report from Dr. Brown 9/23/2008 he will be scheduled for surgery and his gutz put back in! Yea! :)

Zoo
















Sunday 9/21 we headed out to the Phoenix Zoo. It was a pretty hot day but they made up for it with all the water play areas they now have WOW! Payton had a blast!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Happy Birthday!!!


Happy birthday Payton Emma :) Peanut is now One! Wow can you believe it? She loved all of her balloons and presents. I didn't think at one she would be tearing them open but she was and she was loving it!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Albuquerque

Again this weekend we escaped the heat and headed to Albuquerque, NM to see Sally and Grandme. We had a great time roasting green chilies!













This is me with my great auntie Sally. I love her bunches!













I even got to dip my toes and fingers in the Rio Grande!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

The Cabin


Over the long weekend we headed north to escape the heat of Phoenix. Prescott shack here we come. We met Jama and Papi there - Papi's agenda an MG - Jama's agenda Payton - Eldon's agenda relax and Sarah had pictures on the brain so here some of them....