A perfect Saturday!

We had such an awesome day on Saturday!  We woke up and headed straight for the river.  We took our boat over to Pere Marquette for breakfast.  The kids thought it was awesome and loved the “king chairs” in the restaurant.  We then played giant Connect 4.  After several matches and everyone winning a game, we went for a hike.  We took a short trail straight up to the lookout over the Illinois River, but on the way down we took a longer trail.  The longer trail was not overgrown like the other (no spiders crawling on us) and it had beautiful scenery and rock formations.   The boys loved it and Dale and I had so much fun watching them be little explorers.  After our hike we headed back to our boat and went to the sand bar.  The boys found a fort there the night before and had to get back to guard it!  They played and played until we finally had to leave.  On our way in Levi decided to wake board.  He popped right up and stayed up for several minutes.  He gets better every time he does it and is so proud of himself.   Finally, we went to a party for our cousin Amber.  It was a great ending to a perfect day!

Mommy and Will 

Max and Daddy 

Grumpy Levi 

Will, Levi and Max 

Will 

Levi 

Max 

Levi and Max 

Levi, Max and Will 

Will, Daddy, Max and Levi 

Levi, Max and Will 

Mommy, Daddy

Levi, Max and Will 

Max, Will and Levi

Mommy and Daddy 

Daddy, Max, Will and Levi 

Daddy, Max, Will and Levi 

Will 

Max and Daddy 

Levi 

Will 

Max 

Max and Daddy

Daddy 

Mommy 

Will 

Max 

Levi 

Daddy 

Max, Will and Levi 

Levi 

Will 

Max 

Daddy and Mommy 

Mommy, Levi, Max and Will 

Levi, Will and Max 

Max 

Guarding the fort from attackers (aka Dad)!

Will, Max and Levi

 Will, Levi and Max 

Mommy 

Max, Levi and Will

Levi and Max

Will

Levi

Max

Levi

Levi

Update on Will

Will had been doing pretty well since he has been out of the hospital.  He started school on a Wednesday and by Friday after school we could tell he was in pain/worn out.  On Sunday he was miserable during church and was even crying when people started clapping.  He said the noise bothered him.  The rest of the day on Sunday we could tell that he just didn’t feel right so we tried to keep him mellow.  On Monday morning he didn’t want to go to school.  I finally got out of him that he didn’t like lunch because of the noise.  I e-mailed his teacher and let her know the new issue with noise.  By Monday afternoon I had a call from the nurse that Will had a headache and was in her office.  She had him lay down in a dark room for a while which seemed to help.  He said his headache started when he was outside for a short time and then got worse when he went to music.  His teacher called me on Tuesday to talk about what to do.  Since we were going to the doctor on Wednesday we decided to wait it out to see what they said. 

On Wednesday morning Will had his follow-up with neurosurgery.  The neurosurgery office is in St. Louis Children’s Hospital so he was nervous about going.  He thought he would have to stay and he kept saying in the car that he didn’t want shots.  Once the Nurse Practitioner came in he was acting goofy the entire time, which is what he does anytime he is nervous.  The Nurse Practitioner was great.  We had so many questions and she took about 30 minutes just talking to us before she examined Will.  She even showed us his MRI and where the bleeding was present in his head and along his cervical spine.  The noise and light sensitivity is completely normal for this type of injury.  She wants him to continue to go to lunch because the ultimate goal at this point is to get him to be 100% at school.  She wants him to rest for 20 minutes a day in the nurses office as needed.  She said he will have good days and he will have bad days and it could take another 6-8 weeks before the headaches and neck pain are completely gone.    He cannot play sports, participate in PE or play at recess for another 4 weeks.  We are going to Silver Dollar City in a few weeks, which means he cannot ride any rides.  He can go swimming and on the boat, just no water sports.  He can also do small thing like shoot hoops and start riding his bike.  Overall he is doing great, it’s just important to prevent another injury while this one is still healing.  He needs to continue his nerve/seizure medicine until we follow-up with neurology in 2 more months.  He is not more susceptible to hemorrhages after this incident.  She said that they rarely see Will’s type of injury from a fall and that it was just a fluke.  Will goes back to neurosurgery in another month and we hope he will be released from restricted activity at that time.  Dale and I feel so much better after this appointment and we are very grateful Will will make a full recovery.

Will finally starts 1st Grade!

On Wednesday Will finally got to start 1st Grade!  He was a little nervous the night before and kept asking me questions instead of falling asleep! "Is my note from the doctor in my backpack?", "When do I go to the nurse?", "Are you making my lunch?"  "Where in my backpack is the note?"  I could only imagine his first day jitters being heightened this year.  His teacher sent his work home with Max everyday so we kept up pretty well with what was going on in his classroom.  And each kid in his class made him a card that they sent home.  This was very sweet and gave Will the chance to learn the names of his classmates.  Levi and Max walked Will to his class the first day since he didn't know where it was.  After lunch he goes to the nurses office to take it easy since he can't do recess.  The nurse calls me to let me know how he is doing and lets me talk to him.  His teacher said that his neck started hurting by late afternoon so she propped his work up on a binder so he didn't have to look down so far.  Otherwise, he's doing great and has fallen into routine nicely.  The school has been very accommodating and really helps me know that's he's being taken care of while he is there.  

As is our tradition, we take the boys to get ice cream after their first day of school every year.  Since Will was in the hospital the first day we had to postpone it.  We didn't go on Will's actual first day because the weather was kind of crappy, so we went yesterday.  Jacob also came along since he started preschool this year and deserved a treat as well!    

Will

Will

Levi and Max were so excited Will was going back to school!

Levi, Will and Max

ICE CREAM!

Levi, Jacob, Will and Max

Will, Max, Jacob and Levi

Will, Max, Jacob and Levi