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Two weeks after the ankle operation it was time for the next stage in fixing Tracy! Today we were back up to the Highlands to have the “soft” cast taken off and replaced with a hard cast. First things first, the soft cast needed to come off and we had our first look at Tracy’s disappearing calf muscle:

And then a close up of the ankle:

Which looks a bit like Gollum’s foot from the Hobbit movie! This is all that remained of the soft cast:

Next it was time for another x-ray to check everything was progressing as we hoped:

In amongst the glare of the over head lights you can make out the titanium plate with 4 screws in it. The wonky screw is not bad workmanship – that is the one that goes directly through the fracture to hold it all together.

The next part was the most fun Tracy has had in the last few weeks – choosing the color of her cast – so many options:

With the color chosen it was time to whip the stitches out:

Tracy wasn’t very happy about this but luckily she didn’t faint and it didn’t hurt! The next stage was to put the cast undercoat on:

And then it was time for the beautifully colored cast to go on and isn’t it a lovely one!

And that was that! This cast has to stay on for 4 weeks and then it’s back into the original boot. Not too much longer now and then she’ll be back and better than ever!!

After reviewing the page Tracy wasn’t happy that I hadn’t included the best scar picture, so here you go:

It’s been a while since we had some eagle photos but now they are back! As Tracy and I did some American style gardening i.e. get the strimmer out and strim everything that moves, we saw an eagle swooping about. Having stood watching it for a while Tracy told me to go and get my camera. With large lens secured the eagle promptly disappeared!

Just as I was about to put the camera away, the eagle decided it wanted its photo taken so it gave a screech from the tree it was sat on top! I zoomed in as far as I could and here’s the result. Not a bad shot and hopefully the first of many wildlife pictures this summer, with a bear top of the list!!

Another school year has flown by! Back in September here are the boys about to set off for the first day of school – Harry into 4th Grade and Toby into Kindergarten – his first year at school:

Many months later it was there last day at school. Accents were more American, confidence is definitely increasing, shyness is disappearing and the two boys are growing. Here they are on their last day of the school year:

Harry is coincidentally wearing the exact same pair of jeans. In the picture above they were rolled up but no longer at the end of the year. Bigger and naughtier!

It was father’s day and I woke to two little boys whispering away in their bedroom. After a while, coffee arrived by the bed courtesy of Tracy and then two lovely little boys arrived with gifts. I was very lucky and got some shorts, a shirt, a new pillow, some Utah books and maps and lots of cards and drawings as well as a big chocolate cake!

One particular drawing/piece of writing from Toby was very enlightening. He had completed it at school and it was a list of “the top 10 things about my Dad” and it went a bit like this (spelling by Toby!):

10 – gets mony

9 – ride bicks

8 – tichly manster

7 – smart

6 – fun

5 – plays games with us

4 – taks me to soccer

3 – (blank)

2 – pichs me up at the bus stop

1 – coks!

A pretty impressive list, even if he couldn’t think of anything for the #3 slot!

Two big boys sporting their new haircuts and the, now customary, photo salute!

This one looks a little tired …

And this one is not looking like a little boy any more …

How time flies!

 

We’d had my car almost two years and it had served us well but this is America, land of the gas guzzler, and so today we traded the Batman car in and got a Chevy Trailblazer. It had taken a week or so of negotiation with the garage but eventually they agreed to our price and we got about 25% knocked off so it was worth the haggling. So now we have a nice large 4WD car but it was emotional saying goodbye to the Chrysler:

Lovely Batman car!

Not long until our holiday in the sun begins and that can only mean one thing – time for Holiday Haircuts! I had mine on Friday and on Saturday morning it was time for the boys. They went to Tracy’s hairdresser and their haircuts cost more than mine!

Toby went first, and went from this:

To this (a definite improvement):

Then it was Harry’s turn and he went from this:

To this:

Another improvement with the hair but still a funny face! Now all we need to do is the packing, minor detail.

This week at school Harry has learnt how to write color poems. He clearly is quite partial to this style of poetry as he came home on Friday night and wrote a poem called, Blue. Not only did he write the poem he also created a picture:

Harry’s new found love of poetry clearly had an impact on Toby as he decided to compose a poem called Yellow. Enjoy:

Toby has also written a story. I’ll give you a clue that it starts off being about Puppies, can you work the rest out?

Christmas Day started at just after 7am which was nice! It had clearly been a busy night for Toby though who had heard lots of noise on the roof and also claimed to have seen the red of Father Christmas’s coat in the bedroom plus heard him say “ho ho ho”. Despite seeing him when Toby woke he couldn’t see any presents in a stocking by the side of his bed so he thought he’d been naughty this year. As it turned out, the stocking was at the end of the bed and he’d actually been quite  good!

The stockings were bought into our bedroom and were demolished in next to no time which could only mean one thing – it was time to go downstairs and see if there were more! Clearly everyone had been particularly good in 2012 as Santa had apparently made a bed out of all the presents he’d left! Nice work Santa!

The first job – aside from opening champagne – was to sort all the presents into piles. tracy takes charge of this and runs a very tight ship:

httpv://youtu.be/fTedyw_49k4

With the presents in piles it was time to start unwrapping. We all took a turn with Harry targeting all presents shaped like Xbox games first. He was desperate to get FIFA 2013 and eventually he found it. He was very excited when he opened it and managed to hit Toby in the face as he waved it around! This was clearly not the season of good will to all and Toby responded with a swift kick in the nuts which poleaxed Harry but he still kept a strong grip on the game!

The present unwrapping went on for some time – far too long for the children’s liking but they did very well with all their gifts (as did the parents!).

httpv://youtu.be/0NwK7jhpA0A

Before long it was all done and all that remained were two happy boys, three happy adults and lots of new toys!

 

There is a carrot and a drink for each reindeer. Some sherry and a mince pie for Santa (freshly baked not a left over from the squirrel – who ate all bar one by the way!). There are two very excited little boys. Everything is set. We are counting down to Christmas! Not long now, he’s on the east coast!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Aunty A arrived again and the big question of everyone’s mind was “how much chocolate has she bought with her?”. The answer to that question is lots! The drawer has never looked so healthy – particularly considering that I had also just returned from London.

The other burning question is “how is the jetlag/sleeping going?”. Now as Nanny proved earlier this year, there is no such thing as jetlag – it’s all just in the mind! In addition to this, this is probably Aunty A’s 5th visit (or something like that) so she should be used to the whole timezone situation. And that is what we all thought at the end of night 1. Having arrived back at ours at about 6:30pm, having survived a grilling from US border control, Aunty A managed to stay awake, eat some pulled pork and guzzle some wine before heading off to bed at about 10 ish.

After a brief read she fell asleep and stayed asleep until about quarter to 4 the following morning. Not bad at all but there was more! After flooping about for a while she then fell asleep again and slept until 6:45am. That was probably her best nights sleep in about 4 months!

As we all know, night 2 is always the worse and so it proved to be. Despite the sisters stocking up on plenty of shopping and wine across the day (plus a visit to Cheesecake Factory AND Red Robin) the night did not go well. The excitement of the mall made Sally very tired and she went to bed at about 9:30pm. After falling into a deep sleep, imagine her surprise when we she woke up at 10:30! After falling asleep again she then woke for a second time – on the same day that she went to sleep! A night of tossing and turning followed but she did get a decent amount of sleep all in.

Hopefully night 3 will prove more successful and signal complete adjustment to the new timezone but we shall see!

It was our second Thanks Giving day in America and this year we thought we’d move away from the traditional American experience.

After a day of presents for all, roast pork, watching the Macy’s parade and game playing I decided that we ought to go for a walk and get a bit of fresh air. This met with multiple objections from all people in the house. The only way to get them to agree to leave the house was if they could all go for the walk in their pj’s.

So off we went in pj’s, boots and coats:

We drove round to Timberlake park and walked down to the lake. It was a lovely calm evening after several days of rain and the water looked so still and inviting that Toby and Tracy were both tempted to go for a swim. Toby took his coat off ready to swim but then changed his mind.

As it started to get dark we went back to the car so that we didn’t get attacked by wild bears, raccoons and beavers. Fortunately we got home ok and then settled down for a nice relaxing evening of TV and stinky smells! That’s brussel sprouts for you!