Owen Brakes His Arm!

So this is what Owen did to his arm a couple of weeks ago.  Doesn't it look purdy?  NO, it was not pretty, it was very gross and very sad (and we're not sure how expensive :). 

 

The story goes:  Nate's mom and I took the kids to a nearby beach with a playground.  We had fun for an hour or so hanging out and the boys wanted to be up at the playground while the girls hung out at the beach.  So Grandma Packard took the boys up to the playground and awhile later Tanner comes back down to me and kind of weirdly says that Grandma wants me because Owen is hurt.  Well, as soon as I hear this I know that something must be serious, because Sherrie would be able to handle something minor on her own.  Sure enough, I go up there and find her huddled over Owen underneath the spiderwebs.  His arm is definitely not bent in a natural position and he is screaming nice and steady, which is another sign that it is serious, because he is a tough boy and doesn't cry too long when he's hurt.  To make a long story short, I didn't call the ambulance because I didn't want to pay for it, I had some random, nice LDS moms try and help with locating the nearest walk-in clinic, Owen didn't want to be moved, someone got the park rangers involved and they wouldn't let me move Owen, and they called the EMT's anyway!  So we waited forever, the EMT's finally got him into my car, (because I wanted to transport him, of course) and an hour and 1/2 later we finally got to an office and then there was MORE waiting after that.  :)  We got these lovely pictures of his arm and they told us we should just head straight down to Seattle Children's Hospital to the best pediatric Orthopedic Surgeons around.  Yeah! Another hour drive to the hospital.  Realize that Owen only cried for about 30 minutes and then was chill for most of the rest of the day through all this craziness (I had given him some Tylenol, but at the dr they wouldn't give him anything for the pain because they didn't have anything that wouldn't react to him going into surgery).  After seeing his break I couldn't believe he wasn't still screaming his head off!

Amazingly, he was able to take a nap in the car on the way down, I think his body was still in shock and exhausted.  Sherrie was able to take the other kids home, thank goodness she was there!  She was a huge help through all of this!  The hospital was semi waiting for us and ready to see the x-rays that we brought with us.  They told us he would be in surgery for sure and that they would probably take him in that night.  Sure enough at 7:30 he went into surgery and had 3 pins put into him arm and elbow.  He did not want to come out of anesthesia and so it was 10:30pm before we saw him again.  G and G Berry came and brought him some candy and a balloon and we were told that he would stay overnight.  I told Nate to go home and I stuck it out at the hospital.  It was sort of sad/cool because the overflow overnight rooms were in the cancer wing, so we got the nicest rooms, but I felt so bad for the families that were staying there with their poor kids.  Owen was in heaven with the abundance of food (mac and cheese at 4 in the morning), popsicles, and all the movies he could watch.



Me seeing Owen for the first time after surgery.   Look at that cute little boy face.  He was such a champ and complained the most about the IV stuck in his hand, he was so glad when they took it out.  I don't blame him one bit, that's my least favorite part about being in a hospital.

Here he has a hard cast that is cut down the sides to allow for the swelling, then they wrap it in an ace bandage to keep the 2 sides together.

Here they are a week later, putting on one more layer of colored wrap (they got him excited that it was Seahawks green, even better!) over the previous boring, white fiberglass wrapping.  They also x-rayed it to make sure the bone is healing like they want it to.  3 more weeks in a cast, you can do it!

Overall, Owen has been good about the whole thing.  He has obviously had to improvise a little and miss out on a lot, but we only have 1 more week (crossing our fingers) and he should be good to go.

Camping at Teanaway

 (This is definitely out of calendar order)  For Memorial Weekend we went camping for 4 days, and oh was it glorious!  We went to one of our favorite spots, Teanaway, in hopes that it would be drier on the east side of WA.  We ran into a little rain, but thankfully, mom and dad brought their tent trailer so we were able to have a dry place to hang out and sleep each night.

 Nate found a piece of rope on a tree, so we tried some jump roping!  That is one good form of exercise I tell ya!

 Another big part of our adventure was cutting down a dead tree for our firewood for the weekend.  Dad had found the perfect tree and so we cut away!  We learned all about the art of cutting down trees safely.  Dad had lots of experience doing this as a kid with his Dad and grandpa, so it was fun to see him in action.  It sure made for some great fires over the weekend and the wood lasted the whole time!

 The creek by the campsite is VERY cold, so Grandpa paid each kid a quarter to get wet in it.  I think Sidney earned a couple of quarters for laying all the way down!  Brrrr!

I have lots of fun memories of hiking up and down this creek with my cousins.  Sometimes it's weird being back here with my own kids.  Sometimes I think it's weird that I even have kids, or that I'm 30, but that's for another time...

 Hiking, hiking and more hiking.

 This cute faced little girl is officially obsessed with motorcycles!  She has ridden on them before, but this trip sealed the deal.  She was the first one in the morning to ask for a ride and she couldn't stay away from the helmets.  You see her cute face here in this picture and you see how mad she is a couple pictures down when she has to get off to give someone else a turn.  Taryn sure is an adventurous woman!  We recently bought a motorcycle more for my size and a kids motorcycle for the kids to use by themselves, so we kind of have the motorcycle bug around here.  Consequently, Taryn now wakes up every morning saying, "helmet? motorcycles? helmet? dada? motorcycles?"  Oh boy.

 Throwing rocks is a camping must.  Owen is sure getting strong, and is constantly testing his strength by throwing things bigger and farther. 

 This picture on the edge of this cliff sure does freak me out every time!  I only have so many arms, and these kids are fast.  Seriously though, I almost had a heart attack with them up there, but it sure does make for a great view.

The tent trailer has an outdoor shower, so on Saturday/Sunday we all got our turn using the hose in one way or the other.  Thankfully the water got warm, so it wasn't too painful to get ready for church.

(Grandpa forgot his white shirt and tie, and Sidney forgot all her church clothes, so we definitely fit in with all the other campers who visited the ward that day).

Here's a grimace from everyone.  Not sure when/why these were taken?...

The kids had about a bazillion suckers on this trip, but Taryn won the prize for grossest sucker, for sure.  (She won the prize for grossest camper too, but we won't go there:).  We did have to take the sucker away after this roll in the dirt, it was just too gross to give it back to her that time.

We started reading Little House on the Prairie while we were camping and it was a great way for the kids to wind down after a long and busy day.  Tanner even almost fell asleep one time.

Had to get our shooting in.

And Grandpa and Grandma even brought the stuff to make homemade ice cream!  We sure were spoiled.  We thought this method of cranking it was pretty successful; Owen turning, while Taryn is on top of Tanner, who is on top of the machine!

We had fun drinking water out of these beauties.  They looked like little diamonds in the middle of these plants, and we each took a turn practicing our survival skills by having a sip. 

Besides sleeping with the beast, aka: Taryn, the trip was wonderful!  I look forward to the next trip already!  When are we going again?!