Mom is on her way home! She came out yesterday, and had the angiogram. They did find a blockage in one of the vessels, but it was from some kind of abnormality in the vessel. This is totally making a long story short, but they are now treating her like a normal heart attack victim (even though it wasn't caused by cholesterol build-up), and sending her home with the necessary meds, etc. After resting for awhile, she should be able to resume normal activity within a couple of weeks! We are sure praising God for this. A huge answer to prayer is that there is no damage to her heart!

Thanks so much for praying for her. Yesterday we were all a little anxious, but have felt God's peace very strongly through all of this. My mom had an amazing attitude through this whole thing. I was blessed to see both of my parents' confidence in Jesus, even though they were sometimes unsure just exactly what would happen next. I'm sure they would appreciate prayer that God would protect her from any complications from here on.

Mom

Just a little update on Mom...

She did a stress test yesterday and things went fairly well, although the Dr. wasn't totally pleased with the results. They are sending her out for further testing with a cardiologist. So now they are just sitting, waiting to hear when it is scheduled. They have high hopes of being able to send her out for tests, etc. and back the same day.
Just pray that things keep coming together in God's timing and that the tests would show clearly what the next step should be. We are also praying that the damage to the heart would be very minor.
Thanks for your interest and for praying for Mom with us.

It's only Monday, and I feel like it's been a long week.

Since I'm the first one of my family to post since the weekend, I'll take the liberty to tell you what happened. On Saturday Dad called me to say that Mom was in the hospital with severe chest pain. To make a long story short, it turns out she had a mild heart attack. It was pretty shocking for me to realize that my mother had a heart attack. And let me tell you, it really makes one aware at how much we take life for granted.

We are all so thankful that it wasn't any worse. She seems to be well on her way to recovery. We'll be anxious to hear if she gets to go home tomorrow. I feel too far away to give lots of details, so I'll leave that up to Mom when she has the energy to post on her blog.

I always appreciate my parents/family, but when something like this happens, you just realize how your life can change in 5 minutes. I know I take things for granted. Anyway, please pray with us for a thorough recovery for her.

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In other news...

We are enjoying real summer weather now. The big little pool is up and we have already had lots of friends here to enjoy the great weather with us. We had a great visit with Angie, Annie and all the kids on Saturday, and we even got to spend quite a bit of time outside before the rain hit!

Emilie is seeming very big to me all of a sudden. The other night when I was kissing the girls good night, she started making smacking sounds with her tongue as if she was copying us. She did the next day too, so I think it was intentional. She says, "Da da da da", and only says, "Ma ma ma ma" when she's crying. :-) She is still extremely snobby about her food choices. I tried to hide mashed banana in some vanilla yogurt yesterday and she shivered the longest shiver I've ever seen and wouldn't eat another bite. At least she loves every meal of "grown up food" that I've blended up for her, so that's a good sign.

She is crawling pretty fast now and pulling herself up on any furniture. Her brains haven't quite caught up to her body though, and she doesn't realize that she actually has to hang on when she's standing up. She has a nasty bruise on her forehead to prove it.

I'd like to write updates on the other kiddos too, but my bed is calling me...My mustard-seed-faith is trying hard to believe that Emilie will sleep peacefully through the night tonight and that her cough will be gone very soon now...

We had a great weekend in RL. It was short, but good as usual. The highlight was fishing, I think. Olivia and Daryl pulled in the biggest walleye at 28", 7 1/2 lbs. How's that for a whopper?! We ate fish until we could eat no more. My cravings are satisfied for awhile, I think. :-)

Emilie is starting to warm up to her grandparents. She wasn't terribly friendly, but at least she was letting them hold her by the time we left!

Another neat thing was that we got to make connection with some people who have lived out "east" for a long time. They are putting us in contact with some churches and just giving us some contacts in general. We're very excited about that, since we are starting from square one.

I got to have coffee with Glenda, who is home for the summer. It was so good to sit down and catch up with her!

Also got to pick the brains of Iris and Jenni regarding homeschooling, and that was fun. I like hearing from others who are there and who can tell me what/what not to do. I think I could have spent another hour or two gabbing!

On the way home, we had a great time watching wildlife! We saw a bull moose and two cows, a coyote, a black bear, a muskrat, and the sweetest little doe and fawn. The fawn was SO small. I don't know if I've ever seen one in the wild with spots on it. So cute.

We are starting to wind down for summer...Today is my last ladies' Bible study, which includes a brunch (yeah!), Anna-Christina is having track and field day whenever it decides to stop raining, and Olivia is practising for her school concert.
Now if only the weather would warm up, we would feel like it's actually summer... Oh well, it's not 40 below and that's a good thing.

Overheard

Adrienne was looking at a Bible story book and saw a picture of a woman kneading bread.
She says:
Mom, look! Moses and Mary making pizza for us!

The Treasure Hunt

We hit the jackpot on Saturday. Daryl wanted to look for some clothing at Sal Army, so we decided to take the whole family. When we pulled up to the store, I noticed there were signs in the window that said, "All clothing and furniture 50% off today". Yee-haw!
We had two carts full of stuff, and after awhile Anna-Christina said, "Mom, we have to get out of here. You guys are spending way too much money and I'm worried we won't have enough left to buy vegetables at Superstore!". (I'm still not sure if she was serious, or just tired of being there)

Anyway, since some of you will be wondering what great bargains we got, well, I'll tell you. When we got home I made a list of everything as I took it out of the bags, just because I was curious what all we got for the $$ we spent.
Here it is:

-large plastic serving platter
-Melita coffee pot (for camping)
-5 kids books
-Adventures in Oddessy 6 cassette set
-baby food grinder
-It's a Wonderful Life
-2 DIY books
-hardcover World Atlas
-kid's cd travel case
-men's dress shoes
-4 pairs men's pants
-men's sweatshirt
-4 men's dress shirts
-2 pair men's shorts (not underwear) :-)
-girls' flip flops
-13 girls' tops (I got a little carried away, but they were good brand names...)
-5 pairs traning panties
-2 pairs girls' shorts
-1 ladies tee (yep, that's all I got)
Total: $78

Not bad, eh?