Lake Trip

This summer we planned on doing some sort of family "business trip" with our family and the Avila family (John's rabbit and chicken business partner).  Summer flew by and before we knew it the kids were back in school.  Luckily we were able to work out every ones schedule's and we were still able to go on a little weekend trip to the lake. 

Friday night we headed to Lake Don Pedro.  We camped there for the weekend.  Saturday John made arrangements to rent a 26 foot deck cruiser boat with an inner tube.  We had the boat from 8am to 4pm.  The weather was great.  We all had fun and it was nice to get away from it all for a little bit and enjoy some time together as family and friends.

Jacob, Mikayla, Julia, Ashlee

Mikayla, Julia, Ashlee

John was the first one to try the inner tube

John

Mikayla was second on the inner tube.  She needed to let all the older kids know that the youngest kid was the bravest!

Mikayla

John

Mikayla

Mikayla

Jacob

Ashlee

Ashlee

Ashlee

Ashlee

John, Mikayla, Julia and Jacob.  Ashlee is on the tube.

Julia

 

Ashlee she ended up going on the tube 4 or 5 times throughout the day.

 Time for a break from tubing and time for a swim.

Nivia

 

Nivia

Libby

Libby

 

Libby-I seemed to have got on the tube when there were more waves than earlier in the day.  My neck got jerked so much.  I didn't last too long.  I spent the rest of the day with a headache.

John and Mikayla jumping off the boat for a swim

Jacob, Julia and Mikayla being tugged along.

Ashll, Libby, Mikayla, Jacob
Julia, Paul, Nivia

John, Ashlee, Libby, Mikayla, Jacob,
Julia, Paul, Nivia

Everyone had a fun enjoyable time.  The kids did not want to get out of the water.  When we got back to the campground they were all begging to go swimming in the lake again.  They settled for ice cream and a movie at the campsite instead!  Plans are already in the works for next years family "business trip."  Paul wants to rent a cabin and go horseback riding.  I guess we will have to wait and see what the next year has in store for A&A Farms.

First Day of Soccer

After taking a 2 year break from soccer, Mikayla decided she wanted to play soccer again.  This week soccer practice started up and today was her first soccer game of the season.

Mikayla is on the right playing defender.

Good News

Nearly 10 1/2 years ago Ashlee was diagnosed with precosious puberty and she began receiving injections every 28 days at home.  The injections helped supress the excess estrogen in her body and prevented her from maturing at a point in her life when she should not be maturing.  The last 10 1/2 years have been filled with approximately 125 injections, 3 surgeries, numerous blood tests, doctors visits, x-rays, and CT Scans.  Not too mention all the tears shed from having to be held down to recieve a shot or blood test.  Or the coutless hours I have spent on the phone going round and round with insurance companies and pharmacies, etc.  The journey has been a long one.  One I never wish to repeat.  Today Ashlee and I made our last trip to her endocrinoligist in Madera!  Ashlee's numbers all in normal range.  Her growth is now normal and progressing as it should be! 

Picture Day

Today was picture day at school.  Both the girls wanted to have their hair curled for picture day.  I am always worried about trying something new on picture day, because you never know what the outcome will be.  But luckily everything turned out ok.  I am not sure what their hair will look like by the time they actually get their pictures taken, but this is what they looked like when they left the house this morning.

Robbery

Today at 2:50pm we were robbed.  At 3:00pm John called me at work.  There was a pause on the phone and he said "well our TV is gone, our room is a mess."  My heart sank.  I knew what had happened.  There has been a rash of robberies, attempted robberies, etc in our area; and for a few weeks now I have had this un-easy feeling.
 Every morning before we left the house the kids and I would hide things that we felt were of value to a thief.  This particular day, I just didn't feel right.  I went back inside the house after getting the kids into the car and hid the laptop.  I thought about locking the door that goes from the garage into the house, but I didn't (I should have listened to that voice).
At approximately 2:50pm some thieves pulled into our back yard and drove across our lawn.  They attempted to pry open a metal security screen door, bent the screen on our bedroom window, bent the screen on our garage window and then decided to kick in the door going from the garage outside.  Once they got in the garage, the door going from the garage into the house was open and they gained access into the house.  After 60 seconds our alarm sounded and the alarm company called.  Our answering machine says the message out loud so the thieves heard the alarm company saying that they were calling about an alarm sounding.  One minute after the alarm company called our house, they called John's phone.  John ran home from work as fast as he could, but the thieves had already done their damage and were gone.  We estimate that the thieves only had 4-5 minutes once they gained entry into our home.  We are assuming there was more than one person because of the amount of damage done in a matter of a few minutes and by the fingerprints we found. 
The thieves got away with our TV, John's scriptures, Ashlee's scriptures, a bag, a necklace and a bracelet.  They ate some cookies and dropped their crumbs down the hallway on their way out and peeled out on our lawn and driveway as they sped away.
 Later on that night after things calmed down, the kids and I drove down the road and we were able to recover Ashlee's scriptures, some empty jewelry boxes and some papers that were inside of John's scriptures.
 As bad as this situation was it could have been a whole lot worse.  Things have not been the same since the robbery.  We are all shaken, scared and on edge in our own home.  We do not want to be in our house, but we don't want to leave our either.  Every noise startles us, every suspicious car makes us wonder if they could be the ones.  The girls slept together in the same room for 5 days with baseball bats next to them. Every night we sleep with the gun on the night stand and everyday when we leave our home, we take things with us.  We figure are valuables are safer with us than in our own home. 
The detective was able to get a partial hand print off the garage window, but so far we have not heard from them.  So I guess that means they haven't found a match.  As messed up as the whole criminal/government system is these days, they will probably never find the scum bags, and if they do find the scum bags, they will probably just get a slap on the hand and be right back at their life of crime in a matter of days. 
We do have renters insurance, but in this situation it does not do us any good.  They got away with approximately $1100-$1200 worth of stuff and our deductible is $1,000.  So it isn't worth it for us to pay a $1,000 to get $100-$200 worth of coverage.  Our luck!

They dumped every drawer out of the dressers and nightstands in our room and tossed stuff everywhere.

 The hole in the entertainment center where our 46 inch TV use to be.

 The door going from the outside into the garage that they kicked in.  From the size of the foot print.  The person has a big foot.

 Our bedroom window that they tried to get in.

 Marks on the security door where they tried to pry it open.

Three finger prints on the trim by the entertainment center

Skinny finger prints by alarm keypad and light switch.  I found these prints 2 days later, but the sheriffs office said they couldn't use these prints because walls are too porous!

Larger prints near the alarm keypad and light switch.

 

First Day of School

Today was the first day back to school for the girls.  Where in the world did summer go?  It doesn't even feel like we had a break and we are back at it again.  Ashlee started 6th grade today (Middle School) and Mikayla started 4th grade. 
Mikayla loves her teacher and has all her friends (except 1) in her class this year. 
Ashlee isn't so sure of her teacher and has 1 friend in her class,  She also seems to have ended up with the "class clowns and class goof offs" so she isn't too thrilled about school this year.  I thought since she was in middle school and rotating classes throughout the day that she would be with a different group of kids in each class, but she rotates classes with the same group of kids throughout the day.   By the end of the day she has a headache from dealing with all the goof offs!  Oh, well such is life.  I told her we are not always thrilled about having to go to work everyday, and we have to deal with all kinds of people too, so get use to it.  Next year is a different year...
 

Jordan, Allison, Mikayla

Ashlee in her desk

Brooke, Allison, Mikayla, Jordan.

 

Ashlee's Sinus Surgery

Ashlee has had sinus issues ever since she was little.  She is always getting sinus infections.  There usually is only 3 months out of the year that she doesn't have sinus problems.  When she was 8 they removed her adenoids to help with the issue of recurring infections.  At that time, adenoid removal was the only thing that would really help, because of her age and the fact that the sinus's would continue to change with growth. 
Fast forward three years to now, Ashlee still continues to have infections and headaches on a regular basis.  Antibiotics would only help the infection for 2-3 weeks and then the infection would be back.  Her left sinus is now 90% blocked.  To simply put the situation in the terminology used by the doctor he said: "Your either going to keep treating the infection with antibiotic every few weeks or your going to have surgery to fix the problem.  My motto is if the problem can be fixed, fix it.  Don't keep treating it."  Needless to say, we decided to have the problem fixed.  The surgery has a 90-92% success rate which is really good.  Ashlee will continue to take allergy medication to help with allergies, but as long as things go as expected, the infections will be gone!
Today was surgery day.  Ashlee wasn't scheduled for surgery until 3:30pm but she had to arrive at 1:30pm.  Ashlee was starving.  She was going to go from dinner time Thursday night to dinner time Friday night without being able to eat or drink anything.  Luckily the surgeon was ahead of schedule.  She got in about 40min earlier than expected.  The surgery was an hour and a half long.  The surgeon said the surgery went well.  Ashlee had infection from her cheek area all the way up to her eyes.  The surgeon said the infection "glowed" he could follow it all the way from her cheeks to her eyes (this is in spite of being on antibiotics 2 weeks ago)!  Ashlee is doing good.  She has to take it easy for 3 weeks, no lifting, bending, swimming, nose blowing, etc.  Right now her nose is pretty plugged up from the healing process, but hopefully that will all be over soon.  She has had very little pain too.  Hopefully we made the right choice and she will soon be healed, infection free, and breathing freely.

Before surgery.  She didn't want her picture taken.

Getting ready to go into the operating room.  John got to go with her until she went to sleep.

After surgery.  She doesn't do real well with anesthesia.  She kept saying she wanted the "sleepy medicine" to be gone.  Of course about 2 miles down the road from the surgery center,  the nausea and vomiting began.  YUCK!