Proud New Homeowners!!

We are now the new owners of a four bedroom bungalow! It is a lovely large home with an ocean view! We move in mid-August and are so happy to be leaving our moldy apartment!! We have a lot of work to do before we can move into our new home. We have to build a ramp for Kaitlyn. Right now her medical stroller/wheelchair can not even get into the house!!! Then we need to build a BIG fence around the perimeter of the property. These things are going to cost us a pretty penny!!! But hopefully we will manage to pay for it all. I have no idea how the ramp and fence are going to happen with only Tim. Hopefully he can scrounge up a couple of buddies to give him a hand. It might not be so bad if he had actually ever built anything before, but he is hoping to get some advice and learn as he goes! We also need a chimney insert to run a woodstove...but that may have to wait until next winter! I think we have a smaller woodstove that would get us started.

Kaitlyn and the boys are going to LOVE this new home. They will be able, once we build a fence, to go outside whenever they like :o) Even Kaitlyn LOVES the outdoors. I can see us spending a great deal of time outside! Guess I better start knitting the kids some mittens. Owen likes homemade mittens the best :o)

Kaitlyn has been doing really well. I guess she just needed a full month of antibiotics to help her get the psuedomonas under control. Since she colonizes pseudo. we will never really ever get rid of it! But hopefully we will continue to be able to control it when it flares up! We did learn that she has some resistant pseudomonas. This is a really good piece of information for us to have. Now we know that if we treat with antibiotics and nothing is happening, then we have to take her in to the hospital ASAP!! Hopefully it will be a good long time again before we have another flare up.

The kids have been asking and asking for a kitten!! We would never have considered it in our apartment, but Tim did tell the boys that if we ever moved into a house..... Well, we are getting two kittens mid-August! They will be a nice "welcome to the new house" surprise for the boys!! They are going to be absolutely thrilled!! I cannot wait to see their little faces when they see them. Our boys are really very good with animals, especially babies! Even though they are so rough and tumble with each other. Alexander absolutely adores anything feline!!! He IS a cat on a regular basis :o)

I'll let everyone know how the ramp, fence and the packing go :o) The next time I post we may be in our new home!

Pseudomonas...Strep Throat...House Hunting!

Wow I cannot believe it has been almost a month since my last post. Several people have asked how we are doing. Well after Kaitlyn got sick we did a two week course of antibiotics. Then Kaitlyn was off antibiotics for two days and started up with green thick secretions and wet lungs again. We took her into ER for a sputum sample. The ER doctor, not really knowing Kaitlyn, and none of our regular doctors being available advised us to put her back on her antibiotic. Two days later we found out that Kaitlyn had cultured peudomonas yet again. When our pediatrician called we found out that Kaitlyn now colonizes resistant strains of pseudomonas. Resistant to the antibiotic we have been trying to treat with. Since Kaitlyn seems symptomatically better while on the antibiotic our doctors have recommended finishing this second two week round of antibiotic and then take her off and see how she does! If she gets sick again with the "green stuff" then we will be forced to try a new med. Not too sure what that is going to be but our Ped. has assured me that she and our pulmo. have a plan!!! It's my hope that when we stop this fourth week of hefty broad spectrum antibiotic that the ugly green monster stays away!!!

Tim and I are just getting over strep throat. I've had a sore throat for almst a month, which isn't uncommon for me. I get sore throats with allergies, weather change, dry air, environmental changes and every virus that goes through he house! But I had about three days of unbearable sore throat and it felt like strep...I used to get strep throat a lot in my younger days. Anyway, after a few days I started to feel better but Tim got worse. He ended up with a sinus infection!! Not fun!

We are still searching for a house! We really need to get out of this apartment! We have found a home that we really like and are in negotiations to buy this house. There are some issues, as I'm sure there always are!! But I'm still hopeful that everything will work out. The place is a little farther outside of the city than we might prefer to be, but not so far that we feel that we are putting Kaitlyn at any risk. It's not too far from the children's hospital. It may make our nursing a little tricky...not too sure how many of Kaitlyn's current nurses will be able to make the trip out there. Who knows the move may bring some new faces.

I don't want to rant about the house we have found that we like in case we don't get it. But I would like to say that it is one of the best we have veiwed as far as meeting most of our needs. We wanted a home with MOST of the living space all on one level. Not easy to do in a small city! People tend to build up...not out! This home is a largish bungalow with a large yard. There are four nice sized bedrooms on the main floor. A huge kitchen, and a big living room. There's a dining room off the kitchen and a nice sized bathroom. The hallways aren't even cramped!! I could totally see a power chair zipping around this house ;O) The basement is partially finished. One bedroom, family room and half bath. With a large unfinished rec room (can you say toy room folks!!!!!). That's enough...you'll have to stay tuned to see if we get the house ;O)

A recent pic of our pseudomonas (bacteria) filled girl! She's always happy, even when sick!

My silly inseparable boys :o)

Friends of ours invite us over evry so often. We are always so thankful for their hospitality and enjoy very much each and every visit! I have very few snap shots of Kaitlyn and I together!

These are Kaitlyn's new "shoes" as Alexander calls them! They are orthotics to keep Kaitlyn's feet from dropping and will hopefully help to prevent contractures.