Kohler's disease

What's that you say? My thoughts exactly! On Wednesday I took T Jay to the Dr. because he has been complaining off and on about his foot hurting him. A friend of mine also commented about him having a limp while running at soccer. At the Dr., he really couldn't find anything wrong so he ordered X-rays of his feet. He told me that they would get the X-rays back later and he would call me if they found anything, and if they didn't, he would refer me to a podiatrist to further investigate the problem. I took T Jay to school and went home to clean. At 11:30 Maj. Ledwitch called me back and told me they found that T Jay had Kohler's disease in his tarsal navicular bone, and that he made me a 1:00 appt. with the orthopedic Dr.. Basically, that bone isn't getting the proper blood flow and is shriveling and dying. They say that it is caused by stress during a crucial time . They treat it by casting it so that the area can rest and begin to regenerate bone growth. T Jay will be in a cast for one month and then they will take another set of X-rays to check progress. Typically, after casting, they still have to take it easy for about a year, sometimes two before the bone is 100%. Notice that his cast is red, his favorite color. He was very pleased by this. He is not at all upset about having a cast on. He finds it rather cool. He is not even up set about missing the rest of soccer. He was more upset about having to miss school twice in one day!
Here, he is showing off his walking shoe AND his Jenga-Fet gun. Clearly he's proud of both

New glasses

I got new glasses today! It has been at least 12 years, possibly longer since I have updated my glasses. I thought these were fun, so maybe I won't have to wear my contacts all of the time now! What do you think?
Side view. They have green and blue dots on the sides. Fun, huh?!

Northern Neighbors Day Air Show

The Thunder birds had to adapt their show to formation flybys, but it was still pretty cool, and loud, did I mention how loud they are?!

Do you like my "triple" stroller?!!
Matthew likes the Thunder birds, too! Look at that tooth! It's got a friend next door now,too and another moving in up top.
Daddy and his girl. (His other girl!)
T Jay flying Huey's like Grandpa Melin did! Am I doing it right Grandpa?
Summer and T Jay in the Huey. We had a great time. It was our first airshow at Minot in the three years that we have been here. We have been out of town for all of the others. Another check for things to do before we leave the military.

Labor day in Montana

So, obviously I have been blog-lazy this week. It has been a busy one. Here are some photos from our trip over Labor day weekend. We had a great time playing at the ranch.
Hmmmm...
View from the top of the hill at the ranch.
Cousins being silly.

Summer got to drive the ranch truck with Grandpa.
Heidi, T Jay and Danny enjoying the police boat sandbox that Grandpa made for them!
Test driving the new disc swing! All of these fun things make the ranch a great place to take the kids to play!
Here, Matthew went bobbing for apples, which looked more like "drowning for apples" in the wash tub to clean the apples. He did this like 4 times. I was paranoid that he was going to fall in without me seeing, so he spent a fair amount of time between the stroller, the backpack and in the swing until we were done with the wash tub. Oh yeah, and he was so dirty at the end of the day, I needed to wash him off. rather than putting him under the freezing hose, I rinsed him the the warmer apple water! He loved it and he even smelled like apples when he was done!
Two Montana boys!

Grinding the apples from the orchard for apple cider

Grinding the apples before we press them into apple cider. from Kelli Melin and Vimeo.

Pressing the Apples into Cider

Pressing the cider from Kelli Melin and Vimeo.
After the apples have been ground into the mesh bag, you close the bag up, put the lid on and press them. My kids call it "ranch juice!"

In debt to the Public schools, already!

While the grand kids were waiting to be served cake and ice cream from cousin James Ole's birthday, we got the usual, "I want the orange cup, I want this, I want that..." T Jay pipes in with, "You get what you get and don't throw a fit!" All of the adults in the room laughed. I asked him where he heard that, and he said his kindergarten teacher taught it to them at school! Hooray Mrs. Haas! I am forever grateful!!! I have been toying with the idea of getting rid of all of my assorted kid plates and cups due to the arguing over them! Now I have a song to sing instead!!!