I have the BEST husband EVER!

Ed sent me down to Florida so that I could help Jennifer celebrate her 20th birthday with family. I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and drove over to "Mama & Papa Rap's" where I was going to be staying. I got to meet Toni (Mama Rap) and have a pizza with her before driving over to Hollywood Studios where Jennifer works. From there we drove to Downtown Disney to run around for a few hours. I didn't get back to "my place" until after midnight, and then it was up again by 7:00 am to get back to Jennifer's apartment to meet up with her friends for our trip to the Magic Kingdom. I ended up driving us since Jennifer could get us free parking. The weather was gorgeous - around 80*. We had a lot of fun going on the rides, before heading off to Hollywood Studios to watch the parade and Fantasmic, and then racing back to Magic Kingdom for the "Wishes" fireworks show.

On Friday it was just the two of us as we went to the Animal Kingdom (Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, Bug's Life, and Kali River Rapids), Magic Kingdom, and then Epcot. My feet had taken a beating by the time we were done, and I have the blisters to prove it. I had such a good time with Jennifer though. It was all worth it. Ed had gotten me a new camera before I left, so we took a ton of pictures. I am looking forward to the whole family going down to visit later this year. I miss Jennifer so much it sometimes hurts. I am glad that I have a husband who can see that and does what he can to help.

I'm going to go see my baby!!

My baby girl will be turning 20 in just 2 days and she is clear across the country so I can't celebrate with her. Boo hoo. Then my husband, the loving, caring man that he is, says to me, "How would you like to surprise Jennifer for her birthday?" He then proceeds to buy me an airplane ticket to Orlando so I can spend some quality/fun time with our daughter. Things really worked out great, in that she has both Thursday and Friday off from work so we'll get to spend those two days together doing Disney "the way it is supposed to be done" (according to Jennifer). Since she doesn't have to work until 4pm on Saturday, we'll have the whole morning together too. I am so excited to see her and where she is living for the next 6+ months.

I Love my Family!!!!

Before Jennifer left to head down to Florida, we decided that we needed to get our family pictures taken. A good friend offered to use her talents and they were done. I can not believe how grown up they are all starting to look. It was just a few years ago when they all had those cute "baby faces" with the puffy cheeks and dimples. The boys are looking more and more like my father and brother. When they were younger they looked so much like Ed it was scarey, but now I finally see my side of the family showing through.

New Background

In honor of my daughter being down in the most magical place on earth, Disney World, I have decided to change my background. Since I am NOT computer sauve, it took me quite a long time to figure out how to change it. In the mean time I seem to have lost my music on the blog. I'll have to research how to get that back.

Counting down the days until Jennifer comes back home. 196 days!

A New Adventure Begins

Well, at least for Jennifer. Tonight we held a party in her honor as we all wished her luck in her new adventure - working in Disney World for the next 8 months. I will drive her to the airport tomorrow morning bright and early (6am). She will be on the plane for the next 13 hours or so and then when she arrives in Orlando, Cassie's mom will pick her up from the airport, take her home to their house for the night, and then deliver her to Disney World in the morning. (Cassie is Jennifer's roommate from BYU-I) This is such a great opportunity for Jennifer and we are all excited for her. I am going to miss her terribly. There will now be a 3 hour time difference and she won't be able to drive 12 hours to get home. Thank goodness for modern technology which will allow us to communicate as often as we feel like it.

It was fun tonight to visit with my stepsisters Anne and Kimmie, and my stepbrother Tim and his family. We rarely get together, but when we do it is fun. Ed's side of the family was represented by his younger sister Karen, her daughter Shelby, his brother Jim, and Jim's family. We missed several other family members, but that might be because Jennifer was in charge of the invites, and they might not have received them. Oh well, we thought of them and counted them there in spirit.

Scarey Times

To give a bit of back ground: Edward came down with a nasty cold after the football game in the rain on Friday, November 4th. He ended up with flu-like symptoms on Sunday and stayed home from church. He did drag himself out of bed to attend seminary on Monday (he had perfect attendance for the 3 years so far), but didn't feel well enough to go to school. He was worried though about missing football practice so after sleeping most of the day, he went there also. Tuesday he still felt lousy, but managed to make it to seminary, his classes, and to football. Wednesday morning after seminary I receive a text message from him telling me that he doesn't feel good, that he wants to go to the doctor's. I replied and said I would be right down to the school to pick him up. (I did stop to get dressed and put gasoline in the car, figuring I was going to have to drive him up to Salmon Creek Urgent care.)

By the time I got to the school he was in a panic. I went to check him out of his home building only to find out he was in the 300 building with the school nurse. When I finally arrived she said Edward was having chest pains and that she almost called for an ambulance. I drove him quickly to SW Medical Hospital where they quickly took him into the back room and put him on a heart monitor and did some blood work. The doctor thought it might be inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, but after an EKG and an Echocardiogram it was determined that the inflammation wasn't the sac, but the heart muscle itself. They gave him some pain killers and an asprin, and then said they would redo the blood work in six hours. We were then moved upstairs to the Clinical Decision Unit (CDU) to wait.

The heart produces an enzeme when it is under stress. The normal range is 0.0>0.04. When Edward came into the hospital it was at 6.something. Later, when they did the blood work again, it had climbed to 15.something else. They told me that they wouldn't start to be real concerned until it reached 20. It was then that they decided to keep him over night and test his blood levels again in the morning. At 8:30 in the morning we finally got the news that the levels had dropped to 3.9! He could go home.

Edward will be taking Ibuprofen for the next 4 weeks until we see the cardiologist again. In the meantime, he is off all physical activity other than walking. This means no more football. He was crushed. The team went to Kent, Washington this Friday to play the Kentlake Falcons and Edward really wanted to go and at least be on the sidelines. Coach Piland agreed to let him go only because he wasn't contagious. He was there to cheer his teammates on as they beat the #6 team in the state 31-7. Next week they'll play up in Woodenville, Washington.

Keep Edward in your prayers.

The Latest News

Things have been happening in the Mueller Household. Jennifer applied and was accepted to the Disney College Program and will leave for Disney World in January. She will work there for almost 8 months, as she finishes up the first part of August. She'll come home and then head directly back to BYU-Idaho. I guess this will just prepare me for when I can't see or talk to Edward as he will be heading out on a mission here in a short 2.5 years. We've been talking about going down to Orlando as a family while Jennifer is there, as she will be able to get 3 of us in for free. Unfortunately, there seems to be forces working against this plan.

Which brings me to yesterday. I had driven the van to pick up Aaron from his homeschool classes in Battle Ground when we discovered that the front driver's side tire was a little low. When we got home Aaron put some more air in it. Later I drove it over to take dinner to a family in the ward only to have it go completely flat as I drove home. I tried to limp to the church parking lot (only a few blocks away), but alas, the tire had different plans. The tire decided to come completely off the rim. When I pulled over to change it I discovered that the proper tools were not put back into my van after the brakes were fixed. Luckily a gentleman across the street where I stopped came over and helped me until Brother Nuffer and Ed came to the rescue. The van needs 4 new tires (by law you can't replace only 1 due to the fact that it is an all wheel drive). Let's talk costly! [I am very thankful that it decided to go flat when it did instead of somewhere on the freeway driving 55 mph when Ed drove youth to the temple on Friday night. If that doesn't make you a believer in prayers said before road trips, I don't know what will.]

Next, way back in July as Edward was driving back from his allergy appointment over in Portland, I accidentally had him heading to Emanuel Hospital instead of Providence. As he was driving down an unfamiliar McLoughlin road the lane he was in turned into an exit only lane. As we didn't want to go across the Ross Island Bridge he needed to get over. Unfortunately there was a semi along side of him. I told him to speed up so he could pass it before the lane exited. That's when the Photo Radar Camera caught him. Well, we just received a notice in the mail Saturday that said we had failed to appear for our court date and thus a quilty plea had been entered for us and a fine of $251.00 had been assessed. I called yesterday to tell them that it wasn't Edward J. Mueller driving the vehicle (as the citation states) and that we never received the original citation, but they didn't really care.

On a happier note, yesterday's JV football game was at McKenzie Stadium against Battle Ground and a) no one got hurt so no ambulance was needed, b) Edward got to play, and c) while the defense didn't play well and allowed Battle Ground to score the go ahead touch down with only 15 seconds left in the game, the offense came through and our QB managed to scramble out of two sacks to throw the football 40 yards to a wide open receiver who ran it in for a touch down as time expired! What a game!!!