Brian's shoulder surgery

Brian had his surgery today, and everything went really well. His surgeon repaired his shoulder, so now instead of a 100% chance that it will dislocate again, he now has a 95% chance that it won't. It will be wonderful to not have to worry about it dislocating all the time. I think that Brian is really happy to have this behind him. Truly, he probably should have done this years ago, but it seems like this past year has been especially hard to wait since he had so much healing to do after the last dislocation. He has always worried so much about it dislocating, especially during the winter when the sidewalks and parking lots are icy. It will be good to not always have that fear in the back of his mind. He says he already feels better (although I keep warning him that the pain meds have not worn off yet). He still has a long road of PT ahead of him, but this feels a lot like we have finally reached a milestone. The big challenge during this week while he is home recuperating is to make sure he actually rests and doesn't try to build, repair, or paint something. I actually took the whole week off so I can stay home with him and watch him like a hawk, um, I mean "encourage him to rest".

Dragonboat

A few weeks ago our local FCC chapter had our annual Dragonboat Festival, one of our favorite events. Each child brings a homemade "dragonboat" and we have dragonboat running races, sack races, and a dragonboat parade and a big picnic. I think Brian gets even more excited about building a dragonboat than Amelia does. While most kids bring Dragonboats that they have decorated themselves (which is the point, after all), he spends so much time designing ours and then builds ours out of cardboard and paper mache, and then paints it elaborately. This year our dragonboat included battery packs. Why, you ask? Because the eyes light up and flash. Next year he is trying to come up with a way to make it breathe smoke (I told him he might be going a little overboard with that idea, but Amelia thinks it would be cool). I pitch in by making the tail (which I thought was fabulous), but the rest is all Brian. Amelia helps with the decorations in the end. I was actually afraid that it was really going to be too big and heavy for her to wear and run with this year, but it didn't seem to slow her down. Although Amelia will probably use this one for a few years, we are hoping that Natalie will be home with us to go next year and Brian will get to make another one for her.

Each year there is a raffle, and Amelia wanted this Chinese Lion Dog puppet last year but didn't get it. She wanted it so much that she even asked me if we could look for one when we go to China. This year there was another one in the raffle, and she was so excited this year when they called her name!