BYU VS. UNLV October 10, 2009

Brad took Joshua, Joseph and Allyse to the BYU football game against UNLV. They all wore their BYU t-shirts and hats.

Go Cougars!

They went to the pep rally before the game and met Cosmo.

Brad saw some of his friends: Ben Bateman and James Harper.

Joshua loves BYU and couldn't stop smiling!

Brad bought Joseph a Go Cougars Claw.

BYU fans through and through.

Uncle Jonathan bought the tickets, so the family could sit together: Grandpa Wendell, Stephen, David and Spencer.

BYU's band played during halftime.

BYU won! At the end of the game, Joseph, Allyse and Joshua headed to the field to meet the BYU football players.

Joseph's Baptism

Our Joseph was baptized on Saturday, January 31, 2008. Brad baptized and confirmed Joseph. The witnesses were Grandfathers Wendell Waite and Vern Waite. Those who helped with the confirmation were Grandfathers Wendell Waite and Vern Waite, Uncles Blake Ballard and Jonathan Waite, 2nd Counselor Cody Okuda, and Hometeacher Michael Ulshafer. It was a beautiful day for all of us. I am so proud of Joseph and his decision to follow in Jesus' footsteps.









Brad and Joseph all dressed in white.

Josh's Marshmallow Birthday Party

Joshua wanted a marshmallow party for his 12th birthday, so Julene put together a bunch of marshmallow activities for Josh and his friends. After building things out of marshmallows, they had a contest to see who could stuff the most marshmallows in his mouth. Instinctively, I knew going into it that the best photos would come from this contest.

Joseph gave it his best effort.

Josh's friend Devon has an innovative way of connecting the marshmallows into a large mass without actually having them in his mouth.

The undisputed largest mouth went to Josh's friend, T.J. Little wonder since he is nearly as large as me, and he is only 13.

The highlight of the party was making a playing with marshmallow guns. On the previous Saturday, I cut enough PVC to make about 15 guns. The kids assembled their guns, picked up bags of ammo and went outside for an old-fashioned shootout. The party might not have been very politically correct, but it was a lot of fun.

Ethan and Joshua looking for more marshmallows to shoot.

Joseph shooting Josh's friend at point blank.

Allyse joined the marshmallow mayhem.

Angelina was the only one who figured out that the real fun was in eating the ammo.

Another highlight was the S'mores cake that Julene made. I'm not quite sure what was in it but it was pretty good. Mixing chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers can only be good.

Happy Birthday, Joshua!

Las Vegas Auto Show

Joshua, Joseph and I went to the Las Vegas Auto Show to see the new cars. The boys had a great time seeing all the shiny new cars and sitting in some of the real fancy ones.
Joseph is a happy boy in the new Corvette.

This is the 2010 Camaro. I don't know how true it is, but we were told that this is only the second auto show at which the new Camaro has been displayed.

Another angle of the new 2010 Camaro.

Josh looked like a good fit behind the wheel of the new Hummer H3T.

As if Hummer's don't stand out enough, they went with a bright orange on this one.

Josh was ready to take this Cadillac XLR home.

Joseph and Josh in front of a Rolls Royce Phantom.

From one of the most incredible cars in the world to the glorified Go-Kart known as the Smart Car. You know the car is small if these little guys look normal size in it.

This was probably the oddest vehicle of the show. The Jeep Treo is a concept vehicle

The rear of the vehicle tapers so that bicycles can be carried over the rear fenders. Strange!

Growing Like Weeds

This is another photo from 2004 that I love. This was taken on Memorial Day at the cabin at Mt. Charleston. Allyse, Joshua and Joseph were sitting on the sofa with their cousins, Corbin and Ethan, when I encouraged them to be silly. They are all growing up too fast! Josh and Corbin start middle school in two weeks! AAAAGGGHHHH!!!

Sunday Past

I was going through the old photos today and found this one from an Easter Sunday morning a little over four years ago. Allyse was coming up on her fifth birthday, Joseph was a bit over three and Joshua was nearly seven and a half years old. This is the very reason I keep taking photos: to be able to look back and recall memories that have faded with time.

Bowling at Jillian's for JDRF

Our local JDRF chapter organized a family fun day at Jillian's, a small bowling alley at Neonopolis in fabulous downtown Las Vegas.

Joshua rolled a mean game of bowling. His form, and his score, dramatically improved after he stopped trying to bowl with a 12 lb. ball.

We had a hard time finding a ball that weighed less than Allyse. Once we did (and once we added a ramp for the ball to roll down) she was as pleased as punch.

Angelina was just happy to hang out and watch the bowling balls return. I couldn't get her to part with her bowling ball shaped lollipop for this picture.

Likewise, I couldn't get Benjamin to part with his pacifier for this picture.

The Boys

In just a few short months, Benjamin has managed to accomplish what it takes most males
several decades to do: he has gone from a spiky flat-top look . . .

to a comb-over.

Our hot Las Vegas weather lends to indoor play in the summer. Lately, the kids have been creating their own costumes. Josh scrounged up this outfit, which was his depiction of a Union soldier from the Civil War. Josh looks serious because soldiers are serious. His rifle is a highly dangerous ping-pong ball gun.

Not to be outdone, Joseph decided to go with the Colonial look, sans powdered wig. I like his use of long shorts as knickers.

Joseph's Art Quest

Recently, there was a contest at the kid's school called "Art Quest" in which students tried to identify works of art by artist name. The works of art being tested were by the following twelve artists: Pierre Auguste Renoir, Marc Chagall, Keith Haring, Michelangelo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Henri Matisse, Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, Claude Monet, Ansel Adams, Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, and Salvador Dali.

For the time being, a PowerPoint presentation, which was posted to help students practice for the contest, can be accessed by clicking here. Follow the “Current Art Quest Slides” link when you reach the page. You might want to test yourself (it can be quite humbling).

All of the children competed against children in their own grades to be final contestants at a school-wide finale. Joseph was the only of our children to survive to the final round, where, as a first-grader, he competed against twenty-four other children from first through fifth grades.

In the end Joseph placed ninth out of twenty-five. He finished ahead of all the first graders, almost all of the second graders, most of the third-graders, and even ahead of some fourth and fifth-graders.

WAY TO GO, JOE!

Encore

Last night treated us to a repeat performance of the previous, with a twist. As feared, Joseph was again teetering between high ketones, nausea, ketoacidosis, insulin, fever, hypoglycemia and more nausea. For a primer on how it dangerous it can be, see On Razor's Edge.

I was still up at 3:00 a.m., after having tried for the previous half-hour to encourage Joseph to get some food in his stomach so that I could give him some insulin without crashing his blood sugar. All of a sudden, Allyse woke up crying with an upset stomach. We were able to calm Allyse quickly, so I started reading to pass the time while I waited for the next time that I was going to test Joseph to see if he was showing any improvement. Because he had several consistently high ketone tests in a row, I had already determined that I was going to take him to UMC if he tested high again.

In the meantime, it soon became apparent that Allyse would not be able to sleep unless and until she vomited; it was no longer a question of if, but when. It also was fairly obvious that she had food poisoning from eating a hamburger that had not been completely cooked. Allyse had eaten dinner with her Sunday School class at their teacher's home. While I was reading, I came across a story where Kroger (parent corp for Smith's) had expanded a recall of ground beef tainted with E Coli to include Las Vegas Smith's stores for beef dated "sell by" through nearly the end of this month. Smith's is one of only two grocery stores in our neighborhood.

Now that I was completely freaked out, I was convinced that Allyse had to get rid of what was making her sick. I unsuccessfully tried to convince Allyse that sticking her finger down her throat would cause her to gag and get rid of the offending food. That was Plan A; Plan B was to trick her. She had earlier asked for water, and I told her that water wasn't a good idea because it would likely make her stomach more upset. I told her that when I still had hope that Allyse would be able to get back to sleep. However, now that I knew Allyse was truly sick, I asked her if she was thirsty, and when she said she was, I encouraged her to drink some water.

Within minutes, Allyse had lost it, and almost immediately, she said she was feeling much better. She quickly got to sleep and slept quite soundly the rest of the night. I, on the other hand, had to wait a while longer to test Joseph. I was already planning how I would just get ready for work, take Joseph to UMC, get him admitted in the PICU, and later in the morning walk over to the NICU to meet with one of the neonatalogists prior to taking him to court for a hearing that morning. However, when I tested Joseph at 3:30 a.m., I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Joseph's ketones had almost completely returned to normal.

As a result, I was able to get to sleep by 3:45 a.m., only to be awoken by Benjamin at 6:30 a.m. I won't bore with all of the day's details, but I highly recommend to avoid attending court hearings and meetings of the Board of County Commissioners on just two hours and forty-five minutes of sleep.

On Razor's Edge

When I got home from work tonight, my three-year-old, Angelina, met me and informed me that she was sick. Since Joseph is the one who has been sick for the past few days, and since I had not heard anything about Angelina coming down with something, I suspected that she was really okay. I asked Angelina how she knew that she was sick and she said, "My throat is in my neck."

After repeatedly asking Angelina what she meant, I gave up trying to figure it out. I don't know--maybe it's gang code. In any event, she seemed shocked, and actually laughed, when I told her that my throat is in my neck as well.

After the illness that has beset our family for the last few weeks, it was easy to understand why Angelina thought she was sick. In the first week of July, Allyse and Benjamin came down with a prolonged fever. For Allyse, it lasted about five days, and it caused her to have nausea the majority of the time. Benjamin was pretty darn ornery (for him) for about a week. During the next week, it hit Joshua, but to a much lesser extent than Allyse.

We hoped that we had escaped with Joseph, but finally, the fever hit Joseph last Thursday. He experience a brief reprieve on Friday (long enough to go to school and compete in the Art Quest), but then it returned with a vengeance on Friday afternoon, and it hit me on Saturday.

The brakes on my car were in bad shape, so I completely changed out all four rotors and all of the pads on Saturday. However, by the time I was finishing, I was starting to feel pretty bad, and I came down with a fever and body aches. I also had a splitting headache that did not leave until Monday morning.

No matter how sick I felt, it didn't compare to Joseph. Due to Joseph's diabetes, the last 48 hours have been an absolute roller coaster ride. Once again, ketoacidosis is the issue. Julene and I have been doing everything we can to keep from having to return Joseph to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at UMC. It is one thing when Joseph's insulin pump is not properly delivering insulin (for whatever malfunction). It is a totally different animal when he experiences nausea due to viral infection.

Here's the problem. With nausea, Joseph cannot keep food and drink down. Without food and drink Joseph's blood sugar will not be high enough to give him insulin. Without insulin, Joseph's ketones rise, and he becomes at risk for ketoacidosis. In addition, if his blood sugar gets too high, he gets ketones. When he has ketones, then he gets even more nauseated. However, once he gets ketones, if we give him too much insulin to reduce the ketones, then we risk sending him into hypoglycemia. In a mild case, hypoglycemia also increases nausea, which then makes it nearly impossible to get food into Joseph to make his blood sugar rise again. In more severe case, hypoglycemia causes coma and death.

It feels as if we are performing a balancing act on a razor's edge. If we teeter even a small distance, then it rapidly sends everything completely out of whack, with potentially disastrous consequences. Then we spend the next several hours trying to regain some sort of equilibrium before he flies off in another direction. Last night I was up until 1:30 a.m. testing Joseph's blood and testing his ketones, giving him insulin, giving him carbohydrates, and praying that it would all come together. Then, Julene was up in the wee hours of the morning and I was back up at 5:15 a.m. for more of the same.

There were numerous times yesterday and today when we were minutes from taking him to the PICU. Julene called Joseph's doctor, explained the situation, and tried to get some more direction. They seemed surprised that we have been able to hold it together this long. However, today Joseph was so tired of being nauseated that he was asking to go to the hospital.

I still am fighting the fever, and the headaches and body aches are intermittent. Mostly, I am exhausted, and I know that Julene is tired too, having to take the brunt of it Monday, in addition to caring for the baby and the rest of the children. We are just praying that Joseph's fever will break on Tuesday, and that he will feel a settling of his digestive system at that time so that things can return to their normal state of chaos.

DA Picnic

On Saturday, we went to Sunset Park for the annual picnic for the Office of the District Attorney. It was a beautiful Las Vegas spring day, with temperatures in the upper 70's. Apparently somebody blew it last year and didn't reserve the park until July, which, believe it or not, turned out to be a less than desirable time to host an outdoor event.

To compound matters, the event turned a bit ugly when some overzealous prosecutor unleashed his overly competitive nature in organizing the volleyball tournament between the various divisions of the D.A.'s office. Let's just say that a double-elimination in July against a Criminal Division's team that was loaded with ringers didn't produce a lot of warm fuzzies for a certain prosecutor. Suffice it to say that this year's volleyball tournament was not organized by that same Deputy D.A., and that it was much more pleasant being outside with temperatures in the 70's rather than the 100's.

In addition to the typical picnic food, there were inflatable jumpers, creepy clowns, carnival-like games for children, balloons, sno-cones, popcorn and cotton candy. The kids had a great time and we were able to call it quits before they became exhausted and cranky.