Goodbye Oregon, Aloha Hawaii

We made it home safe and sound last night from Oregon, but none of us are too happy to be home.  Monkey Doodle had a breakdown Friday night when he found out we were leaving, and he said that he did not want to leave his family and go back to Hawaii.  As soon as we landed Saturday night, he started crying again and said that he wanted to fly back to Oregon because he did not want to live in Hawaii anymore.  I have to say that I am right there with him, and I am ready to move.  Hawaii is great and we have amazing friends here, but our hearts are in Oregon.  We love everything about it and are ready to move there permanently. Chief could retire from the Army right now, but that isn't best for us financially at the moment.  Hopefully we will be ready to do that in 2 years from now!  Here are some pictures of our amazing trip with our amazing family!

Monkey Doodle and Miss Priss ready to go fishing with Uncle Bob

Monkeying around

Miss Priss and Grandma

 

Our kids with the Grandparents

Our family with Chief's parents

I am thinking Christmas card??

 

Me and my beautiful Mookie

 

Dare I say it?

Well, I think I am finally say that I feel almost back to normal.  Chief left for a trip on Sunday, so I am on my own with the kids for the first time since surgery.  I am back to getting Monkey Doodle ready for school. driving and picking him up, cooking, washing bedsheets and making beds, (Chief did all the rest of the laundry before he left), and light cleaning (he cleaned the entire house too!)  Miss Priss and I even drove in to town yesterday and made a trip to Target to pick up a few things for our Oregon trip.  Chief helped me get us all packed this past weekend since we really don't need any of the winter clothes that we will be taking with us to Oregon.  So, I do still have some pulling/tugging in my tummy when I lift heavier things, so I am trying to stay away from that.  I do not want to mess up my stomach muscles or my belly button more! Since my belly button is still not healed, I don't want to chance getting a hernia or anything like that.

I am still having a ton of swelling when I am really active, and it was really bad last night!  I felt like I couldn't breathe very well in my garment because it was so tight.  It seems to help when I sleep without it, and I wake up with some of the swelling gone.  I gain about 4 lbs in swelling when I am really active. 

My body was rejecting some of the dissolvable stitches, but I figured that would happen.  The knots always seem to surface on me, so I am used to it.  They are getting better and healing pretty good too.  The back opening has closed now, and I just have a small scab now.  My belly button is definitely looking better, but I am worried it is going to be too small!  I have been placing a soft earplug in it to keep it somewhat round, and it seems to be working.  I will have to send pictures to Dr Sauceda when I find my camera charger!  Sorry, no pictures at the moment due to the misplacement of the charger!

It is hard to believe that I am only 2 days away from being 6 weeks post op.  The kids and I fly out to Oregon on a red eye late Thursday night and arrive in Portland early Friday morning.  Chief will be there to pick me us because he is flying in to Portland on Thursday afternoon.  I will try to keep the blog updated as much as I can while I am there, and I will need to get my 6 week post op pictures taken as well.  I will definitely be sharing those with everyone too!