Busy week

Whew! Now that we have a little down time at the end of our eventful week perhaps we can share some of the details:

1. Justin's hand surgery: Justin went in for a minor hand surgery last Monday morning to have what the doctor thought was a ganglion cyst removed from between the thumb and index finger on his left hand. What we had thought would be a simple procedure actually turned out to require that Justin be put under anesthesia. Fortunately, we had him home and on the couch by noon the same day, keeping his "club" hand elevated.

The doctor has since determined that it wasn't a cyst after all, but a mass of the blood vessels (forgive me for not finding the proper medical term and correct spelling on webmd.com). Justin is healing fine and got his "club" exchanged for a simple splint on Friday, which he will have to wear for a few weeks. We are both quite happy he didn't have to do an actual cast since we had a hard enough time functioning for just five days with only three working hands between the two of us. But we've still got two lessons left of our western swing and two-step class on Sunday nights, so we'll see how he holds up for all that twisting and hand-holding, especially with the stitches still in his hand for another week.

2. Hearing our baby's heartbeat for the first time! Even though Justin was still drugged up after his surgery on Monday, he still managed to accompany me to this month's OB appointment on Monday afternoon. At our appointment four weeks ago the doctor tried three different times to hear the baby's heartbeat, but to no avail. We weren't worried as we were assured that at just 11 weeks it can still be difficult to find the heartbeat since the baby is so tiny and has to be in just the right position. But we were definitely ready to hear it this time, and the nurse found it right away. What a beautiful sound!! I had told Justin ahead of time that I thought I might cry when I heard it, but as it turns out all I could do was laugh out of pure joy. Of course all that laughing made it a little difficult for the nurse to get a 15 second count on the heartbeat. Whoops! But Baby Gimlin had a solid heartbeat at 140 beats/min. AND, we scheduled our ultrasound for our next appointment, so...ON DECEMBER 17TH WE FIND OUT THE BABY'S SEX!! I will be 20 weeks along at that point. We are quite excited to know if its a boy or girl and to be able to start shopping. Okay, I'M ready to start shopping. :)

3. Celebrating our 3rd Anniversary:

On Wednesday we celebrated our third anniversary with a nice dinner out. Its still hard to believe that three years have flown by so quickly.

4. Kaia: We are still having issues with our little furbaby, Kaia. I will spare you the details as it has not been a fun experience in the way of clean-up. Much to my delight we got our carpets professionally cleaned on Tuesday, but that just means that Kaia is confined to the non-carpeted areas until we find a solution for her. The vet has tried a few different options, but none of them seems to be working. We are starting to worry that we might have to put her down, which is heartbreating to even consider since she is our first "baby" and she is only three years old. But this weekend she isn't eating and has been sleeping pretty much non-stop, which has us quite concerned again. We are thinking to try a new vet this week to get a second opinion.

~Other than that, we are looking forward to hosting Thanksgiving at our house again this year, so we are busy with preparations. And the Alaska girl in me is eagerly awaiting our first snow of the season - its just not the holidays without it.