Shootin' the Breeze: May 2014

Hello all! I have a Son! Yeah for being a tiny person making factory :) Gabriel Peter Bowman was born March 6, 2014 weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs 13 oz and was 22 in long. Everything went so well with his birth that we got to go home early!!! That did NOT happen with the girls. For both of them we did an extra FIVE DAYS! So the fact that we got to go home early was a miracle :)

Gabe is such a good baby! It's weird having a baby that follows normal baby protocol. Any fussiness is typical baby needs; hungry, dirty diaper, sleepy, wants cuddle time... typical baby. Most of his angry moods are due to gas- that boy can fart and burp like a grown man.... He also get real stinky real fast. And I'm not talking diaper stink, just stinky boy stink. The girls were never this smelly. I guess I got allot to learn about boys.

You'd think that a new born would be enough of an adventure. Not for us apparently. 2 weeks after Gabe was born Daniel went snowboarding with the scouts on White Pass. They left Friday night and sometime Saturday mid afternoon I get a call from the YM presidents saying that Daniel had gotten hurt and that he would be OK. He then told me that they think Daniel had a concussion, but he remembered me and the kids and our names, and the pass word to his phone :) (cause we all know that's what's important).

So the story goes like this; Daniel was going down the mountain feelin' pretty fly when a tree jumped up at him. Some guy comes down the mountain and spotted Daniel sitting on the ground and noticed a bit of red in the snow. (I have no idea where the scouts were at this point....) The guy asked Daniel if he needed help and Daniel responded with something intelligent like "yeah, maybe". So Daniel got to ride the pretty red sled down to the first aid station. I don't know how long it was before the rest of his party figured out what happened, but the other leaders there were made up of a Doctor, a OT and a Dentist, so with the medical schooling between the three of them they accurately diagnosed Daniel with a concussion and a broken collar bone. And instead of helping with the first aid the scouts kept on boarding :)

Daniel came home and was pretty much a humorless lump on a log with no appetite for a week. He then went into surgery a week later and was back to his normal self, at least his appetite was back to normal :) Weird if you think about it, that he'd feel better after having a titanium plate bolted to his clavicle... He's been home and on short term disability since then and has another week left. Then he'll meet with his surgeon again to get the green light and he'll be back to work. Not that any of it has been as easy as it sounds. My one-armed husband isn't up to helping as much as he was before hand, but it's getting better. Changing diapers and picking up babies is easier with 2 working upper limbs. And I know every one of you will be soooo surprised that the insurance company has been making life difficult. Between my bills, Gabe's bills and Daniel's bills, they seem to think that we haven't been covered for the last 2 years by them. Like all of a sudden we have insurance cards that says they have to cover us.... stupid. Can I say that I think insurance companies are far more corrupt than any government?! Just barely though...

But I can't say that despite corrupt *&%$*#@ being in charge of things they shouldn't be, that it's been all bad. With Daniel being home we've been able to transition from man-on-man to zone defense rather easily. It's been nice to have Daniel supervise the girls while Gabe and I nap if needed, or to be able to leave the girls with him while Gabe and I go to appointments or grocery shopping. But I have to say that the best part of Daniel not being able to work has been our family adventures we've been able to do, that would not have been possible other wise.

The first being a week in Lincoln City, OR. My parents decided they wanted a fun adventure for spring break. So we hurried and found a beach house that would fit all of us and headed down there. But not before Chelsea, Zach and Maggie joined us! Zach came for an extended weekend and Chelsea and Maggie were able to stay for the whole time! We had so much fun playing in the sand, enjoying the hot tub, watching Grandma try her hand at glass blowing, exploring tide pools and eating all sorts of baked goodies :)

After a long week of fun in the sand, sun and wind, we went our separate ways. It took a week of recovering and resting before we were actually functioning at our normal-ish levels. Then we celebrated Easter with just us, nothin' fancy but the girls' dresses :) It was a special day, Jada actually let me curl her hair hahaha!

A couple days after Easter we squished the whole family in the car and drove "straight on through to Sydney!" just kidding, we went to Colville :) We were just going to spend a few days up there, then we remembered that Great-Grandma's birthday was soon, so we extended our stay to celebrate Great-Grandma's (we call her Super Grandma) 85th birthday. Cause of the extra days we got to enjoy hiking, even Gabe, playing with cousins that involved treasure hunts through the woods, "big fires" that fascinated a certain 2 year old who takes after Super Grandma and her love of fires, and of course the big birthday bash celebrating 85 years of the most incredible woman ever to walk the planet. :)

Now we're home again. It's always sad to leave family behind, but nice to get back to our own beds :) So that's us, busy, busy, busy with BBB (baby boy Bowman) and broken bones. Hope the Lord is blessing you all as much as he is blessing us!