Hello, 2011...

Sooo much has been going on since our last post. Jordan has been doing a lot of really cool stuff at work. Me, not so much. :) Doing nothing (my job let me go pre-surgery because I didn't have enough sick hours or qualify for FMLA) isn't nearly as interesting as Combat Engineering.



This is a door Jordan blew in with C4

 There are two types of demolition he's been doing. The first is Military Demolitions, which is the big booms. They do cratering, which is making big holes in the ground, destroying equipment, and breaching obstacles, which is blowing up barbed wire and things like that. The second type is Urban Mobility Breaching, which is "various methods of forcibly entering a building using explosives." They blew holes in walls, broke down doors, blew up windows, and just generally destroyed a town that was built just for that purpose.

This is a hole he blew in the wall!
All they used was detonation cord!

After they did all their demolition stuff they moved on to obstacles. I'm pretty sure there was more than just obstacles, but obstacles is what I heard. :) He's also got four briefs to give during this last month, and I HATE briefs. For the last one, which was on obstacles, he wasn't home until after 1am one of the nights. His mind has been so wrapped up in obstacles, in fact, that the other night he asked me in his sleep if I could "go plant some obstacles" for him since I was "just sitting there." :) I died a little, I laughed so hard!

Jordan & our babies in (what I must now
recognize as) our pitiful bit of snow.

During January we had a TON of snow! We had a lot of fun with it... Well, I had fun because I didn't have to work, so I just ate snow ice cream and played with the dogs. And actually, after seeing all the snow they had in Maine, I guess we didn't have that much. I couldn't find the mailbox in the picture of Nancy's front yard... SIX FEET OF SNOW. I'm really terribly glad I wasn't in Maine for that... Even the idea of having to function in snow gives me hives after all the snow we've had around here.

Jordan in the hot seat. :)

In other interesting J & J news, Jordan finally got the next tattoo he wanted. After quite a bit of debate, some of it heated, we were able to come up with one that both of us liked. It's his body, so I can't say that I had all that much influence, but I had to put my foot down over one that was practically a foot tall. Anyway, the one he went with is one I found, which makes me feel like I done good. :) It's an all black EGA, which is situated right under the USMC he already had on his shoulder. You can't really tell what it looks like all that well from the picture, but it looks really good!



Waiting for anesthesia


Pretty much the biggest item effecting our lives lately is my surgery, which I was finally able to have! The procedure is called a robotic pyeloplasty, and if you click here it explains exactly what they did. The difference is that the information is not from UNC, which is where my procedure was done. Also, the stricture was originally thought to have been caused by a blood vessel crossing my ureter in the wrong place and basically pinching it off. When they got in there, however, they discovered that the blood vessel was fine, my ureter was just extremely narrow. The doctor said he was surprised I still have full function of my left kidney, but praise God, I do. My body built up a lot of protective tissue around my kidney which they ended up having to remove as well, so instead of the two hours it normally takes, my sugery took four and a half. The main thing they left out of the article is that I was upside down for the duration of my procedure! They strap you to the table and then tilt it until you're almost exactly upside down vertically. My mom said that when I came out I looked like "a gigantic white whale." Sounds beautiful, right??

Recovery is going well, although a little slower than I expected. I'm pretty close to back to feeling like myself again. I just can't lift anything over ten pounds, which is a fairly difficult restriction to live with. But hey, that's what they make big muscle-y husbands for, right? The stent comes out March 22nd, and then look out, Cali, here we come! I'm having a hitch installed on my Jeep as soon as the part comes in so we can carry all our stuff, we booked the shipping company to get Jordan's Jeep out there, the hotel reservations are made across the country, and real estate agents have been contacted! Wish us luck; we're going to need it, and as always, we love and miss everyone very much! XOXO