Rain, a Playdate and Surgery

Our week started with rain. Heavy, solid, mid-west style rain. I love these summer rains, even here in western Washington where rain is as common as Starbucks and microbrews. It's still warm enough outside to keep your windows open, you can watch the raindrops in the kids' swimming pool, the breeze wafting into the house smells fresh, and your (my) hair goes frizzy enough that your (my) 3-year-old notices and comments on it. (Wait, that last one was something I don't like about summer rains.) Last weekend it was warm enough to break out the above mentioned kid pool and bring the babies outside to sit under the tent. A day after the rain (thanks to our new waterproof blanket) we were able to go back outside and sit in the sunshine.

We had Jen, Parker and Levi over. It was a fun playdate, and Ailey and Parker actually did pretty well sharing. :) Below is a picture of Levi, Ailey and Parker playing the piano. Below that is a picture of Parker and Ailey when they were about 11 months old. Fun comparison.

On Thursday Andy had knee surgery. He injured it last spring and it has continued to get worse. He finally got it checked and an MRI showed that he tore his meniscus, requiring an arthroscopy. Things moved quickly from the first appointment a few weeks ago to the surgery this week since he wanted to have it all done before our health insurance changes at the end of the month. I realized how quickly it all went down when I talked to my sister on Thursday afternoon and found out she didn't even know Andy was having knee surgery. I think it sat in the backs of our minds until Wednesday night when we really talked about what would happen if he ended up having something more wrong with the knee, and more extensive surgery requiring 6 weeks of crutches, something his doctor said was a 5% chance. On the night before even minor surgery "5% chance" feels a lot more like "99% chance" and we both suddenly got really nervous. Luckily, Andy has a 95% type knee and he was able to walk out of the surgery center. The doctor did say that he had to remove 90% of Andy's meniscus cartilage, he called it a "nasty" tear.

We've both wracked our brains trying to think of a more interesting and exciting story for how Andy hurt his knee - playing basketball, crashing his motorcycle, chasing bank robbers - but I guess our creative juices aren't quite flowing today. However, considering that his fence project has been long and consuming, I suppose it's fitting that he injured it (and probably continued to aggravate it) while building our fence.

Andy resting on the couch with Silje and Ailey.

And in between playdates and cuddling with Papa, Ailey wore something other than her cheer outfit one day....

The girls posed on the blanket in the backyard.

Marin got a bit of an Elvis hair-do after her bath.
And that was it for our week, until.... (see next post)