A Little Less Wise

I had a wisdom tooth extracted today. 

Exhale

We had a crazy 36 hours. Thursday morning at 9AM Michelle was giving Joshua a tub. The doorbell rang and Michelle left the bathroom to answer it and found Joshey's speech pathologist at the door. The converstaion was a brief one (1-2 minutes) and Michelle had to interrupt her in order to attend to Joshua (we hardly ever leave him alone in the tub un-attended).  When Michelle returned to the bathroom from the door, Joshua was having a seizure under water.

She pulled him out of the tub and laid him on his side - a mucus discharge came out and he began breathing again. He wasn't breathing up to that point at all.  He continued seizing for about 10 minutes while coming in and out of his seizure (clustered). Michelle moved him to the couch and he vomited up more bath water, but was breathing. Because his seizure was in clusters, he didn't get his diastat right way. After he came out of the seizure and was breathing on his own, we brought him to the ER.

The doctor observed him and looked at his X-rays and informed us that Joshua nearly drowned. I can't describe what that felt like - to know that we almost lost our boy. We're not sure how long he was under the water, but the doctors thought it to be under a minute. Had Michelle not cut her converstaion with Candie short, Joshua might not be with us today.

I stayed the night with Josh in the hospital on Thursday so they could monitor him. It was a long night as he was quite uncomfortable. The doctor explained it was like swallowing water wrong and having it go down the wrong pipe. The lungs get inflamed and breathing is laborious. 

Well, they sent him home today and he is doing better, but he'll be recovering for a while until all of the inflamation in his lungs has resided. We thank God that he is OK and with us at home again. We covet your prayers for his speedy recovery.

These past 36 hours were horrific. Thank God Josh is OK.

Hope & Haircuts

I was getting my haircut today and chatting with a random stylist when the conversation took an unexpected turn. We were talking about the economy, housing expenses in Burlington and working multiple jobs to make ends meat, when she started to tell me that she was working 3 jobs. Turns out that her fiancee was in a terrible car accident 3 months ago and lost movement in both his arms. Now they're struggling to pay the bills.

To make matters worse, she started to choke up as she told me that her 19 year old brother died in the same accident. She collected herself quite well, but I couldn't help feel her pain and hurt as she was struggling through my haircut.

When I arrived home I grabbed the paper and read that a church here in Williston, VT  just bought a piece of land for $3.3 million. No building. Just land. 

Gut wrenched, I went downstairs in my office and pulled out a church check from Mosaic and brought it to the hairstylist whose name I don't know and gave it to her. May the church learn that it doesn't exist for itself. May the church become the one organization that continues to exist for it's NON-members. And may that hairstylist be filled with hope tonight. We are the Church and we're here for the world. May God help us all.

Little Sis

Joshua loves playing with his little sister...when he's not pushing her over or yanking her toys away from her, that is.

Before & After (Part II)

Before & After

Here are some Before & After Pics of our living room, Dining room & Bathroom. We also had a new deck built, which we love. We're still working on the kitchen and bedrooms.

A River Runs Through It

Jared, Judah and I discovered this cool little creek about 1/2 mile away from our house. They can't wait to show Chandler and Chase their new "secret hang out".