Brooklyn Update

They did some more testing on Brooklyn yesterday to see how the flow of urine was from her kidney to her bladder and it looked pretty good. They still felt that there was a blockage at the top of the ureter where is connects with the kidney so they put a stent in yesterday. This should open up the ureter to allow the fluid to drain even better (i guess its a similar concept to tubes in the ears?). Anyways, the surgery went well and she came out of sedation fine this time. She will have to have the stent for a couple of weeks and then they will have to surgically remove it. They will test her again and see if it made a difference and then decide what to do from there. The doctor said "we are either going to be friends for a really long time or a really short time". I hope its a short time but thats just me!

Brooklyn in the Hospital

Brooklyn (4 years old) had to have emergency surgery on Wednesday of last week on her kidney. It was supposed to be a 45 minute outpatient surgery and up to 2 hour recovery from the sedation. When they were conducting the surgery they found that the infection was a lot worse than they anticipated and it got “stirred up” inside her. This spiked her fever to over 105, dropped her blood pressure to 66/over something and she went into shock and was in and out of consciousness. Needless to say they rushed her into a resuscitation room of the ER and it took about 30-40 minutes (but seemed like an eternity while I was watching) to get her stabilized. We thought we were going to lose her.

So what was supposed to be an ordeal of a couple of hours turned out to be 4 days at Primary Children’s. She is stable now and at home. She has a tube come out of her kidney that is draining the fluid into a bag that she has called her “juice bag”. After the infection is cleared up we will need to do some more testing to determine the cause of all of this. Worst case scenario would be removing her kidney. I hope that this isn’t the case but looks like more surgeries are to follow depending on the results of the tests they will perform. My wife is taking her on Thursday to have a test done so hopefully we will know something then.

Birthday's

I thought I would update one all about the Giffords getting older. Brookln turned four on July 18th , I can't believe I have a four year old. CRAZY! My birthday was on July 29th and I am now 25 years old. For Brooklyn's birthday we had a "Princess Party", my parents came to our house for cake and ice cream, we had it really low key. Brooklyn got a "BIG GIRL" bike and a barbie. It was Fun.

For my birthday Shad and I went to Lagoon and spent the night at the Sheraton, and then saw "Dark Knight". We had a blast! Shad even did the Sky Coaster, (I would never be caught doing something like that). Thanks to my Mom, we had 2 days without the kids (what a great present!). Here are some pics from Brooklyn's party! Enjoy!

Brooklyn's Princess Cake!

Brooklyn's Big Girl Bike, and Chanlder picking his nose! (Gross)

My Dad, Brooklyn, and Chandler.

The Japanese Office

So I am a huge fan of the Office and somebody at work forwarded this little skit from SNL to me and I had to share it with everyone because I laughed so hard!

We're Back from Texas!

Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico!! Here we are at the Entrance to Carlsbad Caverns. After Shad's sister got married, the following week we packed up and drove 3 and half hours to New Mexico. We camped in the blistering heat. Thank goodness for Air Conditioned Cabins, and the pool! We loved the caves. We hiked in for about an 1 hour and half, and then hiked inside for another hour. This cave makes Timpanogos Cave seem ridiculous.


Here is Shad and the kids inside the Cave. The Cave is 750Ft. Deep and to get out you take an elevator Straight up!



Here is the whole Family! Chandler does not look too excited in ANY of these pics. He was the lucky one that got carried the whole time! The next day on the 4th of July, we came back the caverns and although there were not any fireworks, we got to see 350,000 bats fly out the cave to get a delicious dinner of bugs! It was really neat to see them fly out. It took over 30 min to see them all leave the cave!


This is Brooklyn with the the Tye-Dye shirt she made. The KOA that we stayed at had some activities for the kids. So we helped both Brooklyn and Chandler make a shirt.

This is Brooklyn and Chandler in our cabin getting ready to go Swimming. It was REALLY hot in New Mexico so we went Swimming everyday!

And we are off to Texas!

Tomorrow I leave for Texas! My sister ManDee is tying the knot and we are going there to celebrate her big day. Brittany has been there since Tuesday helping my mom bake cookies and goodies for the reception since catering is ridiculously expensive. I stuck around and worked so I didn't have to take so much time off. I enjoyed a little time to myself but now I am ready to see my kids once again. I will post more upon return!

Youth Conference "Book of Mormon"

Brittany and I just got back from a 3 day Youth Conference where we were able to be "tribe leaders" of a little family of 7. We really enjoyed our time together with our 7 teenagers as we tried to help them feel the Spirit of the Book of Mormon. We had some powerful experiences together. We would do it again in a heart beat. Enjoy some of the pictures below.





This was the first day of Youth Conference where we were able to meet our family and do a service project together before we departed to the camp





This is our humble famliy "The Army of Helaman". We had to construct a tower like the one that King Benjamin spoke from in the Book of Mormon times.

I Think we make a pretty good looking Nephite Couple!

Brittany tried to hunt like Nephi in the Wilderness. She actually had one of the highest scores of the group.

This was our Journey to the Promised Land. Our city was named Shazer. We had to find it with a map and compass.