~*Surgery*~

On the 16th of December Nate had surgery to get his shoulder repaired. When he was in high school, he was lifting weights and the bar fell on him and dislocated his shoulder. Since then, his shoulder has been dislocating maybe once a year and it hurts like mad ( and leaves me feeling helpless!) Luckily, he knows how to get it back into socket pretty quickly but with all these dislocations, almost 100% of the cartlidge that holds the bone in place was gone, and his shoulder was getting more painful with each dislocation.. He has the hope that one day he will be able to do many more activities then he could before; golf, snowboarding, mountain biking, basketball, soccer,etc..

Anyway, its a long story and I still dont feel so good about it :) We had found some great airline tickets to Arizona that left couple days before his surgery, and he insisted that we buy them being hte super "frugal" guy he is. Being the independant guy that he is, he said "Quit worrying, I'll be fine!" He was to fly out to Az a couple days after his surgery. The surgery was outpatient, and he had a friend lined up who would drive him home,etc... I wasn't convinced but reluctantly bought the tickets anyway... Anyway, he had his surgery and all went well. It was supposed to be an hour surgery and it turned into 2.5 hours! ( It was much worse then expected) I was 1600 miles away worrying about him and wondering why in the world he wasn't out yet! I called the nurse and they tell me he has to have someone to stay with him for 24 hours after surgery. I tell her we have no one lol... ( I was secretly hoping they would keep him there overnight) So the nurse talks to Nates friend who is taking him home and he agree's to stay for as long as Nate needs him, which of course means Nate will send him home right when he drops him off... ugh! It was so worrisome that first night, with the anesthesia still in him, and the new pain meds he has to take. He sounded good and "normal" but still... I will never do that again! In the end, everything worked out fine, hes recovering ok ( yet still has alot of pain because of physical therapy) Hopefully within the next year he will be able to do some fun things that he has not been able to do for a long time!
Anyway, the day he got to Arizona he slept alot and laid around but the second day he started going on 4 mile walks with the kids everyday, taking them to parks and stores and just around. Aubrie would ride in the stroller, and Noah on a scooter ( while I finished up shopping). On the day I took the kids with me he went on an 8 mile walk.. Imagine that :) I dont know how Noah kept up when he rode along but he enjoyed it, especially if they got to buy toys or slushies on the way.... Anway, my point is, Nate is a wild one :) Here is Aubrie and Noah at the park on one of their walks. I went home after the park haha!