Final Hannah Health Update (hopefully)

The follow up visit with the neurologist was this afternoon. We waited 40 minutes to see the doctor but well worth the good report. The EEG & EKG were both normal. If she has another episode then they'd schedule a longer EEG. Blood work revealed a vitamin D deficiency. Normal is between 30-100 & hers was 12.8. I'm just waiting for the pediatrician to let me know the dosage she'll need. I'm so relieved and thankful for prayers on her behalf.

Now that THAT is over with, you may be wondering if we're up to anything. Not really. We have one last movie tomorrow. Hannah should be done with her summer drama class soon & then Moezart theater starts August 17th.  We have one more Wet-n-Wild Monday before they close on weekdays. We'll try to go a few Saturdays with Todd (& maybe a couple extra kids) before they close for the season. We have a trip planned for the Sea Life Aquarium at Arizona Mills later this month too. They have special homeschool weeks & that week they will have a squid dissection. It should be fun as we've never been in the aquarium before. Plus, I haven't been to the Disney outlet store in awhile:)

EEG Update

Hannah had her EEG this morning and wasn't nervous at all. She was definitely sleep deprived. She stayed up all night/morning till it was time to go. Joshua stayed up with her for most of the time while I went to bed at 1am. He was asleep when I came downstairs at 6am. It turns out last night was a good night for her to be up all night. With the monsoon storm she wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway.

The whole test lasted about 45 minutes & I won't know any details until the August 2nd appointment. She had 25 thingies attached to her head with some sort of adhesive so the first thing she did when we got home was shower. She just got up from a nap on the bean bag chair. She's fine-just tired from her all-nighter.

Hannah Update (sort of)

Well, I know not many people visit my blog but I'll post this anyway. I think my sister-in-law is the only one who visits since she's not on facebook to check my pictures like our parents. So, Wendy, this is for you:) It's not easy to "post" this as a status update on facebook anyway.

Hannah has an EEG this Thursday. I need to sleep deprive her Wednesday night so she'll sleep through the test. I probably won't get results until our follow up visit with the neurologist on August 2nd. I'm assuming we'll find out the results of her EKG & blood work at that time too. 

Back story for anyone who may happen to stop by and not know why she's needing a neurologist:

Hannah "may" have had a seizure on the flight coming home from Orlando last month. Or, she may have fainted as she has fainted twice before in her life. A couple symptoms made me fear seizure and she went to the pediatrician who referred us to a neurologist. The neurologist sent her for blood work at which she nearly fainted-although I was expecting that. She also had an EKG that same day. That went surprisingly quick. We finally have the EEG scheduled for this week. 

It wasn't the best ending to an otherwise fun trip but at least it happened right before landing. It was almost painful for me to wait to get off the plane since we were in the last row of the plane. I don't even know what Todd thought seeing us come out with her in a wheelchair. After a 4 hour delay leaving Orlando, arriving in Phoenix at 1am, & getting to bed at 3am, it was more like 6am according to our bodies on Florida time. Our flight was a little turbulent and a screaming toddler made sure no one got any sleep. We had been up for nearly 24 hours. We had spent most of Sunday out in the humid heat touring the Disney hotels & outside of some parks. We didn't hydrate as much as we should have & for Hannah to not drink a lot of water, well, that's a recipe for ???

So she was dehydrated & sleep deprived. She had a busy time with some anxiety over the competition. These were all factors the doctors were interested in. 

Waiting is not my specialty. Waiting for the referrals to go through. Waiting for doctors to call back & set things up. Waiting for that visit where we should have results. Ugh. I think she'll be okay during the EEG. I hope she'll be able to sleep because I don't want to "wait" to get another appointment. The prayers that I would covet are that when we get results, they tell us nothing is wrong-that she's just a "fainter".

Hannah was embarrassed about the whole situation but her biggest concern was whether she could still audition for "The Tortoise & the Hare". We were supposed to be home by 9:30pm Sunday night & the audition was Monday morning at 10am. Plenty of time to get rest, right? She didn't want a stinking doctor appointment to interfere with the audition. After getting to bed at 3am and the worst flight of my life, she still made it to the audition, snagged a part she liked, & made it to the doctor. 

An interesting part of this story is the kids have been uninsured for several years. A couple months ago we were notified that the state was re-opening Kidscare & of course I applied. They became eligible June 1st and I mailed our first payment the day before we left for Florida. God's timing cannot be matched!

God's Girlz -one last time

 The girlz with their various team/individual awards.

 Hannah and her awards.

The United States shaped plaque on top is the Nationals 37th place plaque.

Below that from left to right is:

3rd place team over the regular season

1st place at State

Regionals ribbon

5th place at Regionals 

Pretty cool stuff.

God's Girlz had one more get together to receive their plaques & scrapbook pictures from their season-beginning to end. Bittersweet. The girls had a fun & busy journey as they hid God's word in their hearts & made lasting friendships (I hope).  Hannah is undecided if she wants to do Teen Bible Quiz. She wants to officiate for JBQ so we'll see what actually happens.

4th of July & 15th anniversary-Woo Hoo

 Our beauty

 Lunch at Applebee's on the 4th of July

 Store bought cake to celebrate 15 years!

At Luke watching their fireworks show.

Here's a few pictures from the 4th of July AKA our anniversary. 15 years! We had a good day despite the rain. We actually enjoyed the rain. It was the first anniversary that was cold. 

We went to lunch at Applebee's because my Mom gave us a gift card & when we got there we found out kids ate free that day. Score! 

We had plans to go to another one of those family free fun days at the base pool. We weren't sure if the pool would be open with all that rain but we checked it out anyway. It was a typical crowd which was surprising but we swam in the rain for a couple hours. They had a coin drop game that Todd & the kids participated in. Between the 3 of them they earned $7.50. 

Then we went home and relaxed before setting off a few fireworks. After we set off our fireworks we drove to the base and watched their show.

Hannah in "The Tortoise & the Hare"

 Theatre Troupe people

 Above-Nigel

Below-Friend support

 Sibling & family support

Hannah was in The Tortoise & the Hare on Friday night with Missoula Children's Theatre at the AFB. It was a week long summer drama camp. She played the part of Nigel-one of the members of a traveling group of thespians going through the town of Sandy Bottoms the day of the race. It was the classic tale with a twist. She had fun & we always enjoy watching her on stage.

Killing time at the Orlando Airport

 Fun photo ops abound at the themed gift shops.

Here's the last group of pictures from the JBQ Orlando trip. We had quite a delay at the airport before coming home. Thankfully the girls were still happy & there were fun stores to pose around. 

The next event will be a play Hannah is in at the base tomorrow.

Touring some Disney Hotels & Riding the Disney Transportation

 Enjoying the pool & whirlpool after 2 days of quizzing & finally NO rain,thunderstorms, & hail! It was only sunny Florida for about 1 1/2 days of our trip.

 Us on the monorail to check out a few Disney resorts.

 Inside the Polynesian Resort with a sculpture of Hannah's favorite animal:)

 Hang Loose!

 In the lobby of the Polynesian.

 In front of a cool tree.

 Pounding it with a Tiki guy in the gift shop.

 Inside the Grand Floridian Resort. Doesn't it look grand?

 So close yet so far from DisneyWorld! I do think I got a nice shot of the monorail coming in & part of Cinderella's castle.

 Hannah waiting for the boat to take us across to the Magic Kingdom so we could find a map for a keepsake even though we were not going in. Space Mountain is in the background (my favorite ride).

 3/5 of God's Girlz

 Me and the girlz.

 Still on that same boat.....

In front of Epcot. Couldn't go in there either:(

This batch of pictures is on our last day in Florida. Hannah & I went with another friend and her 2 daughters (also God's Girlz teammates) to the Disney World resort area to check out some resorts and ride the monorail & boat transportation for fun. While we didn't have the money to go into the parks, it was still fun to be nearby. 

It had been stormy/rainy since we got to Orlando & this was the only day it was sunny. we even had hail one afternoon. I cannot say I enjoyed the humidity as much as I did the scenery!

After our day here, we had to get the rental car back. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed by a little more than 3 1/2 hours. So we spent quite a bit of time killing time in the airport with 4 of the 5 girls. Thankfully, they were more giddy than grouchy so that helped. The airport had many photo ops for a Disney fan like me so the next batch of pictures I post will be from the airport waiting for our plane to come in.

Dowtown Disney Orlando

 Okay, so the picture above is not really Downtown Disney but it didn't fit any other category I have planned as it was the first picture I took in the airport after we arrived in Florida.

 Hannah and I by Planet Hollywood.

 

 4/5 of God's Girlz

 In and around the Lego Store.

Here's a few pictures from our Downtown Disney visit. I like Anaheim DTD better. Maybe just because Disneyland feels like a second home to us. Maybe because it's just not the same without the boys. Still fun despite the icky humid weather. Many photo opportunities-especially the cool lego creations. I took several more of lego stuff but I liked these ones best.

We went here on our first full day in Orlando (Thursday) before the opening ceremonies of JBQ.

More pictures to come.

God's Girlz takes 37th place at Nationals!!!!

 The team being introduced at the opening ceremonies. Each team had a brick to place on the wall they were building to fit this year's theme of "JBQ Builds the Kingdom". Last year's theme was "Shakes the Nation".

 The finished "brick" wall.

 God's Girlz representing the Home Educators of Surprise (HEofS)

 Our girl!

 The team & coaches after taking 37th place in the Nation. They were also the best Southwest ranking team at Nationals.

 Hannah and her patch that everyone gets. I also bought her a JBQ medal to help remember it by.

 Another photo op at the wall.

 Teams only get one plaque so we have to order our own. Usually the team represents a church & the plaque stays at the church. But we will split the cost of getting a plaque for each family.

By now you've heard or figured out that God's Girlz went to Orlando, FL for National JBQ competition last week. They worked hard and earned 37th place out of 80 teams at Nationals. There are over 1500 teams Nationwide & only 80 teams get this far though so 37th place is pretty darn good. In fact, we lost by only 5 points to the team that took 5th place in the nation. It was an exhausting trip but much fun. 

I'll post pictures of our down time later.