Thank you all so very much for your prayers for Valerie and
Caroline’s wisdom teeth surgery and recovery!
They are doing very well, and the worst is definitely behind them! We are
so grateful for all your love, support and prayers!
As our family prepared for this big event on Thursday, we
had the best laid plans for covering all the bases in taking care of Valerie
and Caroline’s needs as well as filling in for them with their animals and
chores.
Recently, our very dear Pastor’s wife asked the “Bowes
Bakers” if we could make some pretty pink cupcakes for a baby shower today. We were happy to do so. When we realized that we’d be down by two
bakers and decorators this week, Victoria said, “no problem, we got this!” and
affectionately gave us (the remaining two Bowes bakers) the endearing title of “Cupcake Committee!” So, this has become quite the funny little
inside joke as the two of us have tried to “hold down the fort” and keep
everything running while Valerie and Caroline are out of commission for a while.
Things were looking pretty good for us going into the
surgery on Thursday morning. Victoria
was more than willing to pick up the dog chores since she is out feeding the
goats anyway.
And I’m happy to pick up the laundry and dishes, Valerie and
Caroline’s big chores this month.
But of course, in a house full of kids and animals . . .unexpected
things happen, and the best laid plans get rearranged!
Things went swimmingly with getting Caroline and Valerie
home from the surgery. We even came home to Lydia visiting and helping Victoria in the kitchen and with entertaining Ben and Brielle! A very wonderful blessing! Yay for the "Cupcake Committee's" unexpected reinforcements! Shortly thereafter though, the unexpected things started happening. We
realized Anna, our sweet little indoor dog, rolled again in something very
stinky in the horse pasture, which always necessitates a bath. At this same time, we realized she was limping
when she came back in the house.
So, Thursday evening, we were thinking that we should get
Anna to a veterinarian for evaluation. I
also remembered that we’ve had some serious concern about a spot on Joe’s arm
that is not healing, and decided that we really needed to have it looked at
before the weekend. So, Friday morning,
I called the pediatrician’s office at 8am, and they said they had one
appointment . . .at 9am! Within a few
minutes of my call, Victoria called the vet’s office, and they had a 10am
appointment. So, Victoria and I realized
that we had to load us all in the van within 15 minutes to pull off this trip
to town. As we were rushing out the
door, we had to bring in the “cupcake committee’s” reinforcement . . . .Timmy .
. . to feed the dogs and let them out into the yard. Kyle and Daddy were just returning from
their morning Bible study about this time, so Daddy was able to look after
Caroline and Valerie, and Kyle jumped in to help Timmy out.
We made it to the pediatrician’s office right on time! We were in for a shock though, when the
doctor told us she thinks Joe’s red spot on his arm is due to a MRSA
infection! Yikes! So, she had to puncture it, drain it and
culture it. Ewwwww!!! Thankfullly, she said there is still a
mixture of antibiotics that works on it.
Joe was very brave, so we made it through that just fine, and made it to
the vet office right at 10am. The vet
couldn’t find anything, but she gave her an anti-inflammatory/pain medication.
After that, we were off to Walgreens to pick up Joe’s prescription,
but it wasn’t ready yet, so we had some time to kill. At this time we realized that we would
probably be late to getting Victoria back home to leave with Kyle for a plan
they had to meet some friends that were taking Kyle to a missions conference in
Oregon, and Victoria would drive his truck home. We then realized my tracphone was out of
minutes, so we couldn’t call home to tell this to Kyle until I bought more
minutes! So, off to Walmart we went to
re-charge my phone.
Victoria was also concerned about the fact that her 3 bottle
baby goat kids didn’t get their morning feeding. So when we got a hold of Kyle, she asked him
if he wouldn’t mind bottle feeding them, and walked him through how to do
that! (He was happy to be the
reinforcement for the “cupcake committee”,
as he “owed her one” from her baking him some pumpkin apple bread on Thursday
afternoon for a hospitality gift for his host family Friday night. ;-) And
thankfully, his meeting time was 2, instead of 1, so we decided to stay out
town, and meet Kyle at the designated spot at 2pm. This all worked well!
When I got home at 2:30, I checked on the girls, and
remembered I had to run over to the rental house I clean for and finish up some
cleaning that I had planned to do before Thursday, but the family that owns the
rental house had last minute plans to occupy the house through Wednesday
night. But just before heading over to
the rental house, I found that Sadie, Victoria’s little puppy had an accident
in the back guest room. : -)
Oh yeah, and Caroline normally does dinner on Friday
nights! What are we gonna do for dinner? And oh
yeah . . . . the CUPCAKES!!!!!
Victoria managed to pull off the baking of the cupcakes, and
thankfully, we had lots of leftovers for dinner!
As long as we remember when everybody needs their
medications . . . we’re good right?!!!
So, this morning, after medicating everyone, and taking care
of all the chores and animals, we go to frost all the cupcakes for the baby
shower and the power goes out! Seriously?! Thankfully, Victoria, being the rescourceful member of the Cupcake Committee that she is, was able to make the frosting we needed without the power of the mixer! Three cheers for Victoria and all the Cupcake Committee's reinforcements! :-)
