Come here Ali, Come on!!!

It has been an interesting morning. Caitlyn and Casey are taking a cpr course together (I had planned to do it, but the knee, you know, so Casey took my place so we wouldn't lose the money) which is five hours long plus travel time. As a result, I am holding down (or up) the fort with Ethan and Ali ALONE. Whew! It took me almost an hour to get them both fed, and settled in for a movie. Ali got into Ethan's cereal bowl and that was another 2o minute clean up. I had to coax Ali up near her bed so I could lift her up and in for her nap. She may think twice next time I call her. I must look like quite a sight, scooting along on my rear along the floor in order to get from place to place while carrying anything. I never want to do this crutch thing again! So far so good, though, only 3 more hours and my big helpers get home!!!

Right now, I'm listening to Ethan sing along and interact with Diego. What a precious sound. Those spanish words will come in handy in Del Rio!

Had the stitches removed yesterday and my second Physical Therapy session. Looks good so far. I can fully extend it, which is really important, and have about 85 degrees of flexion so far. Each day gets a little better. I'm amazed at how hard 10 leg lifts are though. Problem is that my legs were both puny and underexercized before this, so now it's coming back to bite me! Dr. emphasized that I should not put any weight on it for the 6 weeks though, and showed me the pictures they took during the surgery. Amazing! I saw the stitches in the meniscus, which were many, and it was a very large tear, so that's the reason for the non weight bearing. I was glad he could repair it, instead of just cutting it away (will be grateful for that in ten years, I'm sure). I now have screws in both knees, holding my new and hopefully improved ACL's in place. Wonder how many metal detectors I can set off!

Darla has surgery!

It's been a little while, mainly because we have hit and miss internet access (we are actually "borrowing" the wireless signal from somewhere around here - I know - that's terrible, but it's only because we are only here a few months, and would have to buy a new modem and a bunch of stuff we already have in our shipment. It's a very bad signal anyway, and only works about 1 in 5 tries. Everyone else has secured networks which is good (but not for us at the moment) The apartment has internet in a little business center we would use, but I'm a gimp and can't get to it at the moment.)

So...

As I mentioned in an earlier post - I had a fall/buckled knee at the airport on our trip from Italy on the 6th. The MRI was sone on the 26th and I saw the Orthopedic doc on Wed. the 30th. Up until then, I had tried to regain normal use of my knee, as I had been able to in the past, but it was not improving. I could not get it fully extended and it still hurt terribly. Anyway, the MRI showed a complete tear of the ACL and a large bucket-handle tear of the medial meniscus. The meniscus was the main problem, since it had flipped up and was keeping my leg from extending. The doc says to wait while he checks with the surgeon for best course of action, and not five minutes later, he walks in with Dr. Brown who tells me he has a cancellation for tomorrow (May 1) and would I be able to fill it? Timing is everything, since normally, it would be more like 4 weeks out, assuming they can get me in at all. I have to check with Casey, of course, but it all works out and I'm back that afternoon doing all the pre-op stuff. By 9:00 the next morning, I'm in the operating room. Recovery has been hard. I had to ween Alisea cold turkey - which was it's own kind of pain, and it's been hard on the family - esp. Caitlyn who is having to do so much to help with the little ones. She's been a sport about it though. The nerve block I had was supposed to work for up to 24 hours to keep me pain free (or at least comfortable) before needing pain meds. Mine started wearing off during the surgery, so they had to knock me out a little deeper and redo it right after the surgery to give me some relief. That didn't last long either. The anesthesiologist said my liver metabolized it too fast - so I'm an unlucky one. Needless to say, the Percocet wears off pretty quick too, and started making me itch, so I stopped taking it and am dealing with just ibuprophen. Thankfully, the pain is mostly subsiding, and the swelling continues to improve.

So there you have it. I'll give updates when I have one.

Caitlyn's 12 Today!

We celebrated Caitlyn's 12th birthday today. She is quite a young woman! Seems like we've been celebrating it for a month though, since we had the bowling party before we left Italy, gave her the cell phone early, and Grams came for a surprise visit for the weekend, which was filled with fun. Today was pretty uneventful. She helped me do laundry, got Arby's for lunch, per request, and we had a giant birthday cookie with our friends who live nearby. She is now officially old enough to babysit!!!! Gotta love that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN!

Our big boy turned 3 on Sunday. He was very excited to be so big. Since we don't know any other little people around here, we spent the day doing fun things for him. We started with a trip to a park, then to Horton Hears a Who at the theater, and Chuck E Cheese's finished out the night. He loved that, I'll tell you. He picked out his cupcakes with the Backyardigan things on the top at Wal-mart, and we got another one anyway at CEC cause it was close to closing time and they were getting rid of them for a dollar! He also got free cotton candy. I think he had fun!

I can't believe he's already 3.

We made it to Texas, barely

I have to go back a little cause there has been much going on for the Ratliff clan. Hopefully, no one will get bored -

I'll begin with our adventerous trip. For those of you who aren't familiar with European travel patterns, they don't really carry much luggage. In fact, many airlines charge for bags after the first one, or all bags on some carriers. Needless to say, when the Ratliff's rolled in at 6:00 am to the Venice airport with 11 suitcases at max capacity, a pack and play, 3 carry-on's, 3 stuffed backpacks, 2 laptop computers, a huge double stroller, and 2 carseats, an extra bag of munchies, and Caitlyn's purse, we were the object of much attention! (You should have seen us in Chicago with customs!)

The flight's were fairly good - although we did have some pretty long layovers, but relatively few meltdowns amongst us. To make matters more exciting, since they weren't already, Darla decided to completely blow out her left knee just as we were preparing to board our last segment to San Antonio, thus requiring a wheelchair to get to the plane. I'll worry about details later. Anyway, I asked for ice, and was told I would have to wait until after the drink service (they didn't want to run out of ice for the passengers!!!!!!) Upon arriving in San Antonio, at 12:15, I was wheeled to baggage, where Casey proceeded to gather up all of our stuff, while I looked on. We couldn't resist the picture opp!! We required 2 van taxi's to get to Randolph TLF at 1:15 am. Total travel time from TLF to TLF - 30 hours!

I spent the first morning (5 hours) in the emergency room. I'm hobbling some now, but not before getting blisters on my palm, and aching all over from the crutches. I still need them but not totally. Looks like surgery - but I haven't seen the orthopedic docs. yet.

Then we had to find a place to live cause the TLF was kicking us out! Ended up in a nice, though pricey, apartment. Since Casey's TDY here, we don't have any of our stuff other than what we carried, so that's been interesting. Air mattresses are the only furniture we had, till the airmen and family readiness centere loaned us a card table and chairs! Our nightstands are a couple of carry-on suitcases with a pillow case thrown over them!

On to more fun things:::: We went minivan shopping the next two days, and I came away with an awesome, 2008 Honda Odyssey touring. I got really spoiled, and am required to state to the world that I have officially graduated to the High Maintenance category. There, I did it.

Maybe being a gimp helped. It is so cool, though, with navigation, power doors and tailgate, backup camera, etc, etc. It's light blue. I don't have it here to take a pic. cause the dealer has it to tint the front windows (we are in Texas!). I'll send a pic. soon.

We spent the next 2 days in Del Rio, looking at probably 30-40 houses. There are lots! No decision on that yet, but looks like we'll be able to find something we really like. I like a couple really well, but both were new, with no landscaping, so we aren't sure we want to deal with that??? We also got new cellphones, and yes, we got one for Caitlyn (many of you are already feeling the pain of that, I'm sure) with unlimited texting for her birthday coming up. If you want that number, email me, since I don't want to post that here.

Then we were home for Ethan's 3rd birthday. That was lots of fun. I will post that separately, so it should show up above this and you probably already read it.

And yesterday, we had to drive 10 hours to pick up the Subaru in Dallas (total driving time). Than heaven we were in a gucci van with rear entertainment system! The kids are royally sick of going places! Today - we just dropped off the van, and stayed home most of the day - FINALLY. So there you have it.

Buzzard's Rule

These are from last week, when Casey had his last F-16 flight for this tour. He was intercepted, taped up, and sprayed down. It was pretty fun to watch him get clobbered by the guys. Ethan got in on the action with the sprayer and loved it! I was happy to see the beautiful mountains in the background. We will definitely miss the scenery around here.

Ugggghhhhh! I remember Now why I REALLY dislike moving!

Would someone please convince my husband that there are women (and men too, probably) who like to clean houses and need the money. I seriously spent 9 hours scrubbing our house today, trying to get ready to out-process, and didn't even get to the bottom floor. Have you ever done a move-out clean with a 9 month old???? Oh, and an almost 3 year old who suffered serious meltdown when he came into his empty house. Casey was a huge help with the kids, to the extent he could be, but that meant we weren't both working on the house. Okay, Can't type anymore, my fingers are literally worked to the bone, and are too tired to type anymore. More later.

Oh, a quick note, we have some awesome friends! Megan and Mark threw us a farewell party with a bunch of our church friends and it was so great. I'll post pics when I'm not so tired.