Edwards Family: Berkeley To Birmingham

Well, we did it. We moved. I'm going to try to summarize without giving too much detail (which is hard for me).

Dave graduated. What a relief! Then he had from May 18th (graduation day) to July 16th (1st day of work) with no real obligations besides being a husband and father. It was really fabulous. I think he was bored at times, but most of the time I don't think he was.

Sam turned six. We had a pirate birthday party. He is a planner! He made a list of who to invite and what he wanted to do and receive for his birthday. He even invited his kindergarten teacher, Miss Hannah, who made an appearance in true pirate fashion (pictured below).

Thomas turned four. He did not have a theme party (I took advantage of his lack of expectations, but he has already told me he wants a pinata next year like Sam had this year.). He had a balloon-filled tent and friends and donuts at the village park. That was after Hannah was born, but I don't think I posted about it. He re-broke his arm 3 days after we got to Michigan. Between Hannah and Thomas, we've had 5 ER trips since Hannah's birth. (More on that below.) I honestly don't know how his arm could have broken either time he did it. This time he was just at about the second from the bottom stair and somehow fell and broke it.

Hannah has helped us reach our out of pocket maximum for health insurance this year. In her first three months of life she went to the ER three times. The first time at 5 weeks old, and then almost exactly one month later (in Utah, on our way to Michigan), and then again about 1 month after that (not long after arriving in Michigan). Hannah, we have learned, has two ureters (tube from kidney to bladder) on her left side. This causes her to get UTIs and accompanying high fevers. We will finally meet with a pediatric urologist this week to get more details of what the plan for her will be, but our pediatrician believes she will need to have surgery before too long (as in the next few months). I'm leaving out lots of details here, but for now she is on antibiotics and will hopefully stay UTI free. When she is feeling good, she is a real sweetheart, and adored by all the members of our family. Usually she sleeps pretty well these days (relatively speaking), but occasionally in the night she is just happy as can be to be awake and jabbering to me. She's awfully cute, but I sure wish she'd save that for the day-time hours. But she's the first child we've had that does that, so I guess I ought not complain.

I (Patti) have mostly just survived, which has been made easier with the help of my parents, Dave, Dave's parents, our sweet kids, and my Aunt Dede and Uncle Chan. Also the support and prayers of our families have helped. I will say that the doctors and nurses have been great (for the most part). Funnily, at the hospital here there was a resident pediatrician working with us, Dr. Edwards, as well as a pediatric urology resident who stopped in a couple times also named Dr. Edwards. And of course, we are the Edwards. So, all the Edwards converged.

As for Michigan and new job, we are really loving it here so far. Dave's enjoying the non-stressful beginnings of his job. I'm enjoying that fact that his job is not causing him stress. The people here are so friendly. It just feels more like home than Berkeley ever did to me. (Sorry Berkeley, and this is not a diss on the people there, just the environment.)

And now, for the pictures!

Sam and Harris in Harris's tree house.

Boys will be boys.

Lucy, Owen, Sam, Miss Hanna, Sammy, Emily, Grace, Melissa

Some of the pirate partiers

Lucy and the pinata.

So glad I got a picture with Grace and Emily-two of my favorite little girls.

Last day of kindergarten!

This is Hannah in her blessing dress (thanks Christy). I really tried to remember to get a picture of her on her blessing day, but it was also graduation day, and with the hurry to get to graduation after church, I forgot. So this was taken when she was about 2 months old.

Oh yeah! Dave and I (and Hannah) went to Santa Cruz. The boys went to Utah with Grandma T while before the movers came. I think Hannah must have not been feeling well already when we moved because we couldn't set her down on the day of moving and cleaning. That really slowed us down. But then we went to Santa Cruz for a couple of days. I think we'll have to go back sometime with the boys. These pictures are just the mini-golf place. I should have taken more pictures, but that's no surprise.

Fuzzy picture of Dave mini-golfing. He had the luckiest shot ever. He hit his ball too hard, sending it out of the designated green, it bounced off of my golf club, ricocheted back into the green, and ended up quite close to the hole. In the end I think we tied.