Moving

After today (June 11) we will not have internet until they hook it up at the new house on the 17th. I will try to get to the library to check email and stuff between now and then but I can't make any promise, so if you don't here from us we aren't ignoring you, we just haven't bothered to check up on you =).
We went and saw the new house this morning, it is great. They have already packed up all of our stuff and it is so awesome not have to do it ourselves. In the morning they will come and move it all to the new house. Bill wanted to have them unpack it also, but we decide against it because then it will be all over the place and we really want to try to get rid of some of the stuff we have accumulated as we unpack. We will see how that goes, I really have a hard time getting rid of stuff that belonged to my parents even though it just sits in a box, in the closet, or under the bed. Then there is all of my scrapbooking stuff that I really haven't touched much in about 2 years (Maybe I need to take a trip to Diana's to get back into it). Thinking about it I guess it has been since my dad passed away, which would make sense because I really had a hard time with that.
We have given ourselves a deadline for unpacking, we have until the 21st because we leave for North Carolina on the 22nd. I am going to try to make it stick because I really don't want to come back from NC to a house full of boxes. Too bad I can't get the Clean Sweep people from TV to come and do it for me. I know I would have to still do some of the work but I can handle that.
By the way Justin is feeling alot better. He is taking less pain medication now, sleeping less during the day and eating more. He still has a hard time getting up in the mornings because that is when he has the most pain but even that is improving.

Justin's hard head isn't as hard as he thought.

By now, most of you have heard about Justin's accident on Wednesday... if not, here is the story... he was riding his scooter (basically a skateboard with handlebars) home from school, he was going downhill and had his helmet in his backpack rather than on his head. Even though when I agreed to let him ride it to school instead of walk, two days before, he said he would wear his helmet. I wanted to just tell him no, but he is twelve and I figured I should let him do things, even if it is against my better judgement. Well he lost control of the scooter and fell. Someone called 911 and a neighbor happened to drive by while the fire trucks were there and recognized him and came to the house to let us know what had happened. I got there right before the ambulance was leaving, so I rode with him to the emergency room. When we got there they looked him over, then took some x-rays to clear his neck to get the collar off and also x-rayed his left elbow because it was really swollen and bruised. After x-rays he complained of being nauseous and fell asleep, the nurse wasn't really concerned, he said that it was from adrenaline rush. While we were waiting for the x-ray results he got sick, then they came in and said that his neck was clear and took the neck collar off and treated his blisters from the hot pavement and his road rash. He fell back asleep and then got sick again while asleep. Just after that the nurse came in with discharge papers and a prescription for Motrin (which would of been bad to give him), so I told him that I thought something else was wrong because he got sick again and was still asleep. So he went and talked to the doctor and said that they would send him for a Cat Scan, but they were pretty sure he was fine. Turns out that their CT was being replaced so we would have to travel 16 miles to another hospital in another ambulance to have it done then come back the 16 miles to this hospital. When we got back to the first hospital after the CT the doctor said not to even put him in the room because he was already discharged, but he hadn't even gotten the results of the CT yet. Then the fax came in from the other hospital and they all surrounded him putting IVs and the doctor then walks up and says "Mom's know their kids best" and that he has a 3mm bleed on his brain and a skull fracture and that he will be admitted to the hospital but we have to go to a different hospital because they don't the care he need there. So then we go into another ambulance (this time with light and sirens) to the new hospital. They did another scan 4 hours later and determined that the bleed was not growing (which would have been really bad if it had). After staying in the hospital for a couple days and doing cognitive tests with him, they determined he was okay to go home. They released him Friday morning. He will have headaches for a few months while his head tries to heal and is not aloud to do anything active (running, jumping, bike riding, sports, etc.). He can only take Tylenol for the pain because Motrin can make the bleed worse. So it is a good thing that I didn't just take him home and give him Motrin like the doctor said to do at first. He gave us a scare but besides being in pain and still a bit of nausea, he seems to be okay. Also, the answer is yes... he has learned a lesson here. We are certain he will always be wearing his helmet now.
So now Justin can't go to camp or Disney World so he will be staying with Grandma Debbie (Billy's mom) while Kyle is at camp and Billy, Zack and I go to Disney World for a few days.

Pili Grass Harvest

This last Sunday Bill and I had an opportunity of a lifetime, we got to drive through trails that only a handful of people had been in the past 100 years or so. A small group of people from Ohana Trails (our 4x4 ohana) went up into the hills of the North Shore to sacred lands to gather pili grass for an authentic Hawaiian hut that they are building at the YMCA camp. Long time ago they would hike up the mountains to harvest the grass but now you need 4x4 capability to get there. As we traveled there our guide/builder, Kawika, chanted at each gate before he unlock and opened it to ask for permission from the elders/gods to proceed farther onto the land and then when we got to the top where we were to gather the grass he then chanted for permission to harvest the grass. We harvested the grass for a few hours and then we went back and had some lunch at Killer Tacos, which are very killer (yummy). Tomorrow (Thursday), we are going to see the progress that they have made on building the hut and then on the 14th we are going back up to gather more pili for them to finish the hut. Here are some pictures of the way up and while we were up there. The grass around the parked Jeeps is what we harvested. Don't have any pictures of while we were harvesting because we forgot our camera so we had to rely on other peoples pics. We will take some pic on Thursday of the hut being built and on the 14th when we go back up.

Isn't the view beautiful?