Before and After Pictures

Seriously, no pictures. Everything went well yesterday. I went into surgery a 8:20 and was home at 12:30! I'm a little sore, but not nearly as sore as the first surgery. I have serious restrictions on movement for awhile, so that will be a little tough.

I just wanted to let everyone know I'm doing fine. Hope its the same for all of you!

Size D...are you kidding?!?!

Come on now, Carla. You know I'm so skinny that if I had size D's I'd tip right over. (heeheehee) Then again, I'll be knocked out so who knows what I'll wake up with. Dr. Whitfield looked in some catalog and called out some numbers, so I'm not quite sure what I'm in for.

I'll let you know how things work out! Thank you everyone for your thoughts.

Breast wishes,
Sandy

Happy Birthday Olivia!

It's been quite awhile since my last post. Everything is going great. My hair is growing like crazy and is also completely CURLY!! It's basically out of control! This picture is from today.




Olivia turned 5 today and we had a party for her. Our whole family was here (minus Uncle Nate who is out in Boston as school!) and Olivia had a great time. Tonight before bed she told me that she "had more fun at her party than she did at Christmas"!

She had a couple other fantastic comments. When she opened a dress that her Grandma and Grandpa got her she said, "I saw this in a magazine! It's just what I always wanted!". When she opened an alarm clock for her room from her Aunt Sharon she said, "It's perfect because I'm always sleeping so late!"

Before I put up the pictures from the party I need to share a couple from the other morning. Carina informed me that while I made her breakfast she was going to read the paper. Look closely - she's reading the Obituaries!

Here are some pictures from Olivia's party today....

The picture above from the left is cousin Audrey, Olivia, cousin Greta and Carina. The girls are dressed up in some silk scarves.

I have a surgery coming up on Friday. It's with the plastic surgeon and is an outpatient surgery. I'll be off work the following week. One of the moms from Olivia's class organized dinners for us during that week. We'll be getting 6 meals from Olivia's classmates. We are so grateful for that. What a kind thing for them to do. I'll do another post next weekend to let everyone know how it goes....

Happy Holidays!

Wow! What a quick month and a half it's been. I've been really busy at work during the month of December and busy growing hair as well! You can't see very well in the picture, but I swear it's getting curlier every day! I'll have to have Matt take a couple closer pictures so I can post those.

A couple weeks ago we had a family brunch for my father-in-law's birthday. Here is a picture of the family...
That night Matt and I attended our neighborhood Holiday cocktail party and the girls went to Grandma and Grandpa's for a sleep over. Everyone had a great time at the party - we were there until 4am!!

Olivia had her Winter Sing at school last week. Fantastic! It was so entertaining and all the kids were singing their little hearts out. Olivia's favorite song from the program was the Kwanzaa song. She's since taught it to her sister. I spent all afternoon at work that day singing "Christmas cookies and holiday hearts, that's the way the holiday starts...."

Since we can't get enough of the spirit of the season we decorated cookies today. Carina spent about 15 minutes on her first cookie. I'm not sure how it happened, but the cookie made it's way to the floor.

I'm scheduled for one more surgery on January 25th. So unfortunately I can't say everything is over with the end of 2007, but this should be a piece of cake.

I hope everyone is doing well. Enjoy your time with your families and have a Happy (and healthy!) New Year.

HoHoHo!

Watch out for that dog!

I'm back from my European tour. I was traveling for 10 days. First I was in Prague for a conference. It was great to see all my WBN friends and colleagues again. Reinhard from Germany brought me flowers at our first lunch as a group to say "welcome back". Here is a picture...




We went on a tour of King Charles IV castle on Saturday afternoon....his "compound" included a cathedral that was quite impressive....

We walked back to the hotel over the famous Charles Bridge (also named after Charles IV)...

I was in Prague from Tuesday to Sunday. Then it was onto Milan to meet with our client. Here is a picture of the cathedral in Milan - it only took 600 years to build it.



We left Italy and flew to Sibiu, Romania on Tuesday. We arrived at the airport and had driven about three blocks in our taxi when the driver hit one of about one zillion stray dogs in the country. The dog was ok, but it wrecked the license plate on the car.

The manufacturing facility is in Medias, Romania - which is about an hour drive from the airport. In addition to dogs, we also encountered some goats in the road.

Here is what a women's toilet looked like at the plant. Are you sure you want more coffee??

Before we left Romania, we had a walking tour that was arranged by our Romanian broker partner in Sibiu. But first we had to survive the drive from Medias to Sibiu with this same broker partner. Since one of the people traveling with us was an attorney, we decided that should anything happen, he was doing all the talking. The drive was a two lane road and included passing trucks on curves at a speed of about 60 MPH. This was all while there were pedestrians with small children walking along the shoulder of the road. I don't think that they will be exporting Romanian driving instructors any time soon.

This is from the old town in Sibiu. The area has been almost completely restored.

There were signs everywhere - there was going to be a Scorpions concert in the square shown in the picture above. The guy in the picture is my colleague from The Netherlands, Duncan.

Here is a picture of a dog in Sibiu. I think he was looking for his friend that had an encounter with the taxi license plate.


We left Romania late Wednesday afternoon to head to Bordeaux, France. Sibiu later. Here is a picture of the engine on our plane from Sibiu to Vienna. Hey - look, there is duct tape on the engine!

We didn't get to Bordeaux until 9:00 at night, minus luggage for Duncan. We drove to Tonneins the next morning (almost a 2 hour drive). The drive was very scenic.



Tonneins is very much in the country. There is an interesting neighbor next to the plant.

As you can see, it was an interesting and fun trip.

Matt and the girls did just fine without me. I talked with them every day. When I called from the airport in Detroit, Olivia wanted to know how long my hair was. Carina said she was going to hug me and kiss me and never let me go. It doesn't get much better than that.

Happy Halloween!

Lots of big excitement lately!

I've started wearing my new baby hair. It's definitely a work in progress, but better every day. I don't have so many bandanna matches with my winter wardrobe. This is my brother-in-law Brad - our hair is pretty much the same. Well, ok, his is actually twice as long....

Here is a picture of the girls at a Halloween Party at Grandma Becky and Grandpa Dennis's golf club. They had a great time and their cousins were there too. There was a magician and Olivia volunteered to be an assistant. It was hard to believe she went to the front of the room. There were about 75+ people there and she can be pretty shy sometimes.

I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow. I've been looking forward to this trip for the past 8 months. Needless to say, I'll miss the family a lot. It's really hard to believe it's finally here. I'll be back on November 9 and share some pictures.

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Vacation at last!!

I know it has been quite awhile since my last post - I got a concerned phone call from my friend Liz. No worries - everything is going just great.

The port removal was a little creepy since they are slicing you open while you are fully awake and aware of what is going on. Of course they use a local anesthetic. Anyway, that is all healed up now.

We just got back from 8 days in Florida. The weather was pretty good for the most part. We drove down - it's about 17 hours door to door with our few stops. We went overnight on the way down and during the day on the way home (leaving FL at 3am). The girls were both fantastic in the car.

I'm leaving for Europe on Monday the 29th and won't be home until the 9th of November. I'm really looking forward to it (of course I'll be missing the family in the mean time). The first part of the trip I'll be attending a semi-annual conference that I missed this past spring. I can't wait to see all my colleagues from around the world that have been so supportive during the past 8 months. The conference is in Prague and I've heard great things about the city. Next to Italy, just outside of Milan, then Sibiu, Romania, and Tonneins, France just outside Bordeux and home. We'll only be in the other cities for 2 days at the most so we won't have much free time.

Here are some pictures from our trip. The girls had a great time and can't wait to go back in May.

Olivia teaching Carina some ballet moves....

Sunset at the beach...

Carina wearing her sunglasses upside down and putting on her own headband....

Our last evening at the beach...it rained NON-STOP our last two days there, ending around 4pm the second day.