Mckinley's first primary program

Mckinley had her first primary program yesterday. She did pretty good although she forgot her part and was terribly naughty up on the stand. Her part was supposed to be "I am a spirit child of Heavenly Father." What she said was "Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father." Kind of close? Haha. It was pretty cute and we were very proud of her none the less. She also doesn't practice singing the songs when she is in primary, so as you can imagine she didn't know them, so she just pretended to sing by opening and closing her mouth a lot during the songs.
The really great part during the program was when she pushed a boy in her class that kept bumping her shoulder on accident. He almost fell all the way down and so I stood up and got her attention by pointing the ominous finger of "you're going to get it." And mouthed "don't do that." She saw that she was in trouble and in front of the whole ward, she STUCK HER TONGUE OUT AT ME! I was so shocked I didn't know what I should do next, whether to walk up there and spank her or sit down and come up with a less abusive plan. The second choice won out, but I'm still not sure which would have been better. I wonder when we will figure this parenting stuff out. We have another one of these things coming by the way. Is anyone else worried?

Some Swine Flu food for thought

My sister has symptoms of swine flu right now. So I've done some research. For most people this is considered to be more mild than originally planned. But, there are still a few people dying from it. (My 28 year old patient from a few weeks ago died from complications of swine flu.)
A big concern surrounding this, and probably what makes this flu so alarming is that our nation doesn't seem to be ready to handle the virus should it progress to a crisis pandemic. We need to understand that the current virus is not considered to be extremely dangerous.(You are still more likely to die from the regular flu virus than from the Swine Flu.) The H1N1 flu has to mutate to become a more dangerous virus to be able to be lethal to most people. However, a big concern is that the Swine flu virus is closely following the pattern of the 1918 Flu pandemic that first appeared in early spring as a mild virus and returned later in the year, during the regular flu season, and killed millions of people. Swine flu, is being called a "new" virus because the combination hasn't actually been seen before. It is comprised of three different types of flu, including one part Swine, one part Avian flu and one part regular flu virus. People who are older than 40-50 seem to have some degree of immune response to H1N1. They think that this is because traditional Swine flu has been around before during these patients lifetime, whereas, younger patients, who are experiencing higher mortality rates with the virus may not have been exposed to the virus which could mean that the last time Swine flu has been seen historically is probably sometime in the 50s or 60s.
This week, my work was scheduled to recieve flu shots for the regular flu virus, and found out that the order was not available. I don't regularly get the flu shot anyway so I wasn't very concerned about it. If you are interested in getting one, you will probably still be able to locate a vaccine for yourself.(although, the Walgreens here in Cedar City had only 50 vaccines for the general public.) However this shortage is expected to be worse with the H1N1 vaccine which is planned for release in mid October. The US is planning to give the vaccine only to high risk patient populations like pregnant women, children under 3, or health care workers. This number of people will most likely use up all of the available vaccines, and the general public probably wont even have the vaccine available to them. Like the regular flu, there will be a few strains of flu present in the vaccine. Researchers are working to find what they estimate to be the most dangerous mutations to the virus. If the virus mutates, the antiviral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, are not expected to have any effect on the virus. The virus seems to already be mutating because they are only seeing these antivirals working in 70% of cases currently. The scary thought is that the vaccine may be the only life saving treatment, should the virus have a high mortality rate and that treatment may not be available to the majority of the population in time to be effective. (The virus could also mutate and become less harmful, on a lighter note. :) Another possible setback is that H1N1 vaccine is meant to be a supplemental vaccine to the regular flu shot and they are reccomending that people recieve the two vaccines 30 days apart. So if you don't have your regular flu shot now, by the time it will be considered safe to recieve your H1N1 vaccine, the vaccine may not be available.
Another thing to think about is the safety of the actual vaccine. Researchers normally work for the entire year on establishing safety for the flu shot for the flu season that they are preparing for. The flu virus mutates every year, but it is not actually considered to be a "new" virus. This makes the release of a vaccine for a "new" virus in 8 months or less, pretty risky. The last time America provided a rushed vaccine for a new flu, this is what happened: In 1976, a new flu virus was seen at an army base in America that killed one man in a matter of a couple of days. This was oversensationalized in the media, and created some panic among much of the population. Henry Ford was trying to win the election for his second term and passed a bill to create a vaccine for the new virus to be ready before the start of the flu season. The government paid for a mass inoculation program but was asked by the research company to assume the liability for the potential side effects of the vaccine. Such a relatively high number of people died of acute heart conditions within a few days of receiving the vaccine that the mass inoculation program was suspended. On top of that, more people were diagnosed with a rare and deadly Neurological disease called Guillian Barre as a side effect of the vaccine, than would have died from the flu. Wanna know what happened with the extremely virulent flu virus they were vaccinated against? It never hit. Just a few things to think about.

PS get better Sunni! You might actually be lucky to be getting it now rather than later if it does mutate to something worse.(not to be Pollyanna or anything.)

32 weeks

We are getting there....a little bit at a time. I have definitely arrived at the stage where I just feel pregnant everywhere. I have been retaining some water especially in my face, hands and feet, and when I asked my Dr. what I could do about it, he said "well your urine and your blood pressure look really good." I couldn't resist so I said, "well there are very few people looking at my urine and my blood pressure, they're looking at my face. Haha"
This week I have had a lot of contractions and pelvic pressure which is a worry because right now the baby is probably only about four pounds. (It's also a worry because if she came this early she would have to sleep in a box like a puppy because we haven't gotten her bed or anything ready yet.)

David Update

I have a really amazing husband! Ever since David and I have been married, David has very unselfishly put the needs of our family above his personal desires and even career goals. He has worked mostly as an electrical apprentice, not because it was his ultimate dream to do it, but because it was something that he could make money doing. With the economic downturn, his job doing electrical work was really effected and after several weeks of things slowing down, he was eventually laid off. He was laid off just a few days after we found out that we were expecting our baby and it was pretty unsettling to know what we should do. Fortunately, David is a very hard worker and has somehow made ends meet by doing odd jobs here and there. Family members and friends have also been very helpful in hiring David for work. Thank You everyone!
It has actually been a good thing for David to be laid off in some ways because he has been forced to evaluate what career goals he would like to pursue, and during this time, he decided to go back to school to work towards a degree in Electronics Engineering. We still had the problem of a job for David until the week school started when my cousins husband Spencer called David to see if he could start working night shifts immediately at a factory here in town. It is a temporary job for now, but we are hoping that they will hire David full time at the end of the temporary period.
It's a pretty difficult arrangement for David because he works all night Monday through Friday and has school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He has stuck to it, even on days when he doesn't actually sleep for 48 hours or longer because he has to get homework done. It's showing me a much stronger side of my husband than I've ever seen before. Even with all of this, he still finds time(if I let him) to help me make dinner or clean the house, or any of the other hundred million things that need doing. He still puts family first, no matter what he has to sacrifice in his own life, and I feel so lucky to have him.
After this week, he will be 1/3 of the way through this semester.(When it's this tough, we have to celebrate all the baby steps. haha) He did have some previous college credits that SUU accepted and so he has 6 semesters before he will have his degree. Keep up the good work, Love! Thanks for all that you do!

Labor Day!

Last Monday, we went to the Iron County Fair. I have only missed a couple of years in my life of going to the fair on Labor Day. It was just as fun as ever this year. We went with my cousin Lizzie and her family. There was something for everyone and as usual, we spent way too much at the carnival going on rides. (I think we probably made the baby on the way sick riding on the ferris wheel.) Mckinley loved being on the rides but was a HOLY TERROR being in line for them. If we averaged out the two behaviors the scale would probably sink a bit to the naughty side. After wandering around the fair, and even making a stop a the car show and seeing the exhibits, we ate at Hamburger Patties. It was a really fun day, ended on a good note with the last outdoor family barbecue of summer. Kinda sad that summer is pretty much over, but here comes fall with all of it's fun things to do and experience too.

Daddy had to go on Raiders with Mckinley. She really liked it and went twice!

This is an example of being an adoring parent: I think David must have taken ten of the same pictures of Mckinley while she was on this motorcycle ride. Haha!


All of the rides are a rip off at the fair. Each ticket costs about a dollar and it was 12 tickets for all of us to ride the Ferris Wheel! Haha! Mckinley was getting her money's worth by ringing the bell on this boat ride. (By the way, all of these rides are strikingly similar. They all go around in a circle. The only difference is the apparatus you are riding on. hmmm...yes, I think rip off is a good word.)

We had a lot of fun. I even got a caramel apple! yumm!

29 weeks and counting

We are getting closer!