Arden's gymastic pictures

Arden spends most of her free time at the gym!  I sometimes am jealous of her gym coaches since they get to spend more time with her than I do!  

She got some profesh pictures taken at the gym.  Aren't they good?  

I have never been able to do the splits.  Somehow I have still stumbled through life.  Arden can even smile while she does it!

 The cool thing was when the photographers were taking the pictures, it was perfectly light in the gym.  Somehow they did a thing with their cameras that only made it look dark.  Cool, right?

 Here is a between-shots candid taken by just me.  Here is Arden and her bestest gym buddies.

 And here are all of the Level 4 girls!  They had to sit like this for quite a while, and the two girls doing the splits wished they had chosen another pose!  But they turned out great!

Good thing I have something to show for all of the $$$ I send to the gym every month.

Brynn Marie Haun - July 29, 2002 - January 5, 2018

Around 5:00 a.m. on January 5, I heard my phone text alert go off around 5:00 a.m., and I knew in my heart what the text was saying.  I gradually built up my courage and finally read the text from my brother Dan, "I am saddened to report that Brynn passed away about 15 minutes ago.  Memorial service will likely be Saturday, January 13.  Thanks for all of your support past, present and future"

My brother Dan, he has a way with words.  All the time.  He also wrote Brynn's obituary:

Brynn Marie Haun, 15, passed away on January 5, 2018, in her home surrounded by her loving family, after a battle with Ewing's sarcoma.  Brynn was born on July 29, 2002, to Daniel W. and Lori (Jones) Haun in St. Louis, Missouri.  She attended Parkway West High School, where she was a member of the tennis team and in the chamber choir.  She was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints where she was active in seminary and the Young Women program, earning her Young Womanhood Award.

Brynn loved her family.  She enjoyed watching Harry Potter movies with her brothers, playing board games, and sometimes just hanging out.  She was the organized one of the family, making packing lists for family trips and PowerPoint presentations to get her point across.

She loved her friends most of all.  She enjoyed spending time with them, hanging out at each other's houses, planning parties and get-togethers, going to dance classes or playing tennis together, or at the end, watching movies together.  

Music was another passion of Brynn's.  She played the piano, teaching herself how to play some of her favorite songs.  She taught herself the ukulele and would play and sing to herself in her room.  She loved musical theater.  She was a superfan of Hamilton: An American Musical before most people had even heard of it.  The same could be said for Dear Evan Hansen.  It was a dream of hers to see both of these productions live, which she was able to do.  She loved the Lumineers, Imagine Dragons, Panic! At the Disco, Twenty-one Pilots, and Saint Motel.  

Brynn is survived by her mother Lori and her father Dan, and her three brothers Kohl (17), Chase (12) and Drake (9).  She is also survived by her beloved cats Louie, Rico, and Penny. 

It was horrible news, but not unexpected, as poor Brynn had been fading slowly away for weeks.  Some part of me was happy for Brynn that her terrible suffering was finally over.  She had been through unbelievable pain, and now she was finally free of all of that.  However, my heart hurt even worse for Dan and  Lori, whose suffering was nowhere near finished.  I can't even fathom what it must be like to lose your very own sweet, beautiful daughter:

As mentioned above, "Hamilton" was one of Brynn's favorite things.  One of the songs from that play fits so well:

"There are moments that the words don't reach
There is suffering to terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable.
There are moments when you're in so deep
It seems easier to just swim down.
(You must) learn to live with the unimaginable."

It is unimaginable that this has happened.  I still can't wrap my mind around it sometimes.  

Goodnight, sweet Brynn.  I know you are somewhere running and dancing with the wind in your hair.

Post-Christmas Cabin

As usual, we spent the week between Christmas and New Years at the cabin.  Why?  Cuz this, is why:

That never gets old! (Well, to me it doesn't, to you it might be, and if so, I'm sorry!)  We mostly did the usual stuff...sledding, movie watching, game playing.  This winter is MUCH milder than last year, and there wasn't very much snow.  Still, there was a little, so we thought we would still do our traditional Beaver Mountain ski day.  The snow was....crap.  And there wasn't much of it.  The first run of the way we hit the Goat Trail, one of our favorites.  It has a long flat-ish part, and so you have to get going pretty fast to make it through without stopping.  So, we all came screaming down the hill....and hit a few very large bumps that aren't usually there and a few of us (including me) went flying.  That is when I knew we were in for a long day. 

The weather was nice and warm and sunny, which I enjoy!  It was so warm, though that right after I took the picture above, all of the snow on the roof of the lodge fell off and about buried some people standing right below it.  Here is Arden, having a quick snack, and Dax attempting to smile:

The lines at the lift weren't very long, which was nice.  Here is Cora, my lift buddy, and Arden, my other lift buddy hiding behind my first lift buddy.

 Here is a picture of all of us heading up the lift into the bright blue sky.

 Here are the boys, good job not dropping your phone Preston!

The skiing wasn't great, and I later tripped over a tree root.  We all took a spill at one point or another because of the stupid bumps on the goat trail, which we had to take each time we wanted to go to the lodge.  But we survived.

Later in the week we did some puzzles:

The Clarks came up later in the week, and brought Emmy and Xander.  We took them sledding one day.  They liked it!  Xan kept saying "Gin!  Gin!" when he got to the bottom.

The girls had fun taking some slow runs down the hill with the little cousins.  Dax, of course, decided he still wanted to go FAST, and therefore isn't pictured.  But I promise he was here.  Here are a couple more shots of all of them coming down.  So cute!

 On New Years Eve we let the kids stay up until midnight...Eastern Time.  Still fun!  We played some more games.  I had such an epically long Rummikub move ready that I had to take a picture just in case it didn't work after all and I had to put anything back.  But it did work, and I won with it!  Woohoo!

I somehow didn't take any pictures of the actual midnight celebration, but there was pot-banging, and Grandpa had bought little guns that actually shot glitter and confetti, and the kids had a lot of fun with those during the short time they lasted.  There was sparkling cider and lots of yelling and jumping around.  It was fun.

All of the time we were there we were closing following Dan's CaringBridge updates as Brynn was nearing the end of her battle.  We were so happy she got to ring in 2018 with her family too.  Happy New Year!!

Christmastime 2017

In the interests of catching up, here is a quick post to catch-up on most of our Christmastime activities!  

Dax built candy trains in school for his class party.  He was pretty excited about it.  After he brought it home, he of course ate the vast majority of it.

 We had a food drive at my work, where they had a contest between the management group and the property accountants to see who could bring the most food.  Whoever lost had to do something silly.  The management group lost, so we had to wear reindeer antlers all day at work.  No picture of me, sorry, but Olive looked cuter in them anyway:

We had family parties for both the Zaugg and Haun families.  Santa made his usual appearance at the Haun party, so here are our obligatory Santa pictures for the year!

 Cute!  There are a couple of trees in our neighborhood that I had to drive by frequently as I car pooled people around.  They always made me happy, they were so beautiful.

This year we put our tree in the playroom.  It was nice to have it out of the way, but I think it was a little too out of the way and I missed having it in the middle of things.  Anyway, here it is in Christmas Eve, with a snowstorm swirling outside.

It snowed quite a bit on Christmas Eve, which is one of the only times I am in favor of a lot of snow falling. 

Christmas morning soon arrived!  Dax is soooooo excited to get some Pokemon cards!  Dax loves everything Pokemon currently...cards, the Japanimation Pokemon cartoon, etc. etc. etc. 

Cora is excited!  How could she not be with such a big present!

Arden is....coming close to being a teenager and doesn't want me to take a picture of her with messy hair and pajamas.  Come on, Arden!  Don't be a party pooper (she put her socks in front of her face).  *sigh*

 After the presents were opened, I made some breakfast...special Christmas pancakes!  Here is Santa:An

 And here is Rudolph!  Cute, right?  I copied it off the internet.

We spent the rest of the day visiting my mom, my Grandma, and Preston's mom.  I have no idea why I have no pictures of these visits?  They were wonderful as always, and Christmas always leaves me feeling exhausted from running around and very grateful I have so many people that I love to run around to.  Merry Christmas!

Fixing Arden's Face

So, where was I?  Oh yes, last November.  After we got home from Missouri, we made an appointment with an ENT doctor to get Arden's nose fixed up.  Here is what she looked like...it actually looked less crooked when it was all swollen up.  Poor baby!  

The doctor took a good look and also felt her nose, which Arden did NOT enjoy.  After examining her schnozz thoroughly, he said that it was displaced and would need to be re-set.  He said he could do it in his office with some local anesthetic, but that might be "traumatic" for her (Arden was in the room while we discussed it, and her eyes got pretty big right about here), or, he said they could put her under general anesthesia and fix her up while she comfortably slept.

Guess which option Arden wanted to do?  Sure enough, we ended up opting for the less traumatic option.  We made an appointment for a couple of days later at a surgical center.  Arden is so cute in her gown:

 Here she is, all ready to get wheeled away!

The whole procedure only took about 15 minutes, and then I just had to wait a bit for her to wake up.  Her nose popped back in so nice, the doctor said she didn't have to wear a splint on it, which Arden was pretty excited about.

It was still sore for a while, and gave her problems at gymnastics for quite a few more weeks, especially going upside down.  I think if she wasn't a gymnast it wouldn't have impacted her life as much, but she does usually spend a lot of time upside down, so it was kind of a bummer for a longer time than I thought it would be.  She kept a pretty good attitude about it, and hopefully will be more cautious during night games :)