Decade in Review

Since 2009 was pretty much a quiet year for us, and the news keeps talking about this decade being over, I thought I'd blog instead of a year-end review, a decade-end review! 10 years ago, Ryan and I were newlyweds. Ryan had just had surgery to remove what was at first believed to be a cancerous tumor in his neck. In December of 1999, Ryan started UTI trade school, on his way to become a mechanic. In Feb 2000 I became sick and by April of 2000 I was progressively worse. By July 2000 it seemed hopeless, because the doctors where constantly looking for MS. We decided, a little rashly I will admit, that it was now or never to have kids. So we celebrated our first year anniversary and our new coming baby in Sept, 2000. Ryan graduated UTI in March 2001, and started working at City of Anaheim in July. I became a stay-at-home mom when Anna came in April 2001, and of course Sept 11th changed everyone's lives. April 2002 came and we decided to go for baby number 2, which was brought to us on Jan 25th 2003. In March of 2004 Ethan got a septic infection in his knee and spent 21 days in the hospital. It was a horrible time for me especially. Ethan has always been our sickest one, he gets ill so easily and the asthma makes it worse. I was used to at this point being in the ER with him, but that long in the hospital was very hard. Baby number three was conceived December 2003, and brought us the completion of our family in August of 2004. In November of 2004 we met with Bill and Teresa Seybert and another huge change took place: We switched from Inland Community Church, our home church of 9 years, to be a part of the church plant, Imagine. By this point my illness was pretty much under control and since the doctors didn't seem to know what was wrong with me, I pretty much had given up all hope of ever knowing. That's okay with me, I'm not progressing any and since everythings under control I have given it up to the Lord and am feeling pretty good now. In March of 2006 we decided to move to our new home in San Bernardino, next to our church. I still drive by our first house sometimes and miss it. We put so much heart and soul into that house! Anna started kindergarten in 2006, Ethan in 2008 and Christian started kindergarten this year! 2007 was a really bad year for us. First Ryan burned his cornea doing the laundry of all things, which required him to take all of his sick time. Then my grandmother, whom I loved dearly, passed away in March 2007. In April our house flooded and we need to replace drywall and flooring in a good portion of the house. In June 2007 Ryan found another mass in his throat, and in July my great-grandmother passed away. Ryan had surgery to remove the possibly cancerous mass the beginning of Oct, but because all of his sick time was used earlier and his vacation time was used for the months of doctors appointments leading up to this, it was all without pay. That made our finiancial situation really tough. Anna got sick and spent 2 days in the hospital in the middle of Oct, at the same time wildfires roared around us and pretty much trapped us in our homes with freeway closures. Then my uncle died at the end of the month. 2008 saw stablization, and like I said, 2009 has been pretty good. I think the most trying of all has been Ethan in school the past two years. Which given all that has happened, I think I can deal with!! I still don't know how I would/will handle his diagnosis, if they do say he's autistic. I'm still not entirely convinced he is though. But I will deal with whatever happens much like I've done everything else. And that is pretty much our decade in a nutshell!