Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Our Busy Year

It has been a year since we last posted on our blog. We have not given up on keeping it up to date, but we have had a lot happen since then. As most of you have heard, and as you can see on this site, we have a new addition to the family. Named after her grandmother, Sofia Dickensheet was born on July 11, 2010. Which means that as long as the promotion continues, she can get a free slurpee(7/11) each year on her birthday!

Unfortunately for our family, not all of what we have been going through has been good. Within the past year, Eddie's father found out that he has another brain tumor. He had a brain tumor that was removed in 2001, but this time the tumor is cancerous. His prognosis is not good. His cancer is terminal. He has a stage four brain tumor that is non-operable because it is in his brain stem. Since his diagnosis at the beginning of the year his health has deteriorated rapidly. He is currently in a care home on Oahu at his own request. He wanted to stay at home on Lanai, but the island lacks hospice care. He is now getting the best care available and Eddie's mother Sofia is by his side. We just hope that during the remaining days he has left that he is not in too much pain and that we will have our opportunity to say goodbye when it is his time.

As for baby Sofia, she also has health issues. She has an AV canal defect and she has another heart defect called tetralogy of fallot. She will need surgery, which doctors say would be best to delay until she is older than 5 months old. She is doing well thus far and we are just watching her closely and praying that she can wait to do the surgery later. The surgical procedures to repair both defects have relatively high success rates. The risk goes up the younger the baby is so they prefer to delay doing the surgery as long as possible. As long as her oxygen levels in her blood are high enough, she will be able to put off having surgery until she is bigger and stronger. At two months of age she is doing great!

Eddie is finishing up graduate school and is down to just his thesis. Irene is still apartment managing and is busy as ever between work and taking care of the children. Richie is in pre-school and Dinah is mommy's little helper. We are doing well and have felt supported during our trials by our faith in Christ and by the love and support of friends and family. Thanks for checking in on us!

Dinah visits Grandma and Grandpa May 2010

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Summer Fun!




We are having a fun summer so far. With Eddie out of school Irene has more help with apartment managing and taking care of the kids. Richie and Dinah especially like it when dad takes them out for a whole day to the zoo and the park. We had a fun time at the San Diego County Fair recently with our friends Marckende, Matasha and Jada. Richie wanted to go on all the rides except the roller coaster. Dinah wanted to join Richie and Jada, but she was not tall enough for most of the rides. The pictures are in the slides below. Abuelita Lupita is coming soon so we have more fun times ahead.

Random Summer Photos

Richie and Dinah's Big Birthday Party

Sunday, May 24, 2009

May 2009

Summer vacation is here!




After a tough first year in graduate school, summer is here! I originally wanted to take another class over the summer, but decided on spending more time with the family instead. We still have work, but since we both only work part time we will have time to enjoy the San Diego sunshine with the kids! There will be more pictures to come!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Grandma's April Visit


Grandma Arlieth came to the Palm Springs area for a visit with her childhood friend Peggy. We drove down this past week for a visit and we had a good time. We took Dinah and Richie to a water park not far from Peggy's place. It was a hot (100F+) day so it was nice to get some relief from the heat.

We knew that Richie would like it but we were not sure how Dinah would react. We were suprised that she just charged right in after we put on her bathing suit. We had a great time playing in the water and Grandma took us out for lunch afterwards. We had a blast and it was nice to see Grandma while she was here in Southern California.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Dinah is trying to walk!

Dinah is growing so fast! She has been able to pull herself up and stand for about a month now and in the last two days she is getting brave and taking steps. She can walk well with her push airplane toy (see youtube video) but she still isn't confident enough to walk without it.

We have not updated our blog for a long time because we have been busy with work and school. Otherwise, we are all doing fine and enjoying this time in our lives. Dinah and Richie give us something to laugh about almost everyday. It is especially fun to see them interact. They are already starting to tease each other and Dinah loves to beat her big brother up. She is not afraid of him or anything and he is for the most part quite gentle with her. However, Dinah gives Richie no mercy.

I know we shouldn't have laughed about it, but we had a funny experience at church a couple of weeks ago. Richie was actually sitting reverently and paying attention (a miracle in and of itself!) when Dinah, who was sitting up a little higher on my lap, looked down with this mischievous smile and whacked him in the head a couple times! Richie was like, "Hey! No Dinah! Don't do dat!" The rest of church went smoothly but that incident was probably a sign of things to come!

January Photos Including Visit to Grandma and Grandpa