Top Ten of 2010

I feel like we've been a little weak in the blogging lately.  We have some pretty legitimate excuses (e.g., we're boring), but to make it up to you, here's our...

Top Ten Most Memorable Things From 2010

10. Döner kebabs .  Admittedly, we moved away from Germany in January of 2010, but döners are good enough to squeak a place on this list anyway.

9. Thanksgiving.  We mean Steph visiting, not the broken finger.

8. Culture shock.  Both coming and going.

7. Brandon became official.

6. 45-minute long church services.  In someone's living room.  With about six other people.  (The Church is true!)

5. Martha's Vineyard.  It lives up to the hype.

4. Kiddo turned two.  In Bosnia.  And he still got a rockin' birthday cake.

3. Croatia. Felicia's favorite place in the world.

2. We are FAMOUS!

1. The Bosnian experience. We would move back in a heart beat.  But it would be nice to have a paycheck next time.

Alphabet Rap

Kiddo doesn't know the typical alphabet song.  Instead, he sings this version (at least the first 20ish seconds of it).

And does a sweet robot dance while singing it.

Post-Op Check Up. Because We Know You Want to Know.

During church last Sunday, several people took the opportunity to tell Brandon of their own harrowing injury experiences.  One person specifically told us about how lovely the infection in their finger looked when the bandages were removed.  With this is mind, we definitely had some expectations for Brandon's first post-op check up.  Which means the check up was kind of a let down because his finger didn't look that gross at all. (Although, that being said, if you're squeamish at all, you may not want to view the rest of this post.)

The nurse cut the bandages off...

                                                

...and then the doctor came in and we finally got a look at Brandon's finger...

...and got the disappointing news that Brandon, in fact, only has one pin going down his finger, along with the internal sutures in his bone.  We thought there were a couple other pins in there, too, so it was kind of a blow to learn that there wasn't.  It made the story more exciting.  Btw--that black dot on the end of his finger?  Yeah, that's the pin.  Pretty unimpressive.

Anyway, Brandon's off his crazy pain killers and can fit his arm into his coat again now that his dressing is less bulky.  We go back next week to get his eight (at least that's the number I counted) stitches out.  Can't wait.

There Goes His Chance at the Pros

Brandon was asked to spear-head a Turkey Bowl for the men of some local congregations, so he was obligated to actually attend and show his skill.  During the last play of the last game Brandon was going to participate in, the ball was thrown in his direction. There was a scuffle between several players, but Brandon caught the ball.  And ended up with a broken finger. We spent the remainder of Thanksgiving morning in the E.R. where they took x-rays, gave Brandon a finger splint, and told him to see a hand specialist as soon as possible.

This picture was taken the day after Thanksgiving.  Brandon was trying to straighten his finger, but this is the best he could do, although the swelling had gone down considerably from the day before.

We saw a hand specialist on Tuesday (who took some crazy cool x-rays of Brandon's broken bones that we hope to get copies of) and surgery was scheduled for the following day.

Everything went well and the surgeon drew us a sweet picture of what the break looked like once he opened up Brandon's finger:

The top picture is the "before."  The bone of Brandon's finger was split open by the impact of the adjacent bone.  Fun.  The surgeon took the largest bone fragment he could salvage, as well as pieces donated from a bone bank, and sutured them together to fill the gap in the split bone.  Brandon has several small pins going through horizontally in that area to keep everything in place.  As well, there's a large pin going down the length of his finger to correct a couple other small breaks and to keep the finger from healing in a curled position.

Here's the end result.  Pretty hot.  We'll get a look at the surgeon's handiwork next week.  Can't wait!