the culprit

I was baking my sweet husband a cake the other night. Just as I was about to ice the cake we had a knock at the door. My friend Tori stopped by to pick something up. I was so excited to see her, as were the puppies, that I got distracted as I was talking to her. I totally forgot about the cake when all of a sudden we heard a noise that sounded like the glass pan ever so gently knocking on the concrete countertops that we have. Sure enough when Andy rounded the corner this is what he found...

I will give you two guess at who the culprit was, and as a hint one of them is still a little too short to reach inside something on the counter. The short one is also to clumsy and no way she could have been that discrete.

After all that, I just iced the cake, munched out piece and all... then gave Andy a piece...

love always,

finger

Andy has been playing flag football for the past few years. Luckily for him, he has not really been hurt, until this year. I was not able to attend many of his games because of my soccer commitments but one Sunday night I got out of soccer practice and thought that I would surprise him and come to the end of his game. Well I got there just as the game was ending (they won!) but I didn't get to see them play. He walked over to me and said, "I think I did something to my finger." I didn't really think much of it because he never really complains about anything and he did not really look like he was in much pain, and he just played 2 games. Apparently the injury had occurred early on in the first game and he didn't want to sit out so he kept on playing.

When we got home he asked me to take another look at it. So with my medical degree in hand, ha, I gently squeezed it and he said that it really hurt. I told him that if he really thought it was bad that he would need to call his dad and go have it x-rayed. I said this knowing that there was no way he was going to do this, because he hates going to the doctor.

So I got a phone call the next day at work. It was Andy and he said that he was on his way to his dad's office for x-rays. I was shocked and asked him if he really thought it was that bad. He did, so he got the x-rays. As it turns out I am glad he went. Not only was it broken, but it was broken in 3 places and his dad thought that he might need surgery. So off to the orthopedic doctor we went. We saw a PA that night and he said that indeed we were probably going to need surgery and set us up with an surgeon for the next day.

The surgeon agreed with everyone else assessment and said that he would need surgery. So surgery was set for the following Monday afternoon. Now, I don't know if any of you have had surgery but if you don't have a morning surgery then the whole day stinks. The same rules apply that you cannot eat or drink after midnight, but instead of having the surgery at 8 am we had to wait to go to the hospital until 1:30! It was a long time.

Here is Andy's hand the morning of the surgery. It is his left ring finger. Luckily he does not wear his wedding ring when he plays flag football so we did not have to have it cut off. You can see his finger is pretty swollen.

Here is a close up of his finger. Pretty gross.

Once we got to the hospital at 1:30 they immediately took Andy back to be prepped for surgery and I thought, this is great we will be home before you know it. Well, not so much. We ended up having to wait and he did not go into surgery until 4:15. It seemed like forever and he was hungry. The only funny part was listening to all of the other people around us that were there. We heard some funny stories!!!

While we waited I took some pictures of Andy. I know you all love the hat in the picture above. The one below is covered in iodine for surgery, but you can kind of see how his finger was a bit rotated and if we had not had it fixed, his fingers would have crossed when he made a fist.

He made it though surgery with flying colors. The doctor came out and told me that the break was even worse than he originally though and instead of the normal 3 screws that he thought he would need, he ended up need to add an additional 4th screw. So Andy now has a lot of hardware in that finger all of which will stay in there forever. Here he is the night he got home. He was a little tired and Monday night football was on.

Here is a post surgery picture. You can see all the screws that the doctor put in. Amazing that they could fit all 4 screws in one joint of his finger.

When we went back to get his stitches out I made him take more pictures. He was excited to finally be out of his cast and knew that he would be able to start moving it.

Warning: the picture below is an up close of his finger once the stitches were removed. It is kind of gross, but not too bad.

Here is the final side-by-side comparison.

Not too bad. He has been working to get all of his movement back. We are hoping that the swelling keeps going down because as you can see from the picture below he has to wear his wedding ring on his right hand. We hope that we will not have to have it resized to fit his new and improved bionic finger!

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers!!

love always,

*tap-tap*

Is this thing on...

Probably no one reads this anymore since it has been so long since I posted. I have been so busy and I have a lot to bring you up to speed on. I finally downloaded all my pictures to my computer so I plan on doing that in the next few days. Why not today? Well, Andy and I had a super sick puppy last night. Sick from about 5:30ish (well when we realized it anyway) until late last night. We were so worried that we took turns sleeping on the couch with her to make sure she was okay. She looks like she is on the mend, and thank goodness because it was not a fun time in the Broome house. So while I gather myself I wanted to show you what I found in my backyard when I went home for lunch today. Here it is...

What is it you ask? A leg... a doll's leg. I would like to add that we have never bought anything that this might have been attached to and yet somehow it managed to get in the middle of our backyard. I laughed so hard when I found it. I really don't have any words...

love always,

Progress

We are going to call the following photo PROGRESS!

As most of you know Laney can be... well lets call it... passionate.

It has been a hard adjustment for the Lovely Little Laney to have the new puppy around. She is making progress each day. She even lets the puppy lick her face sometimes. Really the only time that Laney hates to have Addie around is when she is tired. She does not want Addie in her sleeping area (read that the area right next to Andy's side of the bed.)

Addie, well, she just wants to be as close to Laney as possible. In the grainy, camera phone picture above they are both on one bed (see progress) chewing their own bones. It was too cute and I wish that I had captured it with our other camera.

One funny thing that they both do is stealing chew toys from each other. When Laney has something that Addie wants, Addie will get right in Laney's face. Laney will growl and snarl and Addie will act like she is Laney is not making a sound. Then when Laney turns her head at us, as if to say, "Mom and Dad will you please help me. She is in my personal space!" Addie moves in and snatches whatever it was Laney had and chews it herself.

Don't you think that Laney is so innocent. She plays on Addie's puppy qualities. If Addie has something she wants. Laney will go find another toy, any toy and take it near Addie. She will drop it so that it make some kind of a sound. This will totally distract Addie from whatever she had and she will jump up and go see what it was that made that sound. Then Laney will take the toy that Addie just left and usually run off.

It is total chaos in out house and at times, but we love it.

Now.. if only we could get one night of interuppted sleep.

love always,

Dreaming...

of being back here, looking and laughing at this.

Please feel free to ask any questions about the above picture. It has a funny story.

love always,

sneak peak

St. John was amazing! I was wonderful, hot, relaxing, tiring, exciting, beautiful and tons of fun!! Here is what we woke up to each day! The view is one that I could totally get used to!

We did some hiking and found ourselves here. Behind us is Africa (if you could see that far)!

Some of us did a little of this.... haha, this is one of my favorites from the week!

This is just a taste, I will be back with more. My schedule has been crazy between work, coaching high school soccer and I am about to start my commentating work again this Sunday! If you ever feel sorry for Andy that is wife is gone all the time and you want to fix him dinner I am sure that he will not turn you down. Haha, just kidding.... sort of...

love always,

baby Broome!

Ha! I got you again! Seriously, I would like to introduce you to the newest member of the Broome Family!

ADDIE short for Addison

(here is the day we picked her up)

Addie is 7.5 week old Chocolate Lab, just like her big sister!
She is too cute for words, and loves to snuggle!

Those eyes just kill me everyday! She plays hard and then completely crashes!

For those of you that are wondering. Her big sister Laney is doing well. She is not too keen on the puppy but the other day at the lake another dog was picking on Addie and Laney growled at the dog. She is a protective big sister but not quite the lovey-dovey type.

As you can see, this is about as close as she lets the puppy get to her at home!

Addie is trying everyday to learn from Laney. Laney has already taught Addie some of her soccer skills. Addie is going to be a soccer star just like her big sister!

I leave you with this last one. Addie has been a wonderful addition to our family. We love her to pieces. She is getting better at sleeping at night and learning to potty outside. She is so full of energy one moment and the next she wants to be cuddled. The cuddles are so worth all the hard work. She is funny and clumsy. Every morning she jumps off the top step of our backyard stairs and face plants. She just gets right back up like nothing happened and does it again the next morning. She is keeping us laughing all the time. Andy is totally smitten with her. He is so patient and understanding and it has been so much fun to watch.

We love this little girl. I am not kidding that she is the cutest puppy around. Let me know if you want to set up a play date!!!!

love always,