Last week, we had two All City cross country meets to go to.  One for Joshua in Junior High and one for Emily in High School.  It is so strange to see my grandkids now in the same event that I took their Dad to so many years as a kid.  Both Emily and Joshua are amazing runners.  Joshua is 6th grade this year, but ran with the older guys.  Emily is a freshman but ran varsity.  She even earned her varsity letter her freshman year.  Her Grandpa and Dad both earned their varsity letters their freshman years, so it was really great to see her carry on the tradition.  

 Last Christmas' gift from Mom and Dad was a massage and dinner for everyone at Skamania Lodge in Washington.  We all went  last weekend and had our Christmas gift together.  Well, not Dad, he wants nothing to do with a massage, so he waited for us while we enjoyed ours.  Then we had a great dinner together.  Such a great gift!!  Thanks, Mom and Dad!!!

I should have given a description of some of the photos in the collage of my ankle.  First off there is the one of the x-ray of the break.  The one next to it, would you believe it?  John took a picture of me after I fell, once I had recovered from the nausea and nearly passing out part.  I didn't even know he took it.  I guess a little bit of my photo obsession has worn off on him, huh? The pain pills that I had on hand 'just in case', which thankfully I only had to taken the night the 'block' wore off from the surgery.  The nurse had warned me to take the pills at first even if I didn't feel any pain, because once the block wore off it would hit all at once.  And it DID!  She was so right.  I took a pill before bed and glad I did.  It wore off in the middle of the night and woke me up.  I wonder what it would have felt like had I not had any medication in me.  It really was the most intense pain I can remember, even more than the initial break.  But another  pill went to work right away and it never hurt like that again.  The other photos show the different phases of cast from the Urgent Care, boot, swollen ankles, bruising, the first cast they sent me home from after surgery, the stitches, me on my crutches at Lake Tahoe, my crutches in Reno,and one leg in the spa at Skamania Lodge,  the doctor said not to put it in hot tubs yet,  Ending with the x-ray of my new hardware after surgery.  

Its all about the ankle!

I'm almost done with my 7th week since I broke my ankle.  Pretty strange to me how my focus has become mostly about the ankle, how all the things I normally do from day to day suddenly could be put on the back burner until it is healed up.  7 weeks ago, when I realized that I was going to be housebound for a while and pretty much restricted to where those two crutches could take me, I set all kinds of goals for myself. I did manage to achieve some of those things.  I read a few of the books I have been meaning to, went through my computer files and sorted things out, mostly the photo files. I am actually pretty pleased with what I got done.  There are a lot of things I didn't get to...yet.  I wanted to get some knitting done, to sew a little and finish up going through my huge albums of photos, eliminating the junk ones, cutting down on the amount of albums I have sitting here on these book shelves. But I will get to those things still, winter is on its way.

Last week, I had my doctor visit.  He said that as soon as I felt able to, I could start using my foot along with the crutches and as soon as I got better with that, I could ditch the crutches.   

I walked out of there without them and have not used them since!!! 

I have been going slowly, really with the boot on still, there is no option but to go slowly. I have been doing some exercises on my ankle, trying to stretch the tendons and muscles back to what they were.  Dr. Dales said that by my next appointment in 3 weeks, he expects to send me home in my own shoe! 

 Here's to hoping he is right!

The last week of September, my doctor said that it would be OK to continue with our plans to go to Dennis, Abby and Gabe's place in California.  We spent the first few days at Uncle Jim's place in Oxnard.  I took the pigeon photos above in Oxnard at his place.  I thought it was pretty funny to see how many of them decided to sit on those wires...and how evenly spaced they were.

 We had a good time spending time with Gabe.  It is so nice to see that he remembers us from the last visits now and so fun to have him excited to have us around. 

We took a detour on the way back to Oregon, stopping off at Lake Tahoe for a night.  We had a beautiful view from our room, with nothing between us and the water except a few pine trees.  It sure was pretty at sunrise and sunset. 

Our waitress at dinner told us that the Kokanee Salmon were spawning just a few miles around the west side of the lake, so  we decided to see what was there.  The park system was closed with the government shutdown, but she told us there was plenty of room beside the road to park and that it would be easy for me with the crutches.  Sure enough, there was a paved bike path just a few feet off the highway that took us right over a footbridge over the stream where the salmon were. It was a beautiful sight...thousands and thousands of fish, about 14 inches long, were filling the stream in both directions.  They turn this color red when they begin spawning.  So sad to think that as soon as the spawning is over, the fish die.  We also were warned to look out for bears.  Signs were up everywhere, which under normal conditions would have been so exciting, but being that I was in a boot that would have made it impossible to run, I was a bit relieved that we really didn't encounter any this time around.

Since I could not hike around and I wanted some closer shots of the fish, I gave John the camera to get closer to the water.  He took this one of me waiting for my camera back.  It does not show the boot very well since I was behind that bit of grass.  It was really hard to be there and not be able to hike upstream...maybe we will make it back sometime...and maybe we really will see bears then.

The Aspens were changing color.  Just so beautiful to see the morning light coming through them...

From Tahoe, we met up with my parents in Reno.  I can't believe that the Peppermill gave us two FREE nights!  The rooms are really nice too!  Of course they think they will get the money back from what people gamble, but they don't get much back from us!  I like to play a little, but prefer to sit by the pool and do nothing.  

Crutches and casinos don't really go together either.

We took the back road home to avoid the boring I-5 and saw some different sights.  Nice to see the changing colors in Oregon too, as we crossed over Mt. Hood, the vine maples were in full color.  I took these shots from the moving truck instead of asking John to stop...after 9 hours of driving, I didn't want to add any more time to the drive than I had to.

Surgery done!

The doctor put a plate on the fibula to hold the two broken bones together and then a screw from the fibula to the tibia to hold them together.  I don't know if I will need to have them taken back off or if they will stay with me forever.  It kind of creeps me out to think of a hunk of metal being attached to my ankle from now on.  

My biggest challenge?

 to let others take care of me.  

I have been waited on hand and...wait for it...FOOT!  (of course you saw that coming.) It is so hard to let others wait on you!  It has always been MY job to take care of home, kids, meals.    John will not allow me to do anything but hop from the sofa to the bathroom and back again, he makes sure to get the ice on and off, he brings me meds and food and water, pumps pillows, and gets really irritated at me if i even try to do anything on my own.  He even races ahead of me to make sure to turn the lights on for me before I enter a room.  It is like I am suddenly a celebrity.  

Then there is Jessi bringing over dinner every night, complete with dessert!  She is cooking dinner for her family, plus us, then drops it off on her way to work!  It is hard to accept. 

Second biggest challenge?...the stairs.  

The bedrooms are all upstairs, the sofa is a loveseat, so you can't fully lay down on it.  I have to go upstairs for a bed.  I have not figured out how to get up them with the crutches yet.  But I have figured out a pretty good method to get up without the crutches.  I sit and lift myself up with my arms...one step at a time.  It takes a while, but I get there.  To get down, I sit and go back down on my butt, one step at a time.  At least I am getting a workout on my arms that way.   I make the trip down every morning after my shower and stay down until time for bed each night. 

The Unforgettable Fall...

 Since retiring, John has decided that he wants to do some hiking.  Of course I don't mind that at all since it gets me out to places I had not thought I would get to shoot photos of before.

They have taken us over bridges...

and bridges...

Over rivers.

 Up mountain sides.

 and through the woods.

I have seen some pretty amazing sights.

 

 This is Upper Punchbowl Falls and then a view of Lower Punchbowl as we hiked on down and then the view of Punchbowl from the bottom.  It was a weekend and the place was so crowded.  I was disappointed at first because I was going for that postcard look with no people, which was impossible that day.  But once I got home and saw this set of photos, I realized that the kids in this shot really added to the look of it.  I like the summer feel to it.  We will hike back on a weekday next time and maybe then I will get that unspoiled shot, but in the meantime, I am pretty happy with the version I did get.

Then came Ramona Falls, up on Mt. Hood.  It is a hike I for sure want to do again.  The whole hike was so beautiful, not just the destination, walking in along a creek was so tranquil.  It is a popular trail for horses too.

 I really love the black rocks with the white water.  The green moss is the topping on the cake.

The next was back up to the Columbia Gorge for Wahkeena Falls. 

Above is the view from the bottom before we began the hike and below is part way up.

 

 We continued on up the trail to Fairy Falls.  It was so pretty and delicate, reminding me of a smaller version of  Ramona Falls.

There is an old bench up there to sit a while.  Not sure if you can see it there beside the trail.

On my list was Wahkeena Springs, so we continued on.  I am not sure what happened, but we never saw the sign for the springs and we kept on going and going...until I finally found a sign...but it said...Angel's Rest.  From my little map, I knew we had gone way too far, but, oh well, I wanted to see Angel's Rest sometime anyway...why not now?

 The view of the Columbia was so worth it from there! Here is a view towards the east and then to the west.

Last Tuesday, we started at Horsetail Falls.

 Continued up to ..you got it...Ponytail Falls.

 Just as we arrived at the cave behind the falls, it started to pour down rain, at first I thought it was just mist from the falls.  We waited it out...about 5 minutes and then continued on up the trail.  The higher we climbed, the sunnier it got.

Next stop on the trail was Middle Oneonta Falls. I had hoped to find the hidden trail to Upper Oneonta Falls, but it remained hidden to me, even though I had a map to the secret trail, I could not spot it.

 The final falls on this hike was Triple Falls.  So worth the climb!!!

 We continued on up to the top of it and past it along the creek.  Sometimes I find that the creeks leading into the falls are equally as beautiful as the main event. 

 I love the quiet the calm and peacefulness there.

 Love those greens.

And then came the unforgettable fall that I had not planned on...

Yep...I fell. 

 Ends up I broke my ankle.  I replay it in my mind.  One minute I was walking along looking for a good place for a picnic and the next I was on the ground. The sound of a pop in my ankle replays over and over in my ears. I am happy to report that my camera seems to have survived it all, even though it hit hard on the ground beside me.  After a couple of waves of heat and nausea, I was able to get back up on my two feet and test them out.  It hurt, but it seemed to hold me up, so little by little we inched our way down.  John donned my camera pack and tripod along with his own back pack and lent an arm all the way down to the bottom.  So many nice people along the way offering help.  One girl sacrificed her ice bag to me.  She didn't know that it had already been activated and was not cold at all, but even so, I was so grateful to have it, as it gave me some support on the ankle to hobble along.  We took an alternate, shorter route to the bottom instead of the way we had come up.  When we finally arrived to the bottom, the sign said 1.8 miles up to Triple Falls where I had fallen!  It had taken us 1 hour and 50 minutes to get down!!! 

Since I was able to halfway walk on it, I was pretty sure it was a sprain.  We went on home, got some ice on it and I assessed the damages.  It was the first time I took off my shoe since I had fallen.  It was already black with bruising and swollen up about as fat as a foot could get.  A while later, I got John to take me in to Urgent Care to get an x-ray.  I was afraid to wait too long and then find out that I had damaged it worse by waiting too long to go in.  Sure enough it was broken.  An appointment was made for me to see an orthopedist this morning.  The verdict was given that I will need to go in for surgery next Wednesday.  Not the news I wanted, but if it helps me heal back to normal, then that is what I will have to do.  Bleh!  I don't look forward to using crutches for the next two months! 

Arianna is ONE now!!!

Her birthday party had a Bee theme.  Great Grandma made a darling bee cake I made her a bee dress.  Jessi went all out with bee decorations and food. 

It was BEEutiful!