Home, at last!

Well, we are back! And, we are alive and well, in case you were wondering. I have sorta dropped off the face of the blogging world. Daci and I spent four weeks in Utah over the holidays! We were busy, busy, busy, between Easton's wedding, Christmas, and New Years, not to mention all of the fun catching up we just had to do with our family and friends! Rick got to spend 2 1/2 weeks with us out there too and it was so much fun to see all the people that we love.

It is CRAZY how much accumulates while you are gone for four weeks :) I came home to a whole HUGE stack of mail, a fridge full of bad food, a layer of dust, and a whole huge pile of laundry to do. Hooray! While I have been busily working all day (after my first sleep-in in a whole month, of course), I feel that I need to take a break or I might just lose my mind. What better way to take a break than by blogging?! We have SOOOO many pics from our trip so I have decided to do a few posts on it. I will probably do one a day.

So.....lets start from the beginning, shall we?

Well, about a week before I left for Utah I started having a weird sensation in my left I-tooth. It didn't necessarily hurt, but it was definitely bugging me. After two days or so of this "weird feeling", it started to be a dull pain. After two days of a dull pain it turned into an extremely HIDEOUS pain. After two days of the worst pain I had ever been in, I went to the dentist. He said it looked like my tooth (it is a root canaled tooth) was on the path to abscess but that he thought we had caught it in time to just treat it with antibiotics. I filled my prescription and within a few hours the pain was so unbearable I couldn't even function. I called the dentist back and asked them to prescribe me some pain pills. They gave me vicodin and Rick got it for me that evening. I went to bed and woke up the next morning vomiting from the pain. I couldn't even get out of bed, I was in so much pain. So I called a few ladies in my ward to help me and they took Daci for me. Now, keep in mind, this is the day before I am supposed to leave for Utah. I knew I couldn't wait until I got to Utah to get it taken care of but I also knew it was highly unlikely that if I got it taken care of before I went that I would be able to fly the next day. I called the dentist back and he got me into emergency surgery with an oral surgeon. I was scheduled for 3:30 pm for an apexectomy. Basically, what they did was cut a flap from in my top gum and pulled it down, exposing my maxilla and the top of my I-tooth. They cut the top of my tooth off and up into the maxilla bone to remove the infection. Filled the hole with fake tooth stuff and sewed the flap back up. As soon as the doctor pulled back to look at my face he said, "Oh wow, you are going to be really swollen. You have already swelled up all the way up to under your eye. You are bruising too." LOVELY! I was done at about 5:30pm and for the first time in a week was feeling great. Then.....the numbing stuff wore off and oh boy, I was in pain again! I took a pain pill and went to bed, fully expecting to have to cancel my flight that I had to get up for at 4:30am. My alarm went off at 4:30am and I felt great! No pain, no throbbing. Then I looked in the mirror. Oh boy, I looked strange! My whole left side of my face was swollen and I had a bruise under my eye. I looked like Rick beat me or something :) Oh well, I felt good! I went to the the airport looking like Quasimodo and had a great flight. Daci was an angel luckily :) My mom picked us up and oh was she a sight for sore eyes! I was so glad to have some help while I recovered!

Daci on the plane. She watched a Tigger and Pooh episode on the iPod and ate smarties. The plane was really empty and I was able to take her carseat on and let her sit in her own seat. I think that was my little miracle for the day since I was still recovering from my apexectomy :)

My mom met us at the airport with balloons for Daci. Daci was really excited to see her and the balloons but, as you can tell by her face, she was extremely exhausted from waking up early and traveling all day :)

This is what my face looked like after my surgery, although these pics don't do it justice. Trust me, I looked scary. I was swollen like this for about 3 days.

My smile was really altered. The left side of my face wouldn't lift up for quite a few days. I was so worried it wouldn't fix itself before Easton's wedding but about two days before, I was able to smile pretty normal.

Right after we got home we went straight to Dawson's basketball game.

Daci was so excited to watch Dawson play and kept standing up and yelling "Yay, Yay, Yay!" while she clapped. The only problem was she kept saying it for the other team :)

After the game, we went up to see Yia Yia and Papou. Penny had a new little present for Daci that she was really excited about!

Penny got her a little toy camera and she would hold it up to her eye and tell everyone to say "cheese" and "smile"

The next day Daci was pooped and she laid on the couch and watched Sesame Street with her new balloons before we went to visit Fred and Penny at their school.

We went to see Sophie's (Rick's sister) harp recital. She did a beautiful job!

Daci with her Uncle E

We went to Penny's mom's house for a Christmas get together with the girls. We snapped a few pics of the three girl cousins. Daci, Eleni (carly's daughter) and Macie (Rick's cousin, Melissa's daughter). Of course, Daci wouldn't smile.

Penny with her two granddaughters

I threw a shower for Easton's soon-to-be (now she is) wife, Daysha, two days after I got there with her sister and friend. We made a whole Cafe Rio buffet, played games and she opened presents. She got lots of lingerie at that shower and they made her put it all on as she was opening her presents :)

This was all within the first week we were there! SO much fun and SO much craziness! More to come tomorrow.....wedding pictures!