Thanksgiving 2011

Devree made a turkey shaped cheese ball.

She used brocolli for the eyes, red pepper for the gobbler and almonds for the beak.

Sitting around the table telling what we are thankful for.

Uncle Ky and Aunt Tammie

Shay

Megan and Devree watching "The Perfect Man".

Locey not wanting his picture taken.

The Urgent care here in Dayton would not take out Devree's stitches. She had some on top of her head that her doctor said "A Monkey could take out those". Todd took them all out and he did a fantastic job. Devree went to church and everything.

Ky riding his motorcycle. He brought up his 2 motorcycles and one quad and we went riding for 3 days! There are so many trails so close to us and everybody had a great time.

Spencer showing off his truck he got for his 16th birthday! A very nice 2005 Toyota Tacoma.

Shay and Skyla riding.

Spencer getting ready to ride. Where is your helmet? We always wear a helmet.

Dane getting ready to go.

Todd really enjoyed the small motorcycle of Tammies. He thinks he would like to get one.

Buckle that helmet on good.

We are so happy that the Ky Rice's could come and celebrate Thanksgiving with us. It was so wonderful and fun and we saw movies and went Black Friday shopping, got pedicures, watched lots of movies, played games and had a ton of delicious food. Thanks for coming everyone. The next time we get together will be for Kolten's homecoming.

The Rest of Boston

This is a quilt that hung in the Cambridge Stake Center where we went to church in Boston.

Isn't it amazing?

Someone wanted to take our picture with it.

We also got to see the "Pompei" exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston on Saturday. Our lovely lady host used her museum membership to get us great discounts. These are actual "shin guards" that the ancient people of Pompei used. They were in a glass case. We wanted Noble to see these.

This is a helmet.
The Pompei exhibit was extraordiary with hundreds of artifacts including frescos, jewelry, medical equipment, cooking utensils, and even the plumbing from the ancient city and also there were 2 films explaining how they lived and how the volcano covered the city and there was even a time elapse to show you how long it took to bury the city in ash. There were several plaster molds of victims including a pig and a dog. It was heart breaking to think about how this city became a history exhibit.

The parallels between their society and ours is very similar. I think we might be ripe for destruction when I saw how our world is so much like Pompei. Just an awesome insight into what the future might hold.

First Smile Procedure

Devree is getting her surgery right now. She is going to get an eye brow lift, an eyelid weight and a lower lid tuck along with her nerve transplant and tunneled on her upper lip from the good side to the bad.

We had a hard time getting to Boston. When we got on the plane in Reno, it backed up and discovered one of the engines was not firing. We had to be rerouted on another carrier and didn't get to Boston till almost midnight. Then woke up early for our first appointment to check in with the doctor. Because we got in so late, our hospitality host called us and told us we needed to stay in a hotel. We called a Holiday Inn that is 1/3 mile from the hospital. We ate at Legal Seafood and the waitress asked about Devree's story and Devree's meal was complimentary. Todd loved the Boston Cream Pie we ate FIRST and then he had coconut shrimp and I had a lobster roll. DELICIOUS!

Our Hospitality Host is wonderful. She lives about 4 miles from the hospital and we were able to get to her by the "T" the subway and bus system for Boston. She lives in a lovely 200 year old house and has been offering her house to out of town patients for years. She is a retired nurse. What a wonderful person she is.

Just heard from Dr. Hadlock. Everything went perfectly. She found a good nerve and was able to transplant. The doctor said she will have alot of bruising because it was a lot of incisions. We can't wait to see our Devree girl.
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Devree with her, "Here I am!", look. I feel like hamburger. It kind of makes me think of Miss Piggy in Muppets From Space. She is on the losing end of a karate fight. She says, "Is that all ya got!" "Is that all ya got." "Is that all ya got..."

Straight Face


Smiling Face

Dr. Hadlock lifted the left eye up a bit so it will match the right on the right. A brow lift that the scar will be up in the hairline. Then a platinum weight in the crease of her right eye to help it close better and the right bottom lid with a tuck so it doesn't droop in the middle. The nerve was put in the inside of her right cheek and tunneled through to the good side inside her mouth, so no scars to see.

Our Day in Boston -Before Devree's 1st Surgery

We Are in Boston!!!

We have to tell you it was an accomplishment. When you get up at 4 AM in the morning and get on the plane by 6 AM, we felt like we had made an accomplishment. Then at 6:15 AM the pilot informed us that we would not be taking off because of an engine failure. (We thought hmmm... we would rather find out now, rather than later in the air.)

At 8 AM we were told that a part was being flown in and that the plane would probably be repaired by 1:30 PM. Our wonderful travel agent Shana had already been checking on other flight arrangements. She found a new flight for us. (Yay!!!) It would arrive at midnight. (Boo!!!) Actually we were overjoyed that we would make it to Boston in time to make all of our doctor appointments the next day.

A clock tower was one of the sights along the Freedom Trail through Boston.

Another neat looking building. A lot of our pictures are like this one. It is a random snapshot to give you an idea of the architecture of the buildings in Boston.

I just love our Hamblin girls!

"Legal Seafood" is an unusual name for a restaurant. We tried the Coconut Shrimp, Seafood Salad Sandwhich, and a Chicken Sandwich. Devree ordered the Chicken Sandwich because, "Fish are friends, not food!!!" (Devree's favorite Nemo quote.)

Our waitress asked what brought us to Boston, and was very interested in Devree's story. She heard all about it, then she kept coming back to check on us and ask a few more questions. When she brought us our bill, she said that Devree's lunch and a Boston Cream Pie were a treat from the restaurant. (How wonderful and kind they were!)

Oh! WE LOVE Boston Cream Pie!!!

The roof top of this building is crenulated like the walls of an old time castle.


We are happy to be in Boston!


Beautiful Fall Colors at the "Boston Common" park.


More beautiful Fall colors along the docks.

The streets were very charming. Do you know how old Boston is? Benjamin Franklin's house is here. We saw the church that they met in before Paul Revere made his famous ride. The street lights behind Devree & Shana are gas flame lamps. Cute and kind of fun.

Shana had to roll her eyes at all of the things that I took pictures of. I thought the old wrought iron fire escape ladders were fascinating. I felt like we had gone back in time.

Now THAT is a narrow little alley way!

You can click on this picture once to look at the details on this sign. It says that the Movie Twilight is playing at their IMAX theatre. Devree says, "I WANT TO PLAY!!!"

All of the buildings were close together like this. Like a typical guy, I had to tell the girls that I could almost picture Spiderman swinging from building to building. Shana said, "No. That was New York!" The pictures just don't capture what it feels like when you are standing amidst these city streets.

Devree was very patient about posing in all of the pictures I wanted to take.

We were all impressed with the Boston subway system. They call it "The 'T' ". The 'T' is for transit. This blurry picture illustrates how the subway travelers go 3 stories beneath the city streets to ride.

Devree and Shana waiting for the next subway train to come.


We are now experts at riding the subway. So just ask us and we can tell you all about it.

I wish we could have taken a panoramic view of how big it is down here. Multiple subway lines converge to create a big underground train station.

We got tips from a mother and her twins about how the subway system worked. Her cute little twin boys tipped us off that the subway train was coming. They didn't say a word, they just covered their ears with their cute little hands.

As you can see, Todd loves Boston as much as Devree and I do. He took a whole lot of pictures but he had to only put on the best even though some of them are blurry. Sorry.

SNOW!!!

This is John, (Todd's brother) and Mary and their 7 dwarfs for Halloween. We loved this picture so much we had to share it with everyone.

At my birthday lunch with Dane showing his new retainer. The retainer is to push his 2 top front teeth out behind his bottom front teeth. This retainer stays on 24/7 while he eats etc. His teeth are supposed to move out rather quickly and then he will just wear the retainer at night.

We had lunch at the Green Papaya, a Thai restaurant and we ordered 1 Thai Banana split first because we always order the dessert first for special occassions. This was delicious with a thick sweet sticky rice under the ice cream. It was a half day of school so I took off from teaching the Autistic Class and took Devree to one doctor appointment and Dane to get his retainer. So it was just the 3 of us. That night Todd grilled the most delicious steaks for my birthday dinner. I spent the rest of the day shopping for ME! I got a lot of nice clothes for me and some neato warm boots that go above my knees.

It snowed today. This is our car with it melting rapidly.

Ready for church with the snow on the lawn. We have our Thanksgiving turkey flag up and our house ready for the next holiday.

Todd got in to the spirit of snow by wearing his snowman tie. Someone at church said he should be wearing a turkey tie, and not a Christmas tie. But he was not thinking of Christmas, just of the snow.

As we get into the spirit of Thanksgiving, we are thankful for many things. We continue to receive money for Devree's operation next week. Our ward, the Comstock ward, the stake and the community have been very generous. There are 11 year-old girl twins in Minden who read about Devree in the paper and put a collection jar at their school. They just sent $200 to Devree. The bus driver that knew and liked Noble since his freshman year in high school, read about Devree and is getting a collection together for Devree. The bus driver is matching what the other bus drivers donate. We heard this from someone in our ward that overheard the bus drivers. We are excited to get to Boston next Monday for the first operation on Devree's face. We will blog about that next week. This is truly a time of Thanksgiving. We hope you think about all of the blessings you are thankful for.