Kaley’s Summer Fun

In an effort to keep Kaley and myself from cabin fever this summer I’ve been taking advantage of all the local kids programs I can find. Our number one resource is the library. As most of you know Kaley loves books, puzzles, videos and other kids. This makes the library a great option for air-conditioned entertainment. There are 2 libraries within 7 minute drive from our house and they both feature weekly story times for little kids. The only drawback, trying to keep the volume down. (Continued)

Number two on our list is the public parks. Weather permitting the park/playground is a beloved destination for Kaley’s “sides”, “sings” and the ever popular “climbing”. She loves to hang by her arms to swing as well as visit any nearby streams. The downsides to the playground are heat, other kids, and potential for injury. All of which have been a problem from time to time. Last week Kaley and I were enjoying a morning trip to Cloverdale park when a bus load of 7-8 year olds arrived and took over the equipment. Kaley currently has 2 substantial battle wounds from playing outside, a skinned up knee that bled more than any other wound she’s had so far and a forehead cut with goose-egg. Nonetheless, the park is a great place for meeting friends and burning off extra energy.

Swimming pools are number 3 on our list of fun. Kaley loves to visit her friend Kyle Resner and go swimming at his community pool. This outing has the added benefit of playing with Kyle’s baby sister Caitlyn. Kaley loves Caitlyn and whenever I mention Kyle she insists “see baby sister”. I hope this is a good sign that she will adjust well to being a big sister herself. Playing in the pool pretty much entails throwing toys into the water and taking them all out over and over. Kaley has started getting down on her belly in the water and putting her face under just enough to blow bubbles. I’ve read that this is a great first skill for little kids. She’s well on her way to becoming a fish, like her daddy.

And so, as these last few days tick by before baby boy’s arrival, Kaley and I have fun together. It will, however, be wonderful to return to my normal self so I can tumble, jump, and roll with her again.

An evening of putt-putt...

Cara-Lea and I just got back from a round of putt-putt...less than half a mile from our house.  We had seen the place but had never given it a try in 3 years (it doesn't look that impressive from the road--in fact we didn't even see it until a year ago.)  But we were glad we finally gave it a shot.  It was cheap entertainment and we had a lot of fun.  Cara-Lea is quite the putter!  And despite my multiple 4 and 5 stroke holes... (Continued) I did manage two hole-in-one's.  Ironically I made each one whenever Cara-Lea spoke the words "hole-in-one."  We joked that she was my lucky charm tonight. 

I managed to just barely pull off a slim victory, then we went inside and played the "roll the ball" game...where Cara-Lea cleaned house.

All in all a lot of fun.  Now after a sidetrip to get some groceries, we're settling in for some popcorn and TV. 

P.S.
I didn't have my camera as this was an impromptu decision, but I did snap a shot with my cell phone for your enjoyment.

Tina's shower

I arrived at a surprise luncheon baby shower just minutes ahead of mother to be, Tina Bralley. It was quiet enough at work so I was able to get off at noon for the shower and then went home from there. It was a nice change from the long days I have been working. The party was a small group of old friends & family that gathered at Donna Padgett's house (Tina’s Aunt). (Continued.)

Tina looked great. She had her son Xander with her. Debi Chambers brought Tina for the attempted surprise but she guessed something was up. In attendance were: Tina’s two grandmothers Teri Geiger and Marietta Wilson; Kelly Chambers (sister-in-law) with her two children River and Aspen; Kelly Myers (cousin) with her two children; and friends Susan Brown and Judy Sapp. All the kids were ages 3 and under so it was fun for all us grandmothers to watch them play. Aspen was just walking and was having fun smiling and practicing her 2-3 steps for us. The food was great down to the cupcake size cheese cakes topped with raspberry sauce. It was easy to tell by the gifts that a girl is on the way as there was a lot of cute girly things.

Health Screen

Hey, it is a known fact that I "dislike" hospitals and going to the doctor. For most of my adult life, going to the aviation medical examiner (AME) for my annual flight physical is the total extent of my health care plan. And as most pilots will tell you, if you can fog a mirror, you will probably pass the AME's very simple pee-in-a-cup, standup, sitdown, open-wide, read those letters exam. (Continued)

So when I saw an ad for Healthfair.com in the Greensboro, NC newspaper a few months ago for a battery of tests for heart disease prevention and also stroke and aneurysm prevention, I called them. Sounded like a good deal at less than $200. Unfortunately, I couldn't get an appointment during the three days that I was going to be in town, but when I got home I did some internet research and found a second company, Lifelinescreening.com that would be offering screening nearby.

My appointment was Wednesday, July 23 at 10:20 a.m. at a church in Cleveland, TN. I drove in at 10:15 and was driving out at 10:55. Now, going to the doctor doesn't get any easier than that. And my five tests were only $159. If my health screen had found something possibly life threatening, they would have told me on the spot, but since they didn't, I will get my results within 21 days.

So, since I am a new convert to the idea of getting tested, the rest of my post explains the tests that I got, and the benefits. I have copied from the website, you should go to Healthfair.com or Lifelinescreening.com to discover what all these tests can find inside of your body. Amazing stuff....

From Lifelinescreening.com: "Life Line Screening’s main goal is to provide early intervention for people with risk factors so that they will follow up with their doctors who can then take appropriate action.

As you know, our healthcare system is based on treating people after symptoms occur. Since most insurance companies do not cover the cost of preventive services, more and more people are taking steps to be pro-active about their health. Your doctor can not order ‘vascular’ screenings because insurance companies generally will not cover the cost unless you have symptoms. Since about half of all people who experience a stroke have no prior symptoms, Life Line Screening can help you see your risk even though you are asymptomatic.

Doctors across the nation have increasingly seen the value of preventive health screening as a supplement to provide important information to paint a broader picture of your health. And because screening is affordable, you can help your doctor assess what’s right for you. Life Line Screening helps to bridge the gap between those who have no symptoms and no risk factors and those who are are diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.

We make every effort to offer these tests at an affordable price. You could spend as little as $25-$50 for each screening or build a package of tests that’s right for you and enjoy considerable savings."

Healthfair.com Offers two packages, the heart disease prevention package, and the stroke and aneurysm prevention package. Combine both packages and save money.

Lifelinescreening.com Offers several options, the one I took was the Complete Wellness & Heart Rhythm Package cosisting of 5 tests including 4 for stroke and vascular disease and 1 bone density screening for osteoporosis.

1. Stroke / Carotid artery
2. Stroke / Atrial Fibrillation
3. Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
4. Peripheral Arterial Disease
5. Osteoporosis

From Lifelinescreening.com:
1. "Carotid Artery Screening: A stroke results from the disruption of adequate blood flow to the brain. The most common source of disruption is a significant narrowing or blockage of the carotid arteries caused by excessive accumulation of fatty plaque buildup along the artery walls. The carotid arteries are the main blood supply to the brain, and plaque buildup in these arteries is the leading cause of stroke.

How the Carotid Artery Screening is Conducted
Life Line Screening uses painless and non-invasive Doppler colorflow ultrasound imaging to provide images of the carotid arteries on both sides of your neck and measure the velocity of the blood flow through these vessels.

The technologist applies an acoustic gel on your neck over your carotid arteries. A painless instrument, a transducer, is moved around your neck to visualize the inside of the carotid artery.

An ultrasound monitor visually depicts the inside of the carotid artery and the rate of blood flow.

2. Atrial Fibrillation Heart Rhythm Test:

Our screening for atrial fibrillation is quick and painless, conducted non-invasively with standard medical ECG (electrocardiograph) equipment. The test requires no preparation or removal of clothing. Four single-use electrodes are placed on your wrists and legs, while lying down. The test requires only a few minutes to complete. Your results will be reviewed by a board-certified licensed physician, and results mailed to you within 21 business days. Why should I be screened for Afib? Having Afib increases your risk of stroke 5-times and can lead to congestive heart failure. 1 out of every 6 strokes (or 75,000 strokes per year) is caused by Afib. Afib screening combined with carotid artery screening provides a more complete stroke risk assessment. Even if you have normal carotid artery screening results, having Afib increases your risk of stroke. Since Afib can be intermittent, it may not always be detected during routine ECGs (electrocardiographs).

3. Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) Screening: An aneurysm is an abnormal ballooning or enlargement of a blood vessel. When this happens in the abdominal portion of the aorta (the largest blood vessel in the body) it is known as an abdominal aortic aneurysm or stomach aneurysm.

Aneurysms are caused when the lining in the wall of the blood vessel becomes weakened and expands in size. When the aneurysm reaches approximately five (5) centimeters, it is at high risk for rupture. Most physicians will consider surgery for an aneurysm once the abdominal aortic aneurysm reaches this measurement.

Life Line Screening uses ultrasound energy to screen for the presence of an aneurysm in the abdominal aorta and measure its size along the course of the vessel. The technologist applies an acoustic gel on your abdomen. A painless instrument, a transducer, is moved around your stomach to visualize the inside of the abdominal aorta, and to the detect stomach aneurysms.

4. Ankle Brachial Index (ABI index) test: Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD), more commonly known as hardening of the arteries, affects 12-15 million Americans. It is a condition in which the large and medium sized arteries supplying blood to the lower extremities become narrowed or clogged, slowing or stopping the flow of blood. It is caused by atherosclerosis, which is a gradual process in which cholesterol and scar tissue build up in the artery, forming a substance called plaque that clogs the artery.

The effects of this peripheral arterial disease not only cause pain, disability and put limbs at risk, it is also one of the strongest risk markers available for predicting heart disease. Individuals with Peripheral Arterial Disease are at a four-fold increased risk of heart attack and a two to three-fold greater risk for stroke, compared to individuals of the same age without PAD.

Life Line Screening evaluates for peripheral arterial disease (plaque build-up) in the lower extremities. A painless, quick and non-invasive Ankle Brachial Index (ABI index) test is performed using blood pressure cuffs on the arms and ankles. The ABI index is a ratio between the pressures in your arms and legs and will identify most cases of peripheral arterial disease.

5. Bone Mineral Density test (BMD): An ultrasound of the heel used to determine the mineral density of the bone. Osteoporosis is largely preventable for most people. Prevention of this disease is very important because while there is treatment for osteoporosis, there is currently no cure. Osteoporosis is a disease in which bones become fragile and more likely to break. If not prevented or if left untreated, osteoporosis can progress painlessly until a bone breaks. While women are four times more likely than men to develop the disease, men also suffer from osteoporosis. A Bone Mineral Density test (BMD) is the only way to diagnose osteoporosis and determine your risk for future fracture. A BMD measures the density of your bones (bone mass) and is necessary to determine whether you need medications to help maintain your bone mass, prevent further bone loss and reduce fracture risk."

When the big day comes...

Now that the blog is in full swing, I wanted to make sure and let people know that I plan to use this combined with Twitter as a news update medium from the hospital when the baby arrives. If there's time in the waiting room, I'll even try to post some "live" pictures. (continued) I'm hoping that the rest of the family will join in as well so we can get a spectrum of viewpoints. How cool would it be for him to look back on his 10th birthday and be able to read about all that was happening through the eyes of his parents and grandparents (and uncle)?

For those reading this who would like to get news updates, the best way would be to sign up for email updates using the tool on the right side of this page. As soon as a new post is written, you'll get a copy of it right in your inbox, without having to visit or remember this website address.

To Twitter or not to Twitter...

(For the immediate family, my co-conspirators in Walls Watch.)
Checkout twitter.com and see what you think. It's basically a micro-blogging site where people post updates about themselves that are really not worth writing a whole blog post about. i.e. We're going out to eat tonight. OR Watching WALL-E. OR In class listening to a boring CS lecture... (continued)

I've set up the right side of the blog with a feed to my "tweets" as they are called. If we all sign up I can set it up so all of our updates get posted automatically (if we want.)

I personally think its kind of neat to be able to hear updates on our lives, not just the really significant stuff. What do you guys think? Post your comments.

p.s. At the very least I thought I could use this to post updates on the big birthday...especially since Jeri is already a member of Twitter.

New Watchdog

The morning of May 22, as Connie left for work, she found a stray dog in our yard and shooed it out the gate. When she got home that afternoon, it was back inside the fence, lying near the gate. She booted it out and for the next few days each time she went outside or returned home from work, the dog was back in our yard. (It had found the one hole in the fence.) Connie would send it packing, only to have it back soon after. I missed all of this as I was gone on a five day trip, but whenever I talked to Connie on the phone, she gave me the saga about the stray that wouldn't leave. (Continued...)

Connie was not feeding the dog, since she didn't want to encourage it to stay. I finally convinced her that since it wasn't leaving, she should feed it, and then I promised to take it to the pound when I got home.

I met the dog after dark on Memorial Day. I immediately started calling it Mutt. I liked the way Mutt looked, it was not a big dog, but neither was it too small to be an outside dog. I especially liked how it was constantly wagging it's tail, as if to say that it wanted us to like it. We wanted to find out whether it was male or female, but it was very skittish and it took a lot of coaxing to get it to come that close to us. When it got close enough, Mutt seemed very willing to roll over, in hopes that we would rub it's belly, and we saw that Mutt was a female.

The next day I called the pound and was told that they did not pick up strays, but I was welcome to bring her to them. Then I checked their website and read about the large number of dogs (over two hundred) that they had for adoption, and I started having second thoughts about turning Mutt over to the pound, fearing that maybe she would be put to sleep instead of finding a good home. Maybe she had already found a good home...

I spent the next few days playing with her and observing her. Also talking with Connie about the pros and cons of keeping her. Connie was not keen on the idea of a dog tearing up her flower beds and landscaping, (I told her that Mutt could be trained) or needing to deal with a dog when she wanted to go on flights with me, (I called our closest neighbors, who have four kids, and they said that the kids would be happy to feed her whenever we were gone.)

On Thursday, after almost missing the appointment since Mutt refused to get in the truck, Mutt and I went to the vet to get his opinion of her, before Connie and I made a final decision. The vet said the name was cute, and that Mutt looked to be about 8 to 9 months old, but probably full grown, and that he thought that she was part German Shepherd, (which was interesting, since our family dogs from 1995 until 2007 had been German Shepherds.) He found no problems when he checked her over, she weighed in at 46 pounds and wagged her tail and made friends with everyone at the vet's office.

When I mentioned to Ryan that we may keep her and that I had decided to call her Mutt, his only comment was that "she's your dog, so you can call her anything that you want". He also added that the name Mutt wasn't any different than past family dogs that were named Lady and Girl. At that time, I still thought that the name was unique and sort of cute.

I spent some time with Mutt every day for a week and did not hear her bark a single time. Which is both good and bad. Good that she would not be a neighborhood nuisance, and bad that she would make a very poor watchdog. But on the morning of June 3, she redeemed herself. The Comcast repairman came walking up the sidewalk and Mutt let out this loud, very deep growl/bark and stood her ground on the front porch with her hackles standing up. The Comcast guy stopped in his tracks and only came on the porch when I calmed Mutt down. Wow! I was impressed! She passed my test for being a watchdog.

By June 13, Connie had finally decided that Mutt was a pretty good dog, so Mutt and I made another trip to the vet to get her a full checkup and shots. I wanted her to get her rabies shot, since Connie and I were both going out of town for several days and didn't want the neighbor kids taking care of a dog without her shots. Getting her into the truck this time got a little easier, with Mutt on the passenger side and me on the driver side pulling her by a long leash into the truck with some help from a piece of cheese strategically placed on the floorboard. The vet checked for heart worms and started her on heart worm medicine and I also got her some Frontline for flea and tick control.



The next day was Sabbath and Connie and I started talking about a different name than Mutt. I had read that your dog's name can affect your relationship with it. The comment that I read that worried me the most about the name Mutt was that others will see your dog's name as a reflection of the dog's personality or style="font-weight: bold;">even your own". That did it, the name Mutt was out.

Amazingly, or not, the internet has MANY sources of info for naming your pet. So Connie found a website with several thousand dog names and we started a list of possibles. Since I had noticed at the vet's office that nobody could tell if Mutt was a male or female from her name, I also wanted a name that revealed the gender. (This was a pet peeve of mine when Connie and I were coming up with names for our children, I refused to have a name that could be used for boy or girl.) It finally came down to Salsa or Ginger, and although my love of Mexican food almost caused her name to be Salsa, we decided that Ginger fit her, would be easier to say, and would let everyone know that the dog was a female.

Ginger has been with us eight weeks now. I have only heard her bark a few times, twice when she had a box turtle hiding in his shell in the garden, and once when she cornered a possum. Her barking is so rare that when I hear it, I know that there is something unusual and I go out to check. I have taught her the meaning of "sit", "fetch" and "here". She runs to her food bowl when I say "ya hungry?" We are working on "down" and "stay".

She is not perfect. She loves to dig holes in the yard, or worse yet, in Connie's flower beds. She watched me pick tomatoes and cucumbers in the garden one day and a couple of days later I found part of a cucumber vine with a cucumber attached in the front yard. When I got to the garden, I found that she had damaged several plants by "picking" summer squash, tomatoes and cucumbers. After a serious scolding where she could tell that I was not happy with her, she has not repeated that behavior. And although she doesn't totally go berserk with thunder and lightening, she is fearful, and gunfire has sent her off the edge.

She is full of energy and loves to play hide-n-seek behind trees with me. When I move to the right on my side of the tree, she will try to stay hidden by moving to the left. She obviously is a hunter, and reminds Connie and me of our Collie, "Girl", 1985 - 2000. She loves to chase grasshoppers, stalk the birds (not a good trait) and squirrels, and has chased multiple deer out of our yard. She obviously has chased a skunk, don't ask how we know that! In fact, we think that she is also part Collie, or maybe Border Collie. She has a strong urge to chase along the fence row after the nosier vehicles (without any barking, which is good), just like Girl did when she was young.



I think that Ginger has found a good home...

to be continued, hopefully, for several years to come.

Top Secret! His name will be...

...well, Richard, Shelly, and Kaley have top secret clearance, and have been read in on the new baby's name. But the rest of us get to wait for a couple weeks. But that doesn't stop us from having a little fun... so make sure and take the poll at the bottom of the page, and then feel free to click "comment" on this post to share your witty remarks.

Cara-Lea passed her big cumulative test!

For Drexel's PA program, all the students have to pass an "end of program" test that is, by reputation, more difficult than the state boards before they can graduate. Well, today we just found out Cara-Lea passed with room to spare! Now the only test she has left to pass are the state boards which she'll take some time this Fall.

Inaugural post to Walls Watch

The inspiration for this little blog is an upcoming little addition to the Walls family... my first nephew, <top secret name>. My "vision" for this blog changed into a more far-sighted approach, when I realized it might be nice for all the relatives and friends to have a one-stop-shop for all things Walls. Hopefully this fills that need.

In an effort to keep new updates on here regularly, I'm inviting all the Walls family to be co-contributors. I've also put the "feeds" to our photo websites at the bottom of the page, so all can watch the perpetual Walls family race (to avoid being last) to post significant events to the web.