One more...

Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Josh Anderson!

They were married yesterday in Red Wing, MN and I am so glad I was able to be there!  Jessi & I have known each other our whole lives - our mom's were friends when they were pregnant with us and we played at each other's houses all the time when we were little.  Although we went our separate ways for a while in the middle there, we ended up going to the same college and becoming good friends again.  Some of our other best girlfriends/room mates from college were also able to make it and we had a blast!!!!  It was so great to be able to catch up on life, dance our feet off together, and have a giant sleepover at the hotel (minus Jessi of course).  

Me, Nici, Jessi, Marissa, & Cat

The newlyweds!

In a minute...

I promise pictures from the trip are coming soon.  As soon as I can catch my breath and sit down for more than five minutes to edit and post them.  In the meantime I am packing AGAIN.  I've worked the last two days and I fly out tomorrow morning for Minnesota.  I bought my plane ticket last week so I can make it up there for my womb buddy, Jessica's, wedding.  We've been friend's since our mom's were pregnant with us.  I'm also going to be able to celebrate my Grandma Knapp's birthday with the family and see some of my favorite people in the world.  Scott has to stay home this time because of work.  So, hopefully sometime by the end of next week I will have some time to catch up on pictures, cleaning, dishes, laundry, eating healthy, and everything else I've been neglecting in the name of having a good time.

Home, Sweet Home

We're back!  After 27 hours of traveling we are finally home.  And exhausted!  We had a nine hour bus ride (which was gorgeous!) and then a 10 hour flight, with a couple of time changes, taxi rides, and about three hours worth of custom's shenanigans with border crossings, and we are pooped.  Fortunately, neither of us have to work until Thursday so we have a day to recover and unpack.  First thing on the list: one giant nap.

Wine

Yesterday was such a lovely day.  We could not have asked for better weather on this trip.  It is sunny and cool enough to be completely comfortable walking around in jeans and a t-shirt or light jacket.  We love it.  It is spring here and all the trees have started blooming this weekend.
We did our wine tour yesterday and had a great time.  We went with five Australians and our guide Mattius.  We were able to see three different wineries and were gone most of the day.
Achaval Ferrer was the first winery and vineyard we went to.  It was a ¨small winery¨ - they only make 200,000 liters every year.  We got the grand tour and then tried their wine.  We were not overly impressed and when they brought us the price list we were shocked.  The only wine we had somewhat liked was $100 per bottle!  After the wine, we tried their olive oil and that was delightful!  We bought some of that, and now wish we would have gotten more.

The outdoor sitting area where we did the tasting session

The view of the mountains all around us was gorgeous!

Balasco de Baquendo was our second winery, which exports most of their wine to the USA and other countries.

Our less than enthused tour guide - we were glad to have Mattius whispering extra interesting details to us throughout the tour

The tour was quick, but their claim to fame was their sniffing room.  They had a huge room lined with little stations where you could smell the primary, secondary, and tertiary qualities of wines, as well as the defects that you may find in some.  It was a very interesting little lesson.  It´s so amazing that grapes can go through such a transformation to create such different smells and flavors of various fruits and flowers with nothing else added.

Following the tour we were led to the third floor of the winery for our lunch.  It was a four course meal with wine parings and a spectacular view of the Andes Mountains.  We were able to visit out on their huge patio while we waited for lunch and we could have stayed there all day.

Following a very necessary coffee after our huge meal, we all headed off to the next winery desperately in need of a nap.  We woke up though when we arrived at the smallest of all the wineries in the tour and were able to meet the owner Carmelo, who is good friends with our tour guide.

Carmelo has such passion for the art of making wine and does most of the work himself.  We learned how to inspect the cork when aging wine and many other things.

Upon arriving back at the hostel everyone dispersed for a nap before the evening.  Dinner is not eaten before 9:00pm so we had plenty of time to rest up in preparation.  We were invited to a BBQ with the owner of the hostel, Lucas, and his family and some other friends of theirs.  We went and bought meat, which they prepared for us in the Argentinean manner and drank more wine and visited and talked and laughed until at least 2:00am, while the kiddos ran around and played.  I finally tried the blood sausage (which is ok - Scott loves it of course) and we were especially amused by Diega, Lucas´ three year old daughter, who refused to eat any of the other meat besides the blood sausage.   It is her favorite! 

Mattius & Lucas

Diega showing us her harmonica

Cooking our meat on the outdoor grill

We have been having such a good time here and I´m glad we decided to come.  Today we are going to have a picnic in the park, attempt to buy some wine to bring home, and enjoy our last day in town.  Tomorrow we plan on taking ¨the most spectacular bus ride in Latin America¨ through the Andes Mountains to Santiago, Chile.  We will be flying to the states tomorrow night and should hopefully be home by Tuesday night.

The first few days

(This post is more an update for myself and the family - so that I remember what we´ve been up to and they can keep track of it - so sorry if you get bored.  Feel free to skim :)

We have had a great time in Argentina so far.  We spent the first two nights in Buenos Aires.  Three days was a little long for us there, as neither of us are especially fond of big cities in foreign countries.  Argentina has suprised us with how westernized it is.  The city was cleaner than we expected and style is very important to the men and women here.  The shops were bountiful in leather bags, boots (all the women here wear leather boots almost go to their knees with either skinny jeans or leggings underneath), and belts.  I was a little depressed to find that although there were so many beautiful leather things, the prices were not that much better than they are in the states.  Usually when something is so plentiful in another country you can get it for cheaper, but most of the things I found were not cheap enough to be worth stuffing into my pack and hauling around for the next few days.  So, I have travelled on sans boots.

How we start our days: Medialunas, Cafe con Leche, & sometimes jugo de naranja

We did some other fun things besides shopping (fun for Scott I guess, as he was rather exausted by the shopping).  Our first night there we went and found a wonderful little restaurant and ate more than enough beef to last us for several days.  They really take their meat seriously here and we were not let down.  Our favorite is a cut of ribs special to Argentina (which I have forgotten the name of and will have to look up again).

Our second night in town we went out to another steak dinner (a more expensive restaurant that wasn´t quite as good, in our opinion) and then to a Milonga - a tango dance.  It was at an old club and we took an hour long Tango dance lesson before.  This dance is tricky!!  Our backs and shoulders were getting so sore towards the end of the lesson because of the posture you have to constantly hold.  It was quite fun though and we now know the foward and backward eight-step.  Impressive, eh?  After out little lesson a live band came in along with lots of other couples.  Most of them were in their 40´s-70´s.  And did they dance.  Scott and I just sat sipping our water at our table completely amused and impressed.  It was wonderful.

Tango Lesson

One of the couples dancing behind us

We wandered the city one last time on our third day to wear ourselves out as much as possible before getting on a 14 hour bus ride accross the country to Mendoza, where we are now.  I was really nervous due to my history with long bus rides in the past (which involve severe nausea and usually vomiting and falling in the mud, but that´s another story).  I prepared for the worste by bringing three strong plastic bags, 7up, and crackers and I ate nothing too heavy before-hand for a few hours.  I took two Dramamine and had the best bus ride I've had in my entire life! It was a double decker and rode like a train - it was the smoothest ride, even on the upper level where we were.  They gave us two meals and we slept like babies (following my half of an Ambien and Scott´s whole one). 

They even brought us Champagne to start the ride off!

Itty, bittiest sandwich ever

We arrived in Mendoza early this morning and wandered around town.  We love it here.  It is quieter, cleaner, and there are parks everywhere.  Wonderful compared to the three sprigs of grass I saw growing in Buenos Aires.

We took a nap early this afternoon and when I woke up Scott rushed me out the door and into a jeep to go PARA GLIDING.  I wanted to throw up and pee my pants I was so nervous.  The jeep ride up the mountain was horrifying.  We bounced along the edge of the cliffs twisting and turning and bouncing over rocks in 4wd and my arm is sore tonight from how hard I was gripping my seat.  By the time we got to the top I had NO interest in going back down the mountain the way we came up, and the Para Gliding was looking much more appealing.

Our jump site

Getting strapped up and ready to go

Scott and his guy had a bit of a rough start - they ran first and took off into the air about 10ft before bouncing down to the ground and then immediately catching the right wind and soaring up into the air again.  My guide acted like this was nothing, told me to run, run, run and not sit down (so much easier said than done) and off we went.  Him running awkwardly beside me (because of the big bulky parachutes strapped to us) and another man dragging me forward right for the edge of the cliff!  Ahhh!  The anticipation and preparation were the scariest, but once we were soaring up it was great!  So quiet and beautiful!  And cold!  We circled around each other in the air and just floated along like birds up above the world. 

Scott's view of us a minute to two after taking off while I was getting ready to go

The guys we flew tandem with

Para Gliding is something I´m glad to have done once, but don´t really feel the need to do again. Scott and I both agreed we're good to go in that department now.  :)

Internet time is up.  Love you all!  Tomorrow we are going wine tasting alllllllll day long as the best Argentinean wines come from here.

Hola from the bottom of the world

We had a great weekend in Austin!  Both of us have until September 15th off of work and we were planning on flying to the Pacific Northwest to finish our vacation out there, but were a little deterred by some tight flights.  (As many of you know we often fly stand-by under Scott's dad)  So, yesterday morning we decided to see Argentina (or at least a little bit of it) instead!  We took a 10hr overnight flight and arrived in Buenos Aires this morning.  We are staying at the Art Factory Hostel for the next two nights and are enjoying wandering the city.  We figured we could not go wrong here when we discovered that they are one of the highest consumers of sweets and ice cream (my favorite) per capita and that the steak (Scotts favorite) is plentiful.  We are getting excited for some good eats and will update you as we go.  I will have to tell you all about Austin and post pictures later on as my internet time is limited.  Adios!

Our Vacation Kickoff

(Wrote this yesterday and forgot to post so here ya go folks)
We've officially been on Vacation since last Friday.  It is heavenly.  All we've done is an exceptional amount of socializing and laying around.  Laying around talking, laying around reading, reading, and more reading (I cannot put The Help by Kathryn Stockett down!), laying around internetting, laying around snacking, laying around watching TV, aaaand I think you get the point.  We were in Oklahoma City for the weekend and have been in Tulsa staying with Scott's parents since Sunday.  We've enjoyed a wedding (Congrats Thomas and Betsy!), an engagement party (Wahoo Stephen and Cristen!), Sunday Brunch with the gang in OKC, pool parties, lots of meat from the grill, and plenty of dinners and drinks with friends.  We've been playing with babies and dogs and new cars and just generally catching up on life with the people here that we love, and it is great.

The Smackeys and The Johnsons

The girls with the engaged couple

Tomorrow we head to Austin for the weekend with two other couples to explore the city and enjoy our Labor Day.  Hope you all are having fun making plans for your holiday!

Packing

We leave for the airport at 5am tomorrow.  So, right now I am stressing while I try to figure out how to pack for almost three weeks of vacation with a wedding, hiking, nice dinners, possible camping, extreme heat, and cold without just bringing my whole dresser along.  And I mean literally bringing the dresser.  To top it all off Scott just requested that I only bring a carry on.  Yeeeeah right.  

So hot right now...

We were going to get Lucy spayed last week but she went into heat (or is "in season" if you will).  It is so gross.  She hates it and so do we.  We locked her in the kitchen and laundry room for the first few days and then Scott's parents came into town and I felt so bad leaving her locked in the back of the house while we all socialized in the living room without her. We had tried the doggie diapers, but she has such a silly butt nothing stayed on. The first night they were here I ran a bath for her and she was completely thrilled to lay in the tub, chew on ice, and soak for almost two hours.  The second day I decided I had to do something about it, as we were all sick of continuously climbing over the baby gate that was keeping her in the kitchen.  So, I've invented my own diaper for her.  It's pink, and custom made, so she's quite trendy.

She's just such a sexy bitch now that I'm really going to have a time keeping the neighborhood boys away

P.S.  It is completely appropriate for me to call her a bitch.  I do it on a daily basis now.  

Wisconsin Wedding

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while.  I've either been too busy when I feel like it, or too lazy when I have time.  I'm playing catch-up now though, so this is a reaaaaally long post.

August 14th, 2010 - Aaron (my cousin) and Andrea finally (after 14 freaking years of dating - they've been together since middle school.) got married :)
The wedding was in Madison, WI and Scott and I were both able to go.  It was like a family reunion with relatives from my dad's side of the family coming in from Las Vegas, Hawaii, Kentucky and other long distances for the excuse to see each other, talk their faces off, and celebrate.
We flew into Chicago and had lunch with Scott's bother, Kurt, and his family.  Then we proceeded to get lost for over an hour (due to our ridiculous Garmin and completely closed roads with summer construction) on our drive north.  We also lost Scott's wallet somewhere along the way and dealt with torrential rain storms, causing us to become pretty crabby as we were both quite tired.  Scott had worked the last 16 days straight and had ended a 24hr shift when he left the hospital at 5am to fly out with me.  I had worked the last three days and stayed up too late doing laundry and packing.  Needless to say, when we finally got to our hotel we were so happy to plop in our room, only to discover we had to change rooms due to the shrieking sound the TV made, even when off.
Finally we got settled and my parents and Grandma showed up and we all went to dinner Friday night, with Erica and Tyler showing up in time for Gelato.
Saturday got better - after Scott and I arrived at the wedding late due to driving 20 minutes in the completely wrong direction trying to find the place.  It was not a good trip for finding places I guess.  We survived and made it just in time for the vows and the kiss.

The ceremony at Olbrich Botanical Gardens

Erica & Tyler

with a successful Photo Bomb by Scott

At the reception with my 96yr old (and still quite independant) Grandma Koehler

Best one out of the many attempts at a family picture

Most of the Koehler family that was at the wedding

A quick picture with the bride and groom

Once we were partied out at the cousin's wedding we headed over to crash another wedding.  Our good friend's Ben and Abby happened to also be in Madison, WI with their family for one of Abby's cousin's weddings!  It was fate that we should get to see each other :)  It was short and sweet, but made us all so, so happy.

The boys - Ben, Scott & Tyler

Erica, Abby & I

Sweet little Easton in his pj's, all tuckered out and ready to crash after dancing all night at the wedding

Sunday morning Scott and I left the hotel by 8am and drove back to Chicago to come home.  It was a packed weekend but absolutely wonderful to see so many of the people that we love and adore.

Rollercoaster

So if you have been following the blog you know it has been an interesting month to say the least. I will recap what has happened for those of you who have not kept up.

About 1 month ago we went in for my six month followup and got bad news.... I had a large lymph node in my mediastinum(front of chest) and my calcitonin levels were on the rise. Needless to say we were less than thrilled with this news as apparently we aren't a fan of reoccurring metastatic cancer. So we talked with Dr. Moley(he makes medullary carcinoma shudder in its thyroid) and he was very adamant about having the lymph node out. Picture sawzall cutting through my sternum. Again, not so much a fan of that idea. So we went ahead and scheduled surgery, but being that Dr. Moleys surgery schedule is booked months in advance we had time to get a PET scan.

Well I went for the PET scan and walked up to radiology right afterwards to get it read, I mean there has to be some benefit to being a resident in all this right? Well they were looking at the two images side by side and the radiologist said "this doesn't make any sense". On this scan the lymph node was not enlarged and was not taking up radiation like they expected. Furthermore he read the scan as completely negative with no visible cancer anywhere. He tried to explain away with the size of the cuts with the CT and more but really it was inexplicable and one of the closest things to a miracle I have seen.

Well this was good news but now the issue is I still have a high calcitonin. It is 790 so stable as to where it was. But still too high. At this point there is no surgery to be had as they don't know what to cut out so it is just a waiting game to see which direction the calcitonin goes. I have looked into a few clinical trials for some drugs coming out for Medullary carcinoma, so we will see where those get us. They seem to be promising drugs and a reasonable option, however the only way to get one is be accepted to a study.

But for now we are going on about a 3 week trip in september around the US.

Lab Levels

The lab levels from Monday came back:
Scott's CEA (the tumor marker blood test) was within normal limits!  We are happy for that :)
Scott's Calcitonin (the hormone this specific cancer makes in Scott's body) is still elevated.  791.  Down 19 points from three weeks ago, but that's within the margin of error.  We are unsure what to make of this and hoping to talk to Dr. Moley (our Medullary Carcinoma specialist in St. Louis) on Monday so we can figure out the next step.  We are in a difficult place right now because the increased levels indicate something is growing in there, but we don't have anything to take out due to the negative PET Scan.  What to do, what to do...?

Dog Days

Pretty much how today has gone:
"Lucy no, noooo.  Lucy! NO! Get outta there. ....Ariyah, stop it.  Get. Back.   ....Hush!  STOP BARKING!  LU-CY!  YougimmethatRIGHTnowbeforeI - oh, good girrrrrl......  Off. Off now. Ariyah, you get OFF that bed. ....NO!  What are you doing?!  GO. TO. YOUR KENNEL!   ....alright, if you promise not to chew on the rug again you can come out....  Lucy!  Get out of the mud!  QuaaaWIT eating that. Gah, you are disgusting! Off.  GET OFF.....  Hussssssshhh! Beee.Quiet!"
Baaaah, some days I wonder what I got myself into....I couldn't even have peace in the shower.  Lucy high-centered herself attempting to get in after me and face planted into the tub (nearly doing a back flip) while Ariyah smashed her nose against the glass door, ears perked, eyes wild with excitement, wanting to know what was so exciting.  They followed me everywhere and sat panting in my face every time I had to pee.  The most relaxing part of my day was when I locked Lucy in her kennel for a time out (the second one within two hours) after she snuck food, and accidentally forgot about her in there for at least 30 minutes.  I found Ariyah and her asleep, side by side with the metal gate between them and left her there a little longer.  Tomorrow I am hoping it's cooler, and we will be doggy parking it to get some of this ridiculous energy out of their systems when I get off work.

Labs

Scott will be getting his Calcitonin and CEA levels drawn tomorrow.  We should hopefully have results by the end of the week and are praying for good results!

PET Scan Results

So, as many of you know, Scott had his PET Scan this morning.  I had to work.  :P
The scan was at 7:30am and we had the results by 10:14am.
Good news:  The radiologists were baffled.  Everyone is baffled.  They pulled up the scans and the lymph node that was big and abnormal looking last month is now completely normal.  It's uptake time of the radioactive dye was within normal limits (the cancer cells uptake the dye quickly because they think it's delicious, so that's how you can see the abnormal cells on the scan.), and nothing around it looked suspicious either!  They looked through the rest of the scan of his body and could find NOTHING - meaning that Scott doesn't have to have surgery for now!   I wanted to jump up and down the hall at work when I heard the news and scream it in everyone's faces!  We are so happy and thankful that our prayers were answered beyond what we even dreamed we could have hoped for!
We still don't know why Scott's calcitonin levels jumped so quickly and we will have to continue to monitor that closely.  He will probably have another one drawn soon.  The PET Scan can't really detect anything smaller than 1cm, so we will have to repeat it in a few months to make sure nothing is growing. In the meantime, a copy of today's scan has been mailed off to Dr. Moley, our specialist at Washington University, to review.
We feel like we live in a world of emotional extremes right now.  We've spent the last few weeks completely accepting this surgery and diagnosis, only to have it wiped away.  I'm thrilled - completely thrilled - but still can barely believe it and don't really know what to do with myself.  It's a total shift of thinking again.

SO, thank you all for all of your prayers and encouragement!  We know that God had His almighty hand in this and are grateful most of all to Him.  We'll keep you updated as we follow this over the next weeks and months.

Oh. Hey Mom,

I was just... Uhhh,  ...decorating?

I have been blessed

A peace has settled over me today and I am ok with cancer once again.  I have come to an acceptance point I guess, and although I do not like it one bit, I am not going to let it control my attitude anymore.  For now. This morning a friend called asking for advice.  Someone she knows was recently diagnosed with cancer (a different kind than Scott's) that presented much the way his did.  His prognosis is not as good as Scott's though and his treatment will be worse in some ways, making for a difficult road ahead.  After talking with her I felt a burden lift off of me and Martina McBride's song "Blessed" has been running through my head ever since.  Hearing a story similar to ours snapped me out of my sulky bitterness I've been walking around with since we got Scott's CT results.  Scott and I definitely don't have the best circumstances all around at this time, but when I consider how much worse things could be, I have nothing to complain about right now.  God has dumped more grace in our laps than we know what to do with and I am stunned at people's generosity and kindness continuously.  So basically, I could blabber on about this longer, but it all boils down to the fact that I have chosen to be thankful today for the good things we have in our life.

We met with Dr. Abbas, a cardiothoracic surgeon (the best we've been told) at Ochsner today just to get another consult.  We have a new game plan that has developed over the last 24 or so hours and he agreed with it.  We have Scott's PET scan next Tuesday and it will be read immediately.  If the lymph node in Scott's Mediastinum is still the only thing they see we will probably be having surgery here in town by the first week in August with Dr. Abbas.  If there are more areas of concern - say in Scott's neck, or elsewhere - we will stick with our surgery date of August 25th in St. Louis with Dr. Moley and Dr. Patterson, the cardiothoracic surgeon he works with.  The surgery to remove the lymph node we know about is rather basic for a cardiothoracic surgeon and, if possible, it would just be easier to be here in town where we are close to home and know lots of people.  So, please pray that there are no other naughty spots to deal with and that we can hopefully get this all over with sooner, rather than later.

Escape Artist of the Day

Beatrice is naughty.  I guess she has been feeling the spirit of competition with Winston ever since his courageous adventure a few weeks ago and had to prove herself.  Here's what went down today:
Scott built the chamelions a little sunning post outdoors that they were starting to outgrow, so today he concocted a new one.

Much thought went into this - it's supposed to be high enough that they would stay in it, but low enough that if they somehow managed to fall out they wouldn't be hurt hopefully.  He even added the safety measure of a barrier ring on the ground so if they should by some random act of God happen to fall out (or jump) they wouldn't be able to go far (the metal ring was more buried yesterday).  Well, Beatrice outsmarted us.  She is an odd one, that's for sure.  Chamelions crawl up generally - they want to be high and safe - it's instinct.  She doesn't.  She likes to be low to the ground and hides on the bottom of her cage all the time.  So, we took them outside to the sunning spot and Winston climbs to the top, meanwhile Beatrice goes right down as low as she can and hangs off a little vine over the edge by her tiny back foot and tail.  We kept checking on them and she stayed there.  I tried to help her in once and she went right to that spot again.  I walked in the house for a few minutes, came back out and she was gone.  

We searched the yard high and low.  Pouring sweat in the heat of the day, crawling around under the stairs, searching through the vines and grass, checking every inch of the house, fence, stairs, any surface we could see while hoping we didn't step on her.  After inspecting our whole yard and digging through the only bush we have several times, we gave up.  The only thing we could think is that she had somehow jumped from that little vine and cleared the metal barrier on the ground before scurrying off across the yard.  We solaced ourselves that we had gotten her to be a big enough girl that she could hunt on her own and hopefully we would someday see her as a huge colorful chamelion running wild in New Orleans.  
Tonight we went to dinner at our neighbor's house.  On the walk back we decided to look for Beatrice in one last valiant attempt.  Our only hope was that it was dark, and she turns bright green when she sleeps and is easy to spot.  Perhaps she  would be in the bush we had looked through all afternoon?  Scott put his headlamp on and marched outside.  Immediately, this is what we discovered.

Beatrice was sound asleep on a leaf at the top of that blasted bush we had dug through so many times!  We pried her off carefully, marched her right back inside, plopped her in her cage and latched the door.  Hopefully we don't have any more scares from these two rascals anytime soon!  Although, I do wonder how long she would have lived in that bush if we let her...

Winston and Beatrice back together again

Baaaaah

So, we got up early this morning and left the house by 7:00 for Scott's PET Scan.  Got to Ochsner, drove around hunting for parking, traipsed across the hospital double-time (because they moved the scanner apparently since December?), and arrived in admitting only to discover that his appointment is NEXT Tuesday.  I guess we should have asked the date, and not just the day, when the nurse called to inform us of the appointment.  Such a waste of a perfectly good morning to sleep in when we are both off work together...