The Rest of September! - Say Mercy! JARS Night. Zoo. End of Horseback Riding.

Fun fact: September 27 was 17 years from the day Dave and I officially started dating. SEVENTEEN YEARS! Absolutely crazy. We truly did grow up together.  <3

On Thursday (Sep 26) in evening we finally got together with Adam and Aly! We went down to Vancouver where they treated us to a delicious dinner at Say Mercy! which is just a block or two from their house. We had good food, good wine, and great company. I also got to rehearse my speech for them for the Autumn Legacy Luncheon the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation was putting on. Aly asked if I could share about my stroke experience this year at the event. I did it on October 1st - it will be a separate post though :).

I guess Dave and Spencer aren't sick of each other yet after their trip to Montana together. Dave had Spencer over a couple times one weekend and he brought this lovely little charcuterie kit from Save On. I'm still thinking about it and will definitely be picking one up for our next at home date night!

Dom asked me to draw him a Charizard. I used the Art for Kids Hub to make one and he was very impressed :)

Saturday (the 28th), me and the boys went downtown for one last "hurrah" for Jeff before his baby is born. Scott couldn't make it, so it was just the three of us. They spoiled me rotten and we had a lovely very classy evening filled with excellent food and drinks :) 

First we got to hang out with Myles for a little bit while he finished his leaf wreath :)

2nd stop was a winery with live jazz music! La Fabrique St. George

Next up was a stop at Faculty Brewing. I was driving that evening so I opted for two mini samples :) Deeelicious IPA and Red Ale!

From there we walked down to catch the water taxi to Yaletown! :)

We walked to Bacchus Lounge in the Wedgewood Hotel for some charcuterie. That blue cheese was to die for!

Then we were craving red meat, so we ventured down to Hy's where we shared the cheesy bread, table side caesar salad, a filet mignon and a new york with peppercorn, oh and some baked potatoes of course!

Back to Adam's place to pick up the cars and the boys did some whiskey sampling. Such a great evening! Thank you guys! :)

The next morning we went to the zoo with Jesse, Kirsten, Scott, Ash and the kiddos. The kids were all so stoked for it and were bonkers and ran the whole way. The animals were also way more active than usual! Lots of wrestling and playing. The wolves were chasing Dom around on his bike and it was actually a little intimidating even though they were on the other side of the fence...

Snake slide pile-up

After dinner we pulled out the fire pit and did Aero s'mores with J&K. We definitely could do this more often. Nice little set up.

Yes please.

Monday was Truth & Reconciliation Day and the kids did not have school. Dave had to work, so I took Emilia and the other kids to Emilia's last horseback riding lesson. We've decided it is time for her to take a break. She's been doing it every single week for 10 months and she was getting tired. They also changed her instructor about 5 weeks ago and she hasn't connected with her new instructor yet which I think is discouraging and frustrating for her. For our last lesson, they put her in a private lesson with her favorite instructor on her favorite horse. It was a win-win-win! And an extra bonus is that the lesson was only 30 minutes, being a private lesson, so I didn't have to try entertain Dom & Eva for too long. Also since Emilia was on Blue, I was comfortable helping Emilia with grooming and tacking while also having the other kids with me. She also learned/developed more in the first 15 minutes of this lesson than she has in the last 6 weeks. It was important to us that if she was going to be taking a break, we leave on a high note. No "quitting" after a rough lesson. This was the perfect way to go out. Maybe she'll pick it up again some day.

I am so proud of Emilia and how far she's come with her confidence and riding! She has shown resilience and courage. Maybe with the money we're saving I can go riding once or twice :)

First we had to visit the goats of course.

She rode with such confidence :)

We will miss you, Blue! <3 <3

Sep 18-20: Pulmonary AVM Procedure & Kelowna for a Wedding!

With Dave back at home after his hiking trip, our life did not slow down at all!

September 19, I had my embolization procedure at St. Paul's! The Pulmonary AVM is an artery and vein that directly connect in my lungs creating a right-left shunt. This allowed a clot through and caused a stroke back in April. This procedure blocked that AVM to eliminate the risk of reoccurrence! It was a wild experience. It was done under "conscious sedation" which I was a bit nervous about since it didn't work at all for my transesophageal echocardiogram back in April, but this was a very different experience. I was so relaxed, felt no pain, and just a little discomfort in my chest, and was able to watch most of the procedure on the screens! They use X-ray and CT technology to use a wire/tube to go through an incision in my groin to my femoral vein all the way to the AVM and then insert a coil (which I actually got to watch be put in place). 

The whole procedure took about 2 hours, which was longer than they expected, but it's a serious maze of blood vessels in there and they do it mostly blind. So wild. After the procedure I was on 1 hour of complete bed rest. After that I got up to go pee and started having quite a lot of bleeding from the incision, so it was back for some bed rest and then I was good to go. The bleeding was incredibly triggering from my secondary postpartum hemorrhaging after Eva, but once I recovered from the initial panic I was okay. Mom picked me up and brought me back to her house for the afternoon and I spent the rest of the evening just resting at home. Feels like a bit of a milestone. All I have left for this whole experience that I'm aware of is a liver MRI in November. This will look for any other irregularities and abnormalities of my blood vessels in my liver, where they are commonly formed if you have a genetic condition called HHT. My blood work for HHT came back negative, but apparently that is only accurate 80% of the time. And pulmonary AVMs are caused by HHT 75% of the time. So even if they don't detect anything now, I may just have to have screening every so often. 

I was reminded/informed how incredibly lucky I am that I had three healthy pregnancies with this pulmonary AVM though as apparently they can be super dangerous when you're pregnant and your blood volume increases. They can rupture due to their abnormal form. While I had the AVM I was told (in professional medical terms), that I should not get pregnant (not that I was planning to). 

Such peace and quiet at Mom & Dad's while Dave hosted dinner at our place. 

Dom asked me to come see the view from his room. He really does have a great view from his bed <3

Anyway, so that day was full and busy and exhausting. The next day though, September 20, we drove out and dropped the kids off in Agassiz with Dave's parents, and then my parents met us there and we went up to Kelowna for 2 nights for my cousin's wedding! Perfect way to recover from a procedure haha! We had such a wonderful and fun time just being us, and not worrying about parenting. We relaxed, we went for walks, we ate good food, and we partied hard at the wedding. Can't do that every day, but it was super fun and celebratory!

Stopped at Dine 19 for an amazing lunch. Last time we were here was when Dave and I went to Cove Lakeside Resort back in early 2019.

We stayed in Summerland and this old church outside was giving me serious Bacharach, Germany vibes.

Accidental matching :)

The aisle

The ceremony spot. Literally just in the forest! So cool

Love <3

So beautiful and rustic

Somehow Dave and I created this new way of cheers-ing that caught on throughout the afternoon/evening. Instead of cheers-ing and then taking your sip, you do both at the same time haha. I don't know why we're all crouched on the ground though. We had so much fun with cousins and new people. 

The kids had a great time in Agassiz too! Love that they have grandparents who are involved and so willing to help out! And that it is such a comfortable place for the kids to be :)

They got to go see a race in Agassiz with Gramma & Grandpa! Highlight of their weekend for sure.

When we got home, we started to get back into our regular routine, and I naturally filled up the days at the end of the week! More on that to come...