My little mountain climber

This little girl has been climbing a mountain since she was born. She was born very prematurely at 23.5 weeks gestation and it's been a battle to keep her with us. Her pediatrician told me recently that she has the longest medical record at his office. I actually have some trouble believing that because there are a lot of children out there with a lot of medical problems. But it's pretty clear that her health is complicated.

Recently she's had some kind of respiratory virus that put her back on supplemental oxygen for the last few weeks. She seems completely recovered but she's still needing the extra oxygen. It's been so frustrating to me. Finally tonight I tested her blood oxygen saturation and it was good enough to take off her oxygen until bedtime. We'll test her again in the morning but I'm feeling hopeful that just maybe we can go somewhere without taking that heavy tank of oxygen with us.

I love this picture of her. It was taken on a camping trip last summer. It was a great summer with no illnesses! She loves to camp and was so cheerful sitting in her special chair with that baseball cap on backwards looking so cute. She was closing her eyes because she was feeling a little shy. We love her!

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2024 Hansen Family Reunion, Wednesday

Recently we had another Hansen Family Reunion at Bear Lake. We've been having these destination reunions since 2008. There were about 70 of us in attendance. Bruce and Michelle organized the activities and did a good job. I enjoyed myself! Hopefully lots of other people did too. We showed up on Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed a taco salad dinner, served by Neil and Kristie's family. We also worked on two mixer games: a word search with the names of all 100 Hansen family members as well as a Bingo card that involved finding people with different attributes like recent high school graduation, birthdays in certain months, etc. The word search was definitely the most popular. Also popular was playing Nine-Square and Sandy Pickle (a cross between pickle ball and badminton). Thys and Katrina might have won! After dinner, we had an FHE activity/lesson. Liz had made a book with stories of the first ancestors to join the church. She had selected different stories for us to act out in g...

Hansen Family Reunion 2024, Thursday afternoon

For lunch on Thursday, Lauren and Kurt made Cafe Rio which was delicious. On Thursday afternoon, we had free time at the lake. Heidi and Aaron rented a pontoon boat and took people out for rides. This was very popular. Some of us went on the kayaks and/or swimming or just hung out on the beach.

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy. Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all. She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate. Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in. Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios. She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not. Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable. Wha...

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