Eric is in a Power Ranger phase.  Playing with Power Rangers is his favorite thing to do.  Of course, he gets to pick who gets what Power Rangers.  Sometimes we practice “picking fair” – by taking selection turns, but if given the choice he will pick all the newest ones and leave the injured and repaired Power Rangers to me.  Usually I don’t fight it which means I end up with Black and “Red The Taped”, both whom have suffered serious leg injuries, been glued, re-injured and finally taped again.

In the scene below the castle serves as the home for Eric’s guys, including Shrek, as they witness the horrible decapitation of “Red The Taped” by T-Rex.  After this “Red The Taped” was ‘buried’ and the dinosaur continued his reign of terror against the rest of my guys.  Fortunately after all my guys were wiped out Eric declared they were all healed and could come back to life.  Wheah……. that was close.

We have always had bittersweet growing across the road and harvested it for fall displays.  A couple of years ago when the county re-paved the road they cut trees along the edge and consequently a lot of bitter sweet got cut as well.  Although there are new bittersweet vines growing up there are still a couple of trees with monster bittersweet vines growing on them. Kathryn harvesting bittersweet.

All the kids got dressed up in their Halloween costumes and held a short parade to/from preschool.

Our sunny 80 degree Monday was followed by 24 hours of rain, beginning Monday night through Tuesday evening.  2.4″ of precipitation were recorded filling the new pond below our house.  This is the view from our deck.

Trevor came over to play with Eric on Monday after pre-school. The temperature climbed to 81 – in late October! Eric and Trevor donned goggles and swimsuits and used their ‘cool moves’ to capture a treasure (beach ball) from the spray hose welding Queen. Scout, Eric and Trevor charge the Queen.

Eric has progressed in AYSO soccer from not kicking the ball in week 1 to dribbling down field and taking a shot on goal in the next to last game of the season. He missed the goal, but has gotten the idea of getting the ball away from other players and trying to score. At this level – no one passes. Here Eric brings the ball into play.

Thursday morning I had surgery to cure my Atrial Fibulation at 7am. They laid me on my side and poked two holes in-between my ribs. They removed two ‘hot spots’ that were emitting electrical signals, surgically removed and tested my left atrial appendage, and cauterized the outside to eliminate other signal leakage. They flipped me over and did the same from the other side.

After about 3 hours of surgery I was discharged to the cardiac ICU with two drainage tubes from my chest, IVs in my arms and caratroid artery, a foley and an oxygen line. My internal organs were pretty swollen and sore and most of Thursday afternoon was spent trying to get some pain medication to kick in. All things considered I slept OK Friday night alternating sides to facilitate drainage from my chest. I thought I would be sore on my sides, but my ribs didn’t bother me.  The discomfort was caused by swollen internal organs and the 10-12″ of drainage tubes that extended into my torso.  I could feel the drainage tubes whenever I took a deep breath and expanded my lungs.

Friday morning I tried my 1^st foods and got pretty nauseous – by lunch time I was able to eat a little solid food. Friday afternoon I was walking and my left chest tube was removed along with my caratriod IV.  I was glad when the rest of my tubes were removed on Saturday and I was discharged. I have a blistering reaction to the surgical tape that holds my chest bandages but otherwise feel good – all things considering.

We received .95″ of rain on Monday night in a thunderstorm followed by an long steady drizzle.  Tuesday night we received .8″ in a gully washer of a thunderstorm at 5pm.  We ate dinner and watched the rain.  We watched the new pond raise up 4.5 feet in a matter of a couple of hours.  My little pond by the road was overflowing; I pulled weeds and cat tails from the overflow to let it drain.  The lower pond filled up slowly overnight.

We had a three day weekend and went to Stratford Canada with our friends Jim & Pam for the Stratford Arts Festival. The festival runs for seven months and there are four permanent festival venues: the Festival Theatre, the Avon, the Tom Patterson Theatre, and the Studio Theatre. Although the festival was originally named for Shakespeare, and still concentrates on his works, Shakespeare is not the only playwright produced. The current playbill includes classical, contemporary and musical performances.

We drove up on Friday and encountered heavy traffic the whole way.  We arrived in time to check in, munch and get to our evening performance.  We saw Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband” on Friday night.  Saturday we visited a great Goodwill store, had brunch,  shopped around and caught Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of Errors” as a matinee.  In the evening we saw “To Kill a Mockingbird“. All the plays were good, but To Kill a Mockingbird was spell binding. The child actors were great and the little girl playing Scout was tremendous.

Kathryn and Eric returned from Rochester last night with a puppy in the car – an all black, female, Golden Retriever/Newfoundland cross that is yet un-named. Trey remains skeptical and slept most of the night outside on the deck rather than sharing room with the newcomer.