Our weekend in Utah

Cassidy and I had a great time this weekend. It started out on Friday with us traveling to Idaho Falls and picking up my very good friend April and then we continued on to Utah. April and I have been friends for a long time and my children all love her dearly. She is getting married in Atlanta, Georgia over thanksgiving weekend but received her endowments this Saturday. I was privileged to be her escort and totally enjoyed the experience. It was my first time at the SLC temple and experiencing a live session and I found it awesome. I am not sure I have ever met anybody as excited to go to the temple and partake of the blessings there as much as April. She has waited a long time for this day, I think she has longed for it ever since her

baptism. I am not sure if Cory knows how blessed he is to be getting April for a wife. She truly is a wonderful person. Along with the photos from this I am going to post a few from April's bridal shower just because the are funny.

Some of you may be wondering why I dragged Cassidy along for this trip but it was twofold in purpose. Cassidy also had an appointment with Dr. Rebekah Meyers at Primary Children's Hospital on Monday. Cassidy was born with a fairly common birth defect. It is called Pectus Excavatum (not sure on the spelling) this simply means that she has a sunken chest or that her sternum sinks instead of being straight. Along with this she as a more rare from of the same defect called Pectus Karunatum (really not sure on the spelling). When children to get this defect it usually affects boys and it is rare for a girl to have it, even more rare for a girl to the combination of the problem that she has. The good news is that for the most part it is simply cosmetic and can be covered if you are careful about the collars on the shirts you buy. This was our third visit with Dr. Meyers and this time she confirmed that Cass will indeed require surgery to repair the defect. Remember how I said usually it is simply cosmetic? Well the combination that Cassidy has can cause pressure on the heart and also extreme pain with exertion and exercise. Dr. Meyers said that the best time to do this surgery is about the time a child hits the growth spurt at the beginning of puberty. She wants to see Cassidy again when she is 13 and will then set the surgery date. This is a fairly large surgery, basically open heart surgery without touching the heart. It involves separating the cartilage from the sternum, clipping a small piece off along each rib, pushing the sternum either up or down as needed, and then reconnecting each rib (or at least the cartilage) with wire. Yeah, it is a big deal! They said she would spend at least a week in at Primary's in recovery. We took a few pics of Cass in the doctors office it was a really cute room but does little to show what a great hospital primary's really is. If she has to have this surgery I am glad that it will be a such a wonderful place. I am so glad we have two years before we have to worry about it too much. All in all it was a great weekend. We had a great time at Brian and Romina's as usual. They are always so kind to let us stay with them. What a great little family they are.