Volume 24

SUNDAY NEWS
August 30, 2009


We recently tried to send out the SUNDAY NEWS complete with pictures. Due to differing restrictions of various individual’s e-mail servers and attachment memory limits the venture was deemed a failure. That was disappointing because the pictures were fun and many of you were frustrated with not being able to view them. In some cases it rendered the entire e-mail unable to be opened at all. We have come up with a solution. We will now be posting the SUNDAY NEWS on our Family Blog. Don’t worry this blog is not searchable or accessible to anyone who has not been given the web address. We also downloaded all 23 prior volumes. You might want to re-visit the last 4 or 5 volumes as we tried to re-create the previous pictures and added a few new ones. Just go to:

AzMuellers.blogspot.com

Lori’s Back
We have certainly witnessed first-hand the ridiculousness of our health care system. Lori’s back began hurting her two months ago. Since that time she has wound her way through the system with no relief. Her first attempt to seek help was when she had to leave work and go to the emergency room. Since that time she has been back to the emergency room, seen a General Practitioner, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist, a Chiropractor, a Physical Therapist, a Pain Management Physician and finally a Neurosurgeon. She has had x-rays, ultrasounds, and MRI and many other exams and tests including cortisone injections at $250 a pop. They also subscribed physical therapy before they even knew what is wrong. In Karl’s profession, he would never try to represent or defend someone if he did not even know what the charges were.

Each step in the process takes about a week. You have to wait for an appointment before you can move forward in this system step by step. You have to see one person or complete one test or exam before you can even attempt to schedule the next. Lori has had to jump through so many hoops, and all the while she continues to worsen, deteriorate and suffer in more and more pain.

From the very beginning everyone said she probably has a herniated disc. How to you know for sure if someone has a herniated disc you might ask? Well the only way you can determine that is by having a MRI. In order to get a MRI you have to submit to this ridiculous process that is supposed to save the insurance companies money. Meanwhile people like Lori suffer in pain with no relief. What is the medical professions response in the meantime? Their response is the typical medical response to everything – shoving pills down people’s throats. No concern with diagnosis, just treating the symptoms.

Finally after jumping through all the insurance company’s hoops, Lori was able to finally get an MRI. It only took 6 weeks. How much you want to bet that the insurance company will still attempt to argue that she did not jump thorough enough hoops and attempt not to cover it? The MRI showed a very large herniation. It took Lori’s position and connections as a nurse to then skip two more weeks of insurance hoops and get before a surgeon to evaluate her. Lori has some of the best medical insurance out there being a nurse. But even with Lori’s exceptional insurance and her knowledge and connections in the health care system it will have taken her over 2 months to get diagnosed and treated.

Lori is scheduled to have surgery next Wednesday, so keep her in your prayers. They have to cut away parts of her vertebrae before they can even access the offending disc.
It has been hard to keep up with the doctor’s appointments, demands of a baby who is into everything, a grueling football schedule, a law practice, and the everyday tasks of running a household with Lori down. Christian has been very helpful we probably couldn’t have done it without his help. Karl is not complaining but . . . oh, who are we kidding, of course he is complaining.

Lori recently designed Karl a new business card.

Very Vayden
If you want to see Vayden smile, get a can of whip cream and give her a squirt. She smiles every time you do it no matter how many times you do it. We fed her some much whip cream on night she threw up. The kid loves whip cream. I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise since her father considers it a food group.

Vayden doesn’t give kisses very often but she will give you some forehead time. When she is feeling affectionate she comes up to you and presses her forehead against you. It is usually against your forehead but can be against a foot or other body part at times also. She will do it for as long as 15 seconds sometimes. It is very cute and you feel very lucky if you are deemed worthy of some forehead time.

The many faces of our Vaydy Bug:


Completely Christian
Happy Birthday Christian!
For Christian’s party wanted to invite his best friend Blake over for cake and go to see the movie District 9. Christian now looks forward to a Star Wars cake every year. This year will be the fourth year in a row with a Star Wars cake.

Christian is doing well in the 4th grade. Christian has been complaining that since football started he doesn’t have enough time to play his video games. It has been pretty tough, even for his chauffer (Karl). There was practice for 3 hours every night of the week. We had to get up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday just to get him and his team weighed in. Not to mention driving all over the place for scrimmages with other teams. A game day is basically a 6 hour commitment. This football business is serious stuff. Karl had a conversation with another parent whose older boy is 12 and has been on a strict diet all summer long to lose 15 pounds so he can “play down.” She told Karl his father had him in the steam sauna the night before and in the on the morning of the weigh in, as well as spitting as much as much as possible all day to make the weigh. He is 12 years old and not allowed to weigh over 100 pounds to “play down” in the division he, (or more likely his father) wants to play in.

We are putting now such pressures on Christian you can be assured. If he doesn’t want to play next year, so be it. Football is a lot of work and time commitment for the parents too. We have had to waste our All-You –Can-Eat Diamondback suite tickets on more than one occasion already.

Christian’s team is the Badgers. He plays in the Mighty Mites division. Christian is actually one of the older and larger kids in his division which works out good for him. Christian’s practice jersey is 34. That is Hightower if you are talking Cardinals. His game jersey is 75. Look for number 75 in the pictures.

Christian had his first game on Saturday against the Calvary. They won 32 to 0! Great job Badgers! Christian is an offensive lineman. These boys are certainly worthy of your respect. They have practiced every night in the August Arizona heat with temperatures over 100 degrees almost every night. Their first game was at 10 a.m. yesterday. They played on a field with no shade in the Arizona sun. By the third quarter the temperature had reached 117 degrees! These guys are playing hard in full pads wearing a helmet dressed in mostly black. Karl can tell you as a parent just sitting on the sidelines the heat was no joke. These little guys are serious determined athletes. There was not a complaint among them. These coaches are serious about football and have instilled a shocking level of commitment into these boys. It is quite impressive to see.

Note From Editors
For more photos of Christian's first football game see the Volume 24 - Photo Addendum.

Volume 24 - Photo Addendum

SUNDAY NEWS
August 30, 2009 - Photo Addendum

Christian and the Badgers beat the Cavlary 32-0 in the 117 degree Arizona Heat.

Karl took these next four pictures several mintues apart in order. It was kind of bizarre to get four in a row like this. We call these the Radio collection:

Forgive us Christian, but those were funny. We love you and are all proud of you.

Go Cristian!

Go Badgers!

Volume 23

SUNDAY NEWS
August 9, 2009

Christian starts school tomorrow and has been on a quest for the past week to find the perfect three ring binder. It is good to see him excited to start school. Karl and Christian went to ‘meet the teacher’ night and met his teacher Ms. Hawkins. She seems nice and really sharp. When Karl and Christian returned from ‘meet the teacher’, Lori who had stayed home with Vayden, asked several questions about it. Now Lori is always quite the inquisitor asking many questions about things. One of the questions she asked Karl was “What does his teacher look like?” Karl in a moment of stupidity and without thinking answered “She is kind of hot.” Let’s just say it is very doubtful that Karl will be attending any parent teacher conferences this year. On second thought, you have to wonder if maybe Karl did think about his answer after all . . . those parent teacher conferences so boring.

It has been hot here in Arizona and no one has wanted to go outside much.

Very Vayden
Vayden continues to add to her little personality. She has a bunch of new faces and sounds. Whenever someone does something she approves of or likes she claps her hands. She now points her little finger at you and wags it lecturing in some language that sounds middle-eastern in origin. She is quite the adorable little character. Now that is easy to say since we are her parents and we are bias. But everywhere we go she makes friends and attracts attention. This past week we went to dinner at Black Angus and the hostess asked if she could keep her during our dinner. Although tempting she stayed with us and made friends with the tables around us. While Lori was at work Karl, Christian and Vayden went to McDonald’s and several of the workers came out to the dining area to talk to her and brought her little free stuffed animals. Whether it is the doctor’s office or Walmart, people seem to be drawn to her magnetic little personality. Vayden loves people and actually reaches out to them first many times.

Vayden has also become very physical lately. She loves to just roll, tumble, fall and wrestle. She is freakishly strong too. She hasn’t been working any on walking. Why would she since she can now crawl faster than we can walk. Too bad there is not a baby Olympics, we know she could take the gold in the 50 meter crawl.

Completely Christian

Christian started football this past week and we are really proud of him. He practices everyday from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Christian is taking football very seriously. It has been as hot as 115 degrees this week and he keeps asking to go early. He is listening to everything his coach is telling him including eating properly and getting extra rest. Christian seems to really like the intense practices. Baseball had a lot of down time for Christian’s personality, but football keeps him really focused. He never complains and when his coach tells him to do something, he does it! This is pretty amazing given that his coach is telling him to do some pretty difficult things, especially in 115 degree heat. Christian has not complained once. Karl is particularly proud of him. It seems to stir something in a father to see his son being so focused tough. The coach has run them a lot this week and he will occasionally specifically ask Christian after several laps to sprint to the front. Christian is already tired and covered in sweat, but gives it his all and sprints to the front.

Christians coach looks, talks and acts like the comedian George Lopez. He is pretty entertaining. He tells the boys things like, “Some coaches will lie to you and tell you it isn’t going to hurt, but I am not going to lie to you. When you get hit by four guys from the other team trying to tackle you, it is going to hurt! I don’t care if you cry, I cried when I played football. You can cry all you want, just as long as you get up and get back to huddle ready for the next play. If you are going to be crying a lot just bring extra water so you don’t get dehydrated ok.”

Family Stories

Christian or Howard Hughes
We finally got around to getting Christian his Star Wars ship this week. Grandma Jan and Grandpa Duane had promised him a Star Wars ship if he got good grades in school for the whole year. Now Christian has many Star Wars ships (probably more than any one boy should have), but he has never exhibited this behavior with one before. After he got the ship out of its box he wiped it down with toilet paper to get all the finger prints off of it. He continued to clean it for the next hour or so meticulously. Finally he wrapped it completely in toilet paper like a mummy to keep it from getting any fingerprints on it. Lori and Karl were just watching exchanging glances at each other wondering what prompted this odd behavior.

Volume 22

SUNDAY NEWS
August 2, 2009

We are still recovering from our trip. Lori hasn’t even unpacked yet. Her suitcase is still down stairs. It was a lot of fun. We want to do it again.

Very Vayden
Vayden does not want to be left out of any conversations these days. When people are talking around her she starts gobbling like a turkey. Last night Lori called Karl on her ride home from work and Karl put Vayden on for Lori to say ‘Hi’. Vayden refused to give up the phone after that getting upset each time Karl tired to talk with Lori on the phone again. She is threatening to walk. Just last night she stood up by herself in the middle of the room and clapped her hands.

Completely Christian
The Victory has several pools and a giant water slide. Can you believe that Christian never went down the water slide? On the third day of our cruise Christian did something that prevented him from going swimming or getting wet for the entire rest of the trip. We have a new argument for Christian each time he is not listening. When he is not listening, we simply say, “Christian do you remember what can happen when you don’t listen?” He begrudgingly answers, “Yeah I know, I can end up with holes in my ball sack.” Obviously this needs a little explaining.



In Barbados everyone except Karl and Vayden went on an excursion that involved a submarine ride down to visit a coral reef and sunken ship. On the way back from the excursion Christian decided to climb a metal sign. Lori told him several times to get down or he might hurt himself. Christian as usual did not listen to his mother, and while sliding down the sign he came in contact with two sharp metal prongs. The prongs pierced his man sack completely through in two places. While we all felt bad for the guy, even his parents could not help but snicker when watching him walk after that. You have to picture Christian walking with a beach ball between his legs with locked legs like some kind of giant crab. He invoked many stares and a few comments. Some people must have thought he crapped his pants. It is hard to even discuss it without laughing.

After that Christian had to endure the humiliation of Lori’s inspection, Karl’s inspection, the ship’s nurse and then a very funny British on-call doctor who was called back from the ship to inspect Christian’s scrotal injuries. At Christian’s request, Karl accompanied Christian to the examination room with the doctor who had him lay down on a table and the put a giant spot light on the aforementioned area. The doctor taped the holes closed and sent Christian on his way with orders to keep it dry. The good news is that Christian recovered quickly and is back to normal. His parents now enjoy a very valuable pointed example now of what can happen when he doesn’t listen.

Really Roxy
Our little neighbor girl Cassandra came over each day and took care of Roxy while we were gone. We allowed Roxy to come inside through her doggie door since it was over 115 degrees the week we left. We did block off most of the house so she only had access to the kitchen area. Roxy must have been very upset at us for leaving her at home while we all went on a cruise. She reached up to a shelf in the kitchen and got a hold of Lori’s dried wedding bouquet and tore it into a thousand pieces. It was not a welcome sight when we got home late on Tuesday night, but we still love the little girl. Christian seemed to be far more upset than Lori. He has a sentimental streak in him. Roxy is glad to have us home. She is especially happy to see Christian who has been gone the longest and she missed the most.

Family Stories
Barbados – Submarine Ride
In Barbados everyone except Karl and Vayden went on an excursion that involved a submarine ride. The submarine dove down to depths off the shore of Barbados and visited a coral reef and sunken ship. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a sea turtle. It was after the submarine trip that Christians's famous climbing the sign incident occured in which he screwered his man sack.

Antigua – Horseback Riding on Runaway Beach
In Antigua, Lori and all three older girls went on an excursion to ride horses along Runaway Beach. They got to take the horses saddles off and ride the horses bareback in the surf.

St. Kitts – Train Ride and Monkeys
On the island of St. Kitts we boarded a train that traveled around the island. The train was once used to transport sugar cane. The train had a lower section that was air-conditioned and an upper section that was open. The island of St. Kitts is home to more monkeys than people and we saw some wild monkeys on the train ride. We also got some pictures with some of them while we were shopping.

Cruising the Food
Without a doubt one of the best parts of the cruise was the food. It is all free and you can eat as much as you want whenever you want. If you are too lazy to leave your cabin you can even order room service. There are two places on the pool deck where you can get hamburgers, hot dogs, chili, chicken strips, fries etc. There is a pizza place open 24 hours a day along with soft serve ice cream cones. The pizza place was frequented quite a bit by all of us. However Alyssa and Shelby were on a fist name basis with the pizza guy. There are various are buffets and Chinese food. There is also sushi and desserts. We ordered quite a few BLTs in the room with various desserts and cookies. We went to a show each night and the kids all ordered pina coladas, strawberry daiquiris, banana daiquiris and Brittney liked preferred to have a Miami Vice which was half pina colada and half strawberry daiquiri. There is also formal seating where you can order as much as you want off the menu. The formal seating menu changed every day, but there were things like There were pasta dishes, various sea food dishes, lobster, prime rib, steak, veal, lasagna, etc. There were also all kinds of appetizers and desserts. Christian ordered and ate an entire escargot appetizer one night.


Cruising the Shows
Each night there were one or more shows in the main lounge which is actually a very large theater for being on a ship. We watched dancing Broadway type shows, comedians, magic shows, a very funny juggler, played Bingo and watched passengers imitate famous recording artists in a show called Carnival Legends.