My Favorites From My Childhood- The Prince of Egypt

It's a proven fact that certain smells and sounds can trigger memories, and for some reason I had a sudden urge to look up the soundtrack to "The Prince of Egypt" after hearing a bit of music that reminded me of the cartoon. Dreamworks' 1998 Bible-based musical about Moses and the children of Israel is honestly a masterpiece. If you have never seen this movie I highly recommend it.  The music and art direction in this movie is breathtaking. The songs are so well written and performed it still gives me chills to this day. "Deliver Us," has made me tear up every single time and it's been 17 years!  

While "The Prince of Egypt" is not entirely accurate to the Biblical account of Moses it is still worth the watch. The film really helps interject a sense of relatable human emotions that children can understand and identify with. After a recent re-watch of some scenes I noticed how often small children were used to convey emotion in the story. 

Below is a choir version of the song "When You Believe" from the beautiful animated film. 

What was one of your favorite films or animated features from your childhood?? 

I'd love to hear about them!

Love, Rebecca

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A Visit to the Emergency Room - Kidney Stone!

For the past few days I have been experiencing sharp pain in my lower left side of my back. I assumed it was just my herniated discs acting up again so I just did my usual regimen of pain management with heat, ice and the occasional pain medication. Yesterday morning however the pain woke me up and it was intense. Pure burning, stabbing misery all on my lower left side. We kept thinking it was my back but then as the day progressed I started to have a hard time using the bathroom and that was when it started to dawn on me that I might be dealing with a kidney stone.

With nothing working to relive the pain Justin took me to the ER. I passed out from the pain in triage, than later fell asleep in a wheel chair in the waiting room. About 2 and a half hours after we had arrived I was admitted into a room. I was hooked up to an IV and given morphine. I've never had morphine before and wow...that stuff is fast acting. I've never had an IV before either but it wasn't as scary as I expected.  I had a very nice nurse named Franklin and he was very kind and patient. He had a hard time finding the blood vessel to do the IV in, but kept cracking jokes so I wouldn't feel upset. Later on in the evening they gave me a CAT scan and found a 2mm stone in my left kidney. My tormentor has been found!!

 I'm home now with pain meds and another med to help me pass the stone. I almost had a panic attack a few times  at the hospital but Justin was there so I was able to calm myself down. I'm in a bit of pain today but its significantly less.

Please pray I pass the stone soon and for follow up with my doctor so we can prevent these stones.  I've apparently had smaller ones in the past that I thought was just my herniated discs acting up.

 I took a funny selfie at the ER so enjoy.

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Percy Update! - Behavior and Training

Hello everyone! I just realized that I haven't talked about Percy much recently so here is a little update and some photos!

Percy turned 2 years old in April, and has mellowed out quite a bit this summer. During most of last year while he was going through sexual maturity Percy would often growl at us (yes bunnies growl!) He refused any petting, would kick and scratch and started spraying urine everywhere. Needless to say I was pretty heartbroken. He was a complete sweetheart as a baby and I felt afraid that maybe, just maybe he hated me.

But now that our little furball is 2 he has developed a mellow and frisky personality. He likes head rubs and pets and actually comes up to us for affection. We are able to let him roam the house for about 20 min to an hour per day and he has almost completely ceased peeing on things and doesn't spray unless he gets startled by loud noises.

We have changed a few things with our care of him, the biggest change was avoiding physically picking him up as much as possible. Some rabbits understandably get VERY scared from being picked up as they are prey animals. We did notice a change in him when we stopped trying to pick him up. We have also improved his "potty training" and he knows the word "no" with a finger snap sound means to stop.

We are able to let him out if we have company over now which is really nice. Very few people are used to indoor rabbits so its always a conversation starter. Its awesome watching even the most rambunctious people we know be calm and quite when he is out so they don't scare him.
 (That's Sarah and Collin in the photo by the way!)

Here is a photo of Percy at just 9 weeks old. I just can't get over how adorable baby rabbits are and I'm so glad I took lots of photos from those days. I'm so thankful that Justin and I were able to figure out how to improve things for Percy. Even if he stayed a mean old grumpy rabbit I would never have given him away, but I am SO RELIEVED now to have my sweet bunny back! I hope he has a long life with us!

Love, Rebecca

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Drink More Water!

This past week was warm, humid and sticky! So for some refreshment and fun Justin and I left our air conditioned apartment to go swimming. While we did have a fun time splashing each other and being silly I made the big mistake of not being careful with how much water I was drinking afterwards. To make a long story short I was very dehydrated and sick as a dog for the rest of the week. I'm starting to feel back to normal today. 

So to anybody who is out and about in humidity and / or heat make sure you drink plenty of water!! I thought I had but obviously I didn't.

Be careful! 

Love, Rebecca

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Favorite Photos of the Week- Birds in Flight

I have read the science of how birds fly many times but I'm still amazed about it!

Here are some of my favorite photographs of various birds in flight that I found on DeviantART this past week. These photographers do an AMAZING and beautiful job and I especially loved how they photographed these breathtaking moments. Enjoy! 

Barn Owl

by Jamie-MacArthur

Humming Bird Colorado 2010

by artbor

2011-51 High Speed

by Daniel-Volpert

Snow Bunting

by ClaudeG

Buzzard

by BogdanBoev

Which photo is your favorite?

Love, Rebecca

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Fourth of July Picnic

Every year in July my husband's Aunt throws a picnic for Independence day. When nightfall comes we watch the local fireworks from her backyard. Aunt Stephanie goes all out with the decorations and the food!

The food area all decked out in stars and stripes.

All the cute and yummy appetizers. 

My in-laws

Justin and one of the kids messing around with glowsticks

Aunt Stephanie had so many glowsticks!

My father-in-law brought Kuub. 

Cute little candles

We made glowstick crowns!

While waiting for the fireworks I messing around with the glowsticks, putting them in a water bottle made more light!

I took A LOT of photos but here are just my favorites.

Look at that blue/purple hue!

I hope everyone is having a good July and for my fellow Americans I hope your Fourth of July celebrations went well! 

Love, Rebecca

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When "In Sickness and In Health" Becomes Mostly In Sickness

Why tummy why?

I had a 24 hour stomach bug on the 4th of July this year.

While many other Americans were out barbecuing, playing games and watching fireworks I was laying on my bathroom floor- sick, tired and crying. A headache that just wouldn't go away all day had turned into this.

Without going into all the gory and gritty details of a stomach bug it was a long exhausting night and my throat felt like it was on fire from the strain. While I was able to keep food down by the next day I was wiped out. It's been four days and I'm just starting to feel ok. 

A lot of thoughts went through my head when it is 3am and I'm sitting in a bath tub in another desperate attempt to rid of this pounding headache. As my husband sat beside the tub with his head bobbing as he started nodding off again I was overwhelmed with emotion. 

I'm sick and I HATE IT. 

Being sick is never fun, but on top of all the other health problems and my back injury it's even worse for me.

I seem to catch things really easily too which just adds to my misery. 

At least I have Justin. He helped me finally get to sleep by 5 am and took extra special care of me over the next few days. The stomach bug had caused my anxiety to skyrocket and I was very emotional. Lots of cuddling, cartoons and a cup of tea can really help!

I'm trying not to feel overwhelmed by my limitations. It's a daily struggle. When you are trying to warm up some leftovers for your dinner and you are shaking like a leaf after 5 minutes it is incredibly frustrating. And Justin is just a sweetheart of course, doing everything he can to make life fun and happy in between the pain and tears. I wish I could do more. I want to do more. But I can't and I have to be okay with that- and its REALLY hard to be okay with that. 

I look at Justin cleaning away in our house and I sigh. I help here and there but it's far from what I want to do. I wish cleaning didn't require so much energy! 

*****************************************************************

I do have a fourth of July post that will go up soon, we were blessed to be able to see fireworks the week before so I didn't completely miss out.

Love, Rebecca

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