Really Really Good News

We got a call this morning from Baline's sister Shelley who was already at the hospital and she said that Gary is doing really good. They took him off the breathing machine. :) So he is breathing on his own again and Blaine even got to say hi to him on the phone. So we are very excited to hear of his great progress. Thank you for all of your continued prayers they are defiantly working.

Good News

We have some good news! They have decided that Gary is doing well enough to remove the Balloon Pump! That means that the valves are starting to operate as they should. They will still probably leave him on the breathing machine overnight, and decide when to take it out in the morning.

CVICU Day 1

So, we went to see Gary this morning and saw that he was doing okay. His nurse said that he had a rocky night. Gary is listed in Critical but stable condition. They are going to keep him intabated and the heart pump in until tomorrow morning and re-evaluate. They are satisfied with his levels and are cautiously optimistic. His nurse said that we have to take baby steps forward. However, their is progress being made. The reason to keep him under is to make him stronger in the long run. We appreciate all of the continued support and prayers from everyone and ask that only family members come to the hospital at this point because he isn't awake and is still in ICU. Please fill free to call and we will talk if we have the chance. Again thank you for your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

The Matthews Family

Post OP Update

Well we have had some more news. Gary has been out of surgery for a little while now. While the surgery did go mostly to plan there have been a couple complications. As they started to take him off the bypass machine, the leak in his valve came back to a certain extent. The doctors do not think that the valve is faulty or needs replacement. They did decide to put in a balloon pump in order to assist the valve in working properly until the heart has gained enough strength back. This has caused the doctors to decide to leave him on the breathing machine and sedated for the rest of the night instead of for just another 4-6 hours. They have said that he will feel worse before he feels better, but what do you expect when your chest is pulled open. In short, this is not bad news, just not as good as we were hoping for since we were all hoping for the best possible. Please keep him in your prayers, he still has a long way to go.

Surgery Update

The Dr. just came out and gave us an update on Gary's surgery he is on the Heart and Lung machine and doing well. They would call again in an hour or two with another update. The surgery started around 1 and they said that it would take about 4 1/2 hours so only a few more to go. Will post again when we know something else.

Surgery

It was decided last night that Gary will have a triple bypass on Thursday afternoon. The surgeon came in last night and told all of us what they were going to do and explained how they do the surgery. He said that their are so many blockages that they really won't know that they can do until they get him open and can see the heart for themselves. So as of right now it has been scheduled for Thursday afternoon around 12:30. For any of you who have been in a hospital or Dr. office you know that is subject to change either early or most likely later. We really do appreciate all of the love and support that our family is receiving during these trying times. We are so grateful for the modern technologies that we have now and everything that they can do to fix problems. Garys dad had his 1 st heart attach at 47 ish?? and the 5th one was the one that did him in. I asked the Surgeon while all of the family was in the room about any suggestions that he has for his children because I was ready to take my husband for a full work up tomorrow. He said that he would suggest that they have a stress test done to see as well as watch for diabetes. It was nice to hear from the Dr. instead of a nagging wife because I have been saying this for a while. This is all that we know for the moment. The surgeon was very optimistic and that really helped put our mids at a little more ease. For any that are interested we are having a fast on Thursday. Once again thank you so very much for all of your thoughts and prayers.
The Matthews Family

Gary Update

Gary had his angiogram (sorry for spelling am in a hurry) we were hoping that they would do a stent and that would be the end of it. Unfortunately that is not the case. Pretty much all of the veins and arteries going into his heart has a clog somewhere. Also only 30% of his heart is function and one the the valves is leaking. So stents are out of the question. they have moved gary in CVICU so that they can keep a better eye on his very week heart. They will have to do surgery they are having a special surgeon come in to review his case and see what they can do. They can't do your normal bypass because of there all the different clogs are. So we are waiting in limbo once agian until the surgeon tells us something which we might know tonight or in the morning. we are having a family fast on Thursday if any of you would like to join in with us that would be great. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayer for our family during this once again difficult time. I will update more when we know something else.

Once again please forgive my spelling thanks for everything.

The Matthews Family

Gary Matthews

For all of those who are wondering Gary did have a mild heart attach. He was transfered from Banner Gateway to Banner Heart Hospital. They will be running more tests today to see if their is any blockage in the heart. He was also diagnosed as a type two diabetic. I will keep all of you informed if you want nay more information please call my cell phone. Thank you to everyone who helped out yesterday and for keeping our family in your prayers.
Blaine & Tiffany Matthews

Ryan's 3rd Birthday Party

We had a big water party for Ryan's 3rd birthday. We invited three families that live on our street and a few more from the ward as well as Ryan's cousins. It was nice and hot that day so it felt good to cool off in the water.Starting to get a little cold
Chillin by the sprinklers
Ryan with the ladies :)

Ryan enjoying his pizza and root beer (so don't bug me)
Kayli and her purple freezing self :)

Even though Ryan got a new bike for his birthday he still loves to ride the broken little pink bike. What a cool dude with no shirt riding his bike.
Ready for bed with his favorite birthday present his truck that Kayli & Lilly gave him.

Tagged

So my friend from high school tagged me. I haven't ever been tagged so I hope I do this right.

5 things on my to do list.

1. Get Pregnant
2. Organize our room AGAIN
3. Finish Emily's memory book
4. Get file folders made for girls camp
5. Make water bottle holders for girls camp

5 Places That I Have Lived

1. Salt Lake City UT ( I was born their so it should be #1)
2. Cottage Grove Oregon
3. San Antonio Texas
4. El Paso Texas
5. Arizona

5 Favorite Foods

1. Perogies with onion butter (Sooooo much time to make but oh sooooo good)
2. Turkey Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
3. Grandmas good rolls
4. Red Robin Hamburgers and Fires
5. Fettuccine Alfredo

5 Places Where I have Worked

1. Ribbons and Lace
2. Hand In Hand Childcare
3. Sunrise Preschool
4. Royal Palms Resort and Spa
5. Sizzler
5 Things I would do if I had 1 Billion Dollars

1. Buy a house
2. Buy my Suburban
3. Pay off bills
4. Save
5. Buy a Boat

5 Things That You May Not Know About Me

1. I am the oldest in my family
2. I hate my natural hair color ( My husband hasn't ever seen my natural hair color)
3. I love to organize things
4. I refuse to go to the bathroom in a Port A Potty
5. I was terrified to be called into YW's

Camping

Ryan had his best birthday ever we were up in the Mountains over his birthday. He couldn't of asked for a better birthday. Ryan went and helped Blaine find firewood and helped load it in the truck. He always wanted to put more wood on the fire but was really good to only be near the fire when Blaine was with him and told him that it was okay.
Ryan helping daddy

Ready to go fishing

Mommy got a fish and Ryan really wanted to hold it but mommy woulden't let him touch it.
You can sort of make out his little plastic fish attached to his pole. So Ryan caught a fish every time.










Blaine and his Mini Me going fishing at Bog Tank


Mommy got another one hahahahahahahaThis is the first time that Ryan has seen snow. We found some on an afternoon ride up by sunrise off a dirt road.Ryan and his daddy. Only in Arizona would you find people in the snow in shorts.



Whenever we we couldn't find Ryan we would find him sitting by a tree. He woulden't wonder that far from camp he would always make sure that he could see the camp and just chill by a tree. What a little outdoorman.

Birthday Cakes

This is the cupcakes that Ryan picked out to take to his school. They have been studying underwater and fish so I let him llok through the cake book at Safeway and this is the one that he picked. I thought that he would pick a ball or something but no he actually said "Fishie" so that is what we got. This was big enough to feed 35 so we had extra for his pary on Monday.

We went camping this weekend and when we came home on Sunday we saw this cute truck cake. Linda made it while we were gone and it turned out so cute. We usally celebrate birthdays on sunday even though we didn't do gifts till Monday we still had fun. This cake is 100% food.
Ryan loved his cake it took everything in his power to wait until after dinner to eat some.

Ryan dosen't think that we can sing happy birthday :) He really didn't like it when everyone started singing to him.

Blowing out his candles. What a big three year old boy.

Ryan's friend Kayli came down to have cake on Sunday for Ryan so he wansn't the only kid here. Ryan and Kayli really play really well togeather they are so cute togeather.It's so crazy to think that my little baby is now three years old. Ryan is such a great little boy even with his Autism he is improving so much. He is talking so much more you can't always understand him however he is trying. Happy birthday baby boy.

Chucky Cheese

So I have a lot of pictures to post so this should be fun to make sure that we get them all in. Everyone likes pictures better anyway. So a few weeks ago we took Ryan to Chucky Cheese for the first time. It was a lot of fun even Blaine had fun.

Ryan driving with the dog. This really isn't moving so he likes it.Ryan didn't like this truck becasue it started moving up in the air and he got really scared.

Ryan is having fun now.

Some people might call this cheating but not when you are two.

Daddys have fun playing to

Ryan wants to do everyting that his daddy does

Mothers Day

For mothers day Blaine and Ryan got me a haircut and color from my friend Koe. It was so nice because I needed it so bad. I even talked him into letting me do it before mothers day so I would look better for mothers day. So he let me. Overall it was a really good day. Blaine even got Ryan to say very slowly Happy mom's day. And you really could make out what he was saying.After dinner Ryan wanted Blaine and I to come and play cars with him.What a cute little boy. Only4 more days till his birthday.

Water Day

Saturday the Ahlberg's had a play water day for any of the kids in our ward. Since most of the older kids were at father and son's outing. We had so much fun thanks for the great day Ahlberg's.

Happy Birthday Baba

On Tuesday May 6th was my great friend and moms Irene's Birthday. Many of you are confused so let me give you the two minuet version. I first moved to Arizona in 1995 to live with my grandparents I started to attend junior high at Hertiage Academy and met a boy named Mike. Well long story short he took me home to meet his family and I have never left. They took me in and made me part of the family. They have done so much for me over the years and it was so fun to suprise her with a birthday lunch. My grandma put everything togeather. She went all out with a thre couse meal. She had used the good china and chilled the salad plates. She had four diffrent soups and had all the the soup bowls in hot water to keep them warm so that when we served the soup it would be hot. It was such a nice afternoon and the good thing was that she was suprised so it all turned out really good. Happy Birthday

Time to catch up

I just want to say I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in a while. Life has been very crazy for the past few weeks. Blaine was out of town doing a press check last week and I worked a few days last week. Many of you are wondering what I am doing for a job now. Blaine's bosses wife owns a mail house. Mail like you get in the mail not a male house:) anyway we run mail through a machine that address it and then it ends up at your house. Last week we did clipper post cards. You may not know that a post card comes with your Clipper magazine every month and that is what I stand and run through the machine. Yes I still work at Ribbons and Lace but not behind the counter anymore. I teach the hairbow classes once a week and I love it.This is what Blaine goes to Sacramento to watch print. So make sure to watch for it in your mail box. He most likely took it to your post office.
This is one of the many pallets the post card that we ran last week for Clipper. FYI Clipper is sent to 1.1 million copies are sent out so we stay busy that week.
This is the little printing machine that I run when it is the Clipper time of the month. You insert the postcard on the right hand side and then it runs along a belt and comes out the left hand side of the machine.

This is when it is coming out of the machine to the belt with the dryer to dry the ink and then I take it off the belt and put it in post office trays.This is the Big printing machine. Maybe someday I will learn how to run this one. We run about 19-20 thousand postcards an hour on these machines. Crazy right?
This is the inside of Blaine's warehouse this is only a very small amount of the Clipper magazine waiting to go to the post office. You can see why I have been so busy lately. I am very grateful to to be working though I really only work a week and a half a month so it gives us a little extra money.

Tonight was our wards cynco de Meyo (sorry for the spelling) party and it was a lot of fun. Good food and kids running around all over the place. I hadn't seen Ryan in a while so I went looking for him and this is what I found. Ryan was in the Primary room with about 50 billion other kids. The picture isn't all that great but you can see that he found a music stand that had a primary song book on it and was standing and waving his arms in the air like he was leading the music. It was so cute I guess he paid attention all those times we took him to choir when I was the choir director.
I went back a little while later and saw him standing at the microphone the funny thing was that it was on and he was really talking into it. Just wait till he has to give his first talk I bet he won't be so eager to talk into it then.


After we got home Blaine called me into the bathroom to see what our mister independent son was doing. He was yes cutting his own finger nails and he didn't want mom or dad to help. Believe it or not he was doing a very good job. Thank goodness these are baby nail cutters so he couldn't cut that bad.


We have been trying to get Ryan to put hats on and finally tonight he decided he liked this hat again. Really he saw daddy with his hat on so Ryan thought that he needed a hat as well. Whatever works right?So my little boy likes to cuddle and that makes me really happy but lately he only falls asleep if he has me in a headlock. Apparently it doesn't bother me that much because I usually end up passed out as well.