Crawfish boil

On Saturday, Jeff and I had a crawfish boil with a few of our closest friends. We had two sacks of HUGE crawfish that Jeff boiled perfectly. The morning started out cold, rainy and windy, which doesn't bode well for boiling and eating crawfish, but we compromised and eventually the sun came out and warmed us up. It turned into a beautiful day. Thanks to everyone that came and helped us eat all the crawfish. There was even a surpise guest in the live crawfish. Take a look at the pictures to see what it was...

Click here.

Back to work

I've gone back to work, hence the neglect of the blog. Last weekend we went back home to Louisiana for a quick visit. My grandfather turned 90 so we had a surprise party in his honor. It was a lot of fun. We had some good crawfish at my sister's house on Sunday and then headed home. I worked the last two days and I am scheduled to work tomorrow as well. I'll try to post the pictures from this past weekend in a few days. More later...

Out with the old, in with the new...

So I've been gone for a litte over a week now and we just got back last night. I went to Fredericksburg to attend Carrie's Bacherlorette party and then help out with last minute wedding things. I also spent a day/night in Austin visiting my friends there. I had a good trip/vacation before I start back to work (hopefully tonight!). I took tons of pictures at the wedding and then also of the new member of the Mauldin household, a 6 week old golden retriever named Macy (spelling is still in the works). Hence the title of this post, Carrie's out, Macy is in! But we still love you, Carrie! Anyway, the wedding went off without a hitch, the weather was beautiful, Carrie was beautiful and everything was great.

Click here to see pictures of the wedding.

Click here to see pictures of the puppy.

Blueberries

A couple of weeks ago Jeff and I went and bought some fruit trees to plant in the yard. We bought a fig tree and 2 blueberry trees/bushes. The fig tree is planted, but the blueberries are still in their pots because they can be kinda finicky in that they like a certain type of soil, etc, etc. You have to be careful with how you plant them or they will die or won't produce fruit. And we bought two of them because we didn't know if they self pollinate or not. So anyway, they are still in their pots on the side of the house waiting to be planted and we keep watering them to make sure they survive in their pots. I was looking at them today and one is already producing fruit! I couldn't believe it! It's still too early to pick any to see if they are any good, but I was amazed. I thought it would take a couple of years before they would have any fruit on them. So hopefully we can hide them from the birds and pick the berries when they are ripe. So far, our fruit trees have been a success! See for yourself.

NKOTB

I found a picture of the newly reunited New Kids:

click here

Looks like the rumors are true! Can't wait for Friday.

Group Reuniting

Hey ladies, not sure if you heard or not, but there is a group from our childhood reuniting. It's New Kids on the Block! I'm so excited. They are supposed to be on the Today show on Friday. Set your Tivo's, girls, they're "Hangin' Tough" again!

Update...I just realized that today is April Fool's day, so I'm wondering if they are playing a joke on us. I don't know, but I'm going to watch anyway!

It's Naht uh Toomah!!!

For those a little confused, the title of this blog entry needs to be said loudly with a heavy Austrian accent... Moving on...

We have received copies of the latest CT scans Lauri had taken at MD Anderson. I have done some modification to the images to show you the important parts, but if you get confused, please send an email or comment, and we will do our best to shed some light.

To understand CT scan images, you first need to understand your viewpoint. You are looking at a picture of a cross-section of Lauri, viewed from her feet toward her head. Lauri is laying on her back, facing the top of the image. Add all this together, and Lauri's right hand side is on the left side of the image. Clear as mud? Don't worry, it took forever for us to figure it out...

First, here are the comparisons of Lauri's scan taken in September 2007, before the two surgeries, and the one taken in January 2008, after the surgeries. For the Left Lung, recall there was only one tumor:


For the Right Lung, there were two tumors to be removed. Here is the first one:


And here is the second one:


Now, as you know, we were told after the scan in January 2008 that Lauri may have another spot that we might have to worry about. Here is the image referred to in the Radiology report, with the spot in question circled. Note that the spot was only 2mm in size, so you can barely see it.


We went back to MD Anderson in March to have another scan, to see if this spot had grown. Clearly, in the scan below, you can see that it didn't grow. In fact, you can't even see it unless you zoom in, and even then it's hard to pick out.


Lauri and I had our doubts about this whole spot thing. We went back and looked at the scan done in November 2007, after the first surgery but before the second, and looked for the spot. We found the area, and the spot looks exactly the same as it does in the January scan.


So, in our less than expert opinion, we believe this spot is nothing to be concerned about. In fact, it looks like it has always been there, and always will be. So going back to the beginning of this long-winded essay...It's Naht Uh Toomah!!!

There, I said it...