Back to the Stomping Grounds

Well I just had the opportunity to go back to Germany, my old stomping grounds for a business trip. I was excited to get this chance as our families plan to go back have taken a back seat lately. I needed to give some presentations to our customers in Germany and Austria over a week in a half.

I flew out of Spokane on Monday June 16th for a flight to Seattle then jump on a 9 and a half Luftansa flight to Frankfurt. The one thing about flying is I cannot sleep on a plane. Iknew this would be a rough flight but atleast there were plenty of movies to watch. After this grueling flight we landed in Frankfurt on June 17th, but it was not over just yet, a conecting flight to Dresden was still in store. When we finally got to Dresden, I was just too tired to see anything so I went to bed.

Wednesday, June 18th - We met with our customer in Dresden this morning, after which we drove to Freiberg to meet with another customer. After out second visit, we returned to Dresden with the rest of the day to finally get out on the streets and take some pictures. See the following pictures of Dresden below. Dresden was actually a very interesting city with some great buildings to see.

Thursday, June 19th - Well we needed to fly out to Vienna Austria today and meet with one more customer. Unfortuanetly they had cancelled the meeting so we were flying to Vienna and driving back to Salzburg all in one day. It would have been quicker to just drive to Salzburg from Dresden, but since we had all of our reservations for the plane and rental car, and the expences it would have taken to change everything we still took the trip. Upon arriving in Vienna (only a 1 hour flight) we decided to see a little of Vienna before making the 3 and a half hour drive to Salzburg. The pictures below were taken from Vienna. This is such a beautiful city, with so much going on. This is actually the place where the Euro cup 2008 was taking place, so it was exteremly busy and crowded.

We arrived in Salzburg around 5 in the evening to check into our hotel. One of my co-workers that I was travelling with had family in Salzburg and actually ran the hotel that we were staing at and they wanted to take us out to dinner that night.....finally some real German food that I had been waiting for for years. We went to a local favorite restaraunt, were you can only get in with a reservation. After looking the menu over I noticed that the food here is a little different than the german food that I was used to on my mission. So I just picked one that sounded good. Whe the food arrived it looked good and tasted pretty good until my co-workers family had asked me how it tasted. I said it was pretty good and their next comment was if I wanted to know what I was eating.........Oh great something that I did not want to hear. I told them that I did not want to know until I was done eating. The food that I was eating was wispered to bothof my co-workers that were traveling with me and their noses turned up and I just about lost it. I had imagined tat I was eating cow kidneys or brains or.....jus tabout every possible part of the cow had come to mind.....but I finished it anyway. The moment finally came when I was told that I was eating heart and lung.....eeeks. I could understand heart but not lung!!! Later I found out that I was lucky...this dish is normally served with an intact Aorta,which I would have really lost it if that was in my plate.

Friday, June 20th - Salzburg has got to be my favorite city ever. We took the first half of the day and walked around in the "old" city (which is the original part of town that was first built). The shops and cafe's were great, with alot to see and do. In the evening after shoping, we hiked on top of a small mountain (Big Hill) to get an overview of the City. These were the pictures taken from this viewpoint:

Saturday June 21st - It has been soooo hot here in Austia and Germany the whole time here, and to mention that there is very little to no air conditioning, you cannot escape the heat. I could not sleep last night because of this heat. I was sweating and uncomfortable. This morning when w got up and went to eat beakfast, one of my co-workers asked if I slept well, to which I responded that I did not. "That explains the huge purple bags uder your eyes," she said. I had explained that It was so hot that I could not get to sleep. She then asked why I didnt use the air conditioner.........If I had only known that therewas an air conditoner in my room!!!!!

We wanted to take some tours around Salzburg because there is so much to see. We deceided to take the Sound of Music tour today and w would go see Hitler's Eagles Nest on Sunday. The Sound of Music tour is based off of the film and not the true story but here are a few pictures from this great tour that I would recommend to anyone who visits Salzburg.

Sunday June 22nd - I slept so much better thanks to the AIR CONDITIONING in my room!!! We had to be ready by 8:45 to go on our tour to the Eagles Nest. This was Hitler's man hide out and retreat. This thing is perched on the edge of a 9000 foot mountain overlooking the German and Austrian border. This was one of the most amazing views and places to be. We had to take a bus on shear cliff roads all the way up to the entrance of the Eagles nest. The views were great but it felt like we were just going to careen off the edge of every switch back that we took. We would then go up an evelvator 600 feet to the inside of the Eagles Nest. The view again was unbelievable. See pictures below from the Eagles Nest:

After we made it back to the buses, we made a trip to a small town to have some lunch. We were on a strict schedule and were told to be back at what I had heard was 1:05. Well it was actually 12:55 that we were suppose to be back, and as you can imagine we were late....so late in fact that the bus just about left us in this Kuhdorf (Cow Village meaning a very small town) on a Sunday where it would have been very hard to get back to Salzburg. Luckily w made it and the tour guide wasnt too happy with us.

Monday June 23rd - We had a schduled meeting with another customer in Regensburg Germany this morning. We drove the two and a half hours on the autobahn (which I was driving at some points to 100 mph) to Regensbrurg and met with out customers. After our meeting we again took a brief tour of the city and got some more pictures before leaving for Munich. See pictures of Regensburg:

Tuesday June 24th - This was the day to fly home. I loved the visit back to Germany, but was ready to see my wife and kid again. We arived at the Munich airport borded our plane and then were told that we had to wait on the tarmack for another two and a half hours......!!!!! there was no way we were going to make our next plane in Copenhagen Denmark. There we would catch our plane bound for Seattle. This mae us think that we would have to stay another day in Copenhagen because there is only one flight to Seattle a day!! I was so upset.....!! The captain again came over the intercom and let su know that things had changed for the food and we would leave in a half hour.YES!!!. Upon arriving in Copenhagen it just happended to be our luck that our terminal for our Seattle flight was a mile away and we were running the whole time just to make our flight. Finally boarded, the trip back to Seatte was just as long and excruciating. But we made back and got back to Moses Lake around 11:30 that same day (Which for us had been over 24 hours since we got up). Bakc at last from a trip that I enjoyed very much and ws also glad that it was over.

Little Hearts

We will now give everyone an update now that we have all the information.............


Tracy had an ultra sound in the beginning of May. A routine scheduled check up for the babies progress that quickly became an apparent concern when the radiologist step into the room to take a closer look. What started out as a 15 minute check up turned into a 45 minute study of the baby's heart. We were not given any information but the time spent on the heart confirmed with me that something was not right. Upon meeting with the Doctor, we were told that there were some problems with the heart and that we were not going to have a normal delivery in Moses Lake. In fact we were sent to Spokane to have a specialist do some tests.
Again, after a very long and thorough ultra sound which was actually an ecocardiogram we were pulled into a conference room with the high risk pregnancy surgeon for a consult. He then informed us that the baby had a very rare heart disease called Hypoplastic Right Ventricle Disease, which means the babies right ventricle is abnormally small. This type of condition would not be treatable by the specialists in Spokane. He then let us know that this type of condition is only reparable through multiple heart surgeries within the first 5 years of the child's life. The type and extent of the surgery would be determined only after doing some tests after birth. We were then referred to the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, the Children's Hospital in Boston (Harvard University) or the Children's Hospital in Seattle for treatment, and it was up to us to decide which one we wanted. Talk about being lost and stranded......not only did we not know at that time what all this meant, but we....WE had to be the ones to research and decide the best course of action.
That night I stayed awake until 2 in the morning researching what all this meant and the condition the doctor had stated. This is what I learned that night:

1. This is a very rare case (most deal with the left side of the heart)
2. Open heart surgery would be needed in the first week after birth to place a tube connecting the Aorta to the Pulmonary Artery.
3. 6 months later, an additional surgery would be needed to disconnect the major artery from the heart that returns oxygen deprived blood from the lower half of the body, and connect this artery to the Pulmonary Artery (which supplies the lungs with blood to oxygenate them).
4. Around 2-5 years of age the final stage would disconnect the major artery from the heart that returns oxygen deprived blood from the head and upper body, and connect this artery to the Pulmonary Artery.
5. Upon completion Kimball's heart would only be pumping blood to the body with no blood being pumped from the right side to the lungs.

Upon this news, I started to dwell and ponder on the success rates of these surgeries. Again after researching, the success rates were surprisingly good. Our next step was to call these hospitals and find out information about how many of these surgeries they perform and what their success rates are. We then scheduled an appointment with the Children's Hospital in Seattle to have a consult.

We just got back this last Saturday from our consult in Seattle. It appears more complex that what I had read on the Internet. With so many possibilities this has really become somewhat frustrating. Again the surgeons and specialists wont know to what extent of work will have to be done until Kimball is born. This leads to all decision making to a "on the fly" call.

I believe these kind of things don't happen for a reason like many people will say in times of trial, because it sounds like it was meant to be and I don't believe Heavenly Father would want this. What I do think and strongly believe is that this is allowed to happen and we can either shut down and start blaming people or Heavenly Father, or we can have faith that things will work out for all the best. And I do believe that what ever happens it will be according to His will.

We will be adding any updates as more understanding and news is available. This will also be the means of informing everyone after the birth while we are in the hospital, instead of everyone calling us. Please keep us in your prayers...........