This time last year I had my consultation with a dental surgeon. He said two have to go. The other two could stay or they could take them out. He would not advise me either way. It was my choice. I left his office completely undecided.

A mixture of procrastination and plain ole family business lead to nearly a full year delay. Thankfully, the doctor didn’t see the need for another consultation. Today was the big day. Sue took off the day to drive me in and to take care of transporting the kids. I scheduled the surgery for a Tuesday morning to allow for a few days of recovery so that I could be functional by the weekend. Weekends are busy in our house with the kids’ classes. I need to be available to help.

I will be honest and say that I was less than eager to get it done, but I knew it would be done eventually. Better to take care of things now while I am relatively young rather then when I am much older when complications are more likely. I chose not to think about the mechanics of the surgery and to run on auto-pilot for the day. By the time I reached the chair I started thinking “I must be out of my mind doing this!”

The nurses noticed that I was uncomfortable and hooked me up with the nitrous oxide immediately. That was new for me and I will say it is good stuff. It was much less stressful for me after a few minutes. Although I learned quickly that IV sedation didn’t mean I would be out completely, like I was lead to believe. I was told I might doze off, but that I would be conscious the entire time. They said I will know what is going on but that I won’t care what is happening. This added to my stress levels despite their explanations.

I was hooked up to a heart monitor and despite the nitrous oxide I heard my pulse rise the second that the doctor entered the room. I was also told that the IV sedation would kick in immediately. I saw the nurse add them to my IV but I spent a few minutes asking myself if they made a difference. I am still not sure when they kicked in.

The whole procedure took about 45 minutes. It went very fast for me. The nurses were right in that I was conscious and I could tell what they were doing the entire time, but I really didn’t care. At the end I asked if he was going to take the fourth one out. He said he already did it. I don’t recall it happening so maybe that was when I dozed off. I think it was the first one that he did.

After the surgery I chatted with the nurses and even asked for my souvenirs. They bagged up the pieces and let me take them home. I walked out without any issue. If it were safe I would say I was good enough to drive, although, Sue took care of driving me home. I got some mess for pain and antibiotics, then set up camp on the couch. I was to do nothing for the rest of the day.

I had four teeth removed. Three were fully erupted. The two top ones were small and easy to take care of. One of those two developed a small cavity a few years ago. My dentist would not fill it since I had that. Tooth removed. The third erupted one was on the bottom and full size.

The last one was angularly impacted. It was stuck next the the first molar for years. Bone developed and covered it. This can cause trouble as you get older. A pocket will develope next to the molar beneath the bone. This can collect bacteria and eventually get infected. I did have this problem but the potential to start soon was there. Another reason to get that one out.

All of the teeth came out easily. The impacted one was more difficult. The bone had to be removed so thAt the tooth could be accessed. Once it was visible he had to break it into pieces and take it out a little at a time. It came out in four pieces. I think he got most of iy, but likely he had to leave in some roots because of how it was situated.

Recovery so far has been good. I have to ice my jaw every 15 minutes which helps keep the swelling down. The pain killers are good and take the edge off. I feel much better than this morning when the sedation wore off. However I am limited to soft, cold foods. That doesn’t bode well for a big eater like me. Wednesday I get to move on to more foods. Hopefully I will be fully back in action very soon. I have the rest of the week off to recover. No need to be at work uncomfortable and stressed out.

On a good note I did quite a lot done. Round two of leaf cleanup is done. It was too wet to mow but I was able to rake and use the blower to cleanup. The hoses and other outside stuff were put away. The a/c condenser is covered to protect it from snow. I even got a chance to fix the snowblower. All of this had to get done eventually so today was as good as any other day.

With all that done I hope to focus on working on the basement again. We may finish that project eventually.

Overall they made for a great meal. Sue isn’t one to eat boiled lobster but she was too busy cracking shells and slurping down fresh lobster meat to remind me. The meal may have been a little better if we had at least one nut cracker but they were all gone. We made due with brute force.

Due to the hurricane there have not been any lobsters available except for the huge ones left over from before the storm. We got lucky and bought these only two hours after the fisherman dropped them off. You can’t beat that for fresh. They were not cheap and that may be normal pricing or higher prices due to the storm but in the long run they were cheaper than a meal of the same at a restaurant. They were also bigger than your average lobster dinner. Win-win for us!

I have to say that I was nervous about Caitlin. I expected her to wake up crying because mommy was not there. I spent the entire time at the movies with phone in hand just in case we got the call. Thankfully, we never got it. We enjoyed our movie, picked up some takeout and headed home. The girls were playing when we got back. Nothing but smiles.

Taking time out for ourselves is something we forget about. We are trying to make the effort for our own good and sanity. It was only a few hours but it was wonderful. I look forward to planning some other nights out with Sue.

We saw Harry Potter 7 part two. It was a great movie. The place was sold out so we had to squeeze in but the it was a matinee and the crowd was in a good mood. Once the movie started not a soul moved from their seat. 2.5 hours and nobody got up; amazing. There were also plenty of times where people were vocal about their feelings and I counted five times that people clapped loudly. It is fun to see so much energy at the movies.

On Sunday we decided to head out to the pick your own farm and stock up on blueberries. Amy went with a friend last year and was great. So we are making it a tradition to go every year. The four of us picked about seven pounds of berries. The girls did great and picked only the best ones. Four and two years old and they picked properly.

After picking berries we drove through the rest of the farm looking for other things to pick. We have more than enough squash from our own garden but not much for cucumbers yet. They were out too. However on the way out we saw the onion patch. I picked a bag full. Yummy! The whole car smelled like fresh onions. Sue is cooking them up into a wonderful dinner right now.

We ate so many blueberries and popcorn that we didn’t need lunch. We stopped on the way home to get some apple cider donuts, local corn and a big watermelon from a local farm stand. Fortunately the girls were wiped out and fell asleep on the way home. They are still out even now that we are home.

This made for a wonderful weekend with the family.

Written on my iPhone.

We on the other hand had the two littler ones, Caitlin and Olivia. I had a hell of a time bringing them home from daycare. Caitlin is a daddy’s girl until we get home, so she got mighty jealous when I started to pack up and hold Olivia. I barely made it out of the place with Caitlin in one arm, a bag of dirty sheets and blankets and Olivia in the other arm. She got a little better when we settled down at home and she got some mommy time.

When we sat down to eat dinner I kept commenting on how quiet it was. Without Emelia there yapping away and tormenting Caitlin it was extremely quiet. Olivia was playing quietly by herself and Caitlin was doing a great job shoveling in fried rice using a spoon (!). Amazing. The kids are so different than each other and act very differently depending on who is around.

We are now the proud owners of a more up to date SD1200 IS Elph. I’m familiar with it as it is the same model we got for Amy as a Christmas gift. It takes decent pictures and video, but the nicest part is that it supports SDHC cards. No more 2GB limit. Pop in an 8GB card and you can take a full hour of video.

When I’m older (maybe retired) I’ll invest in a DSLR. I’d love to have one now, but I don’t think I would have the time to appreciate and use it. The point and shoot do take decent pictures and suffice for what I do nowadays.

If you’re not familiar with it the walkway it is a newly refurbished walkway built on top of a 130 year old train bridge. The bridge looks rusty, but is holding up quite well for being so old. The walkway is a series of very thick concrete slabs laid on top of the bridge. There is also a very sturdy and talk set of railings along the entire walkway. The bridge and walkway are designed to move a bit by design (from what I can see), but walking on it you get the feeling of a very sturdy structure.

I took Emelia for a trip around Poughkeepsie and finally found our way to the parking lot. We lucked out and found an empty space and took advantage of the dying light of the day to walk out on the bridge. She was not too willing to walk, but she made it out a bit, but I did end up carrying her a lot. We didn’t reach the water, but got a good look at the local wildlife. The following morning we made another trip to the bridge and this time we came prepared with a stroller. We made it all the way across and back without incident.

The walk from the parking lot to the start of the bridge is pretty nice.

This is an old signal light. It’s the only one that I saw.

As you can see from this photo the walkway is clearly straight and relatively flat. Most of the walkway is like this. The only variations are the occasional chain link fence to protect roadways from falling objects and a couple of areas where the walkways is widened.

We were prepared for cold winds, but the day ended up warm and windless. Better safe than sorry.

I like this view of the houses and the Mid-Hudson bridge in the distance.

A nice view or Route 9 and the Poughkeepsie Train Station.

This is me showing Emelia an Amtrak train that showed up to offload passengers.

Another shot of the Mid-Hudson Bridge.

This guy was clearly trying to be the first to do something unique on the bridge. I didn’t have the nerve to take a picture of him from the front, but from the back who cares.

The not so pretty riverfront property.

This side of the bridge isn’t too bad. This area has the train station, but also the children’s museum (which we’ve visited a couple times) and a riverfront part.

Here you can see the old and new come together.

The murky Hudson River.

A caboose greets you on the Highland side.

I like the small figures on the gates. If you look behind the gate you can see the park service leaf. They’re a nice touch.

Last, but not least…