Ok, Now we Know!

I'm going to Noah's wedding. I'm still the best man after all. However, I'll still have to have surgery sometime in the next two weeks. Thanks, for all the thoughts and prayers.
Love ya, mean it!
Ryan

AAHHHHHH, hospital food:)

Well, here we sit. Definitely been here before. Hurry up and wait, that is the motto at NIH. We got into our hotel at 2:30a last night (or morning) and arrived at NIH at about 7:00a today. My surgeon wanted me here ASAP but upon arrival the MRI machines had a back log of people. Fourteen hours of waiting (and a very long night of driving) and the MRI is now done. Now, we are just awaiting the verdict. Is surgery going to be tomorrow or next week after Noah's wedding? You'll know, when we know:)
If all of you would, please pray for Leigh, and my family. Everyone is fatigued and stressed. Noah's wedding is on Saturday and we don't know if his best homey is going to even be there. (sorry man!) And if I have failed to mention it, we don't know anything yet (there was frustration in that sentence). Love you all,
Ryan & Leigh
PS This has all happened pretty quickly. We didn't know we would be coming up here at this time. My surgeon is adamant about making sure no complications arise by waiting for any more symptoms to develop.

The tip of May's iceberg of pictures...

Some random photos from the past few weeks...
1. Gabe and I making his birthday cake.
2. I love these clouds that were so randomly hanging out over the lake.
3. Gabe's best birthday surprise was a helicopter landing at the hospital during the open house at Ryan's office. We could see it from the front porch, but that wasn't good enough--D took him across the street and right up to the helicopter! Gabe was in heaven.
4. Ryan and I before the Pigg River Ramble.
5. Gabe enjoying his first cotton candy at the Strawberry Festival.

Too Much to Cram Into One Post

I suppose the major news right now is Ryan's latest check-up at NIH. We were up in the nothern half of the state last Wednesday through Sunday. It was a looong, but fun weekend. The results weren't that exciting, either, so good thing we had lots of fun things scheduled to make the rest of our trip happy. Yup, more surgery in store for Ryan. Last September, his surgeon had planned to remove a tumor on the left side of his cerebellum and take a look at a tumor on his brain stem while he was in there. When he got inside Ryan's head, he found the tumor on the brain stem and was able to remove that, but decided to leave the other tumor there (it was in a difficult location). He drained the fluid from the cyst around that tumor, but didn't take it out, hoping that it would not fill back up with fluid and might just hang out there for awhile. Welll, you know what happened--the cyst filled back up and will need to be remove at some point. He said just to come back in six months unless Ryan starts to feel the symptoms from it before that. It's possible the headaches won't start for a few months, but Ryan kind of thinks it will be before then. Please be praying! None of us are looking forward to another surgery, and we all believe that God is more than capable of doing a miracle here.

Well, I am ready for bed, but I'll try to post a few pictures first. We've had a lot going on! I'll put together a slideshow from our trip to Colorado and put that up here soon, too.

Time to Get off The Crazy Train!!! or Plane!!!

Wow!!! Where to start! Leigh, Gabe and I went out to Denver these last few days. I'm finally back! Leigh and Gabe will be back Friday. However, I don't know if I've recovered from my flight! On Monday morning (yes thats Memorial Day) I woke up at 3:45a to leave for the airport. I arrived at the airport at 5a thinking everything was going smoothly (so much for thinking). I boarded the plane around 5:30a and thought "this is great, I'm going to have a great flight!" At about 6a, as we were about to take off from the tarmac, the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan. The captain comes over the speaker and apologizes because we have to head back to the terminal. He says something to the effect that there is a passenger who is having difficulty?! When we arrive a "gentleman" (looking very official) boards the plane and begins having a discussion with the front lavatory. Turns out we're here for a while. The man in front of me leans his seat all the way back and on que the 6 month old baby behind me begins to scream very loudly. It was fine, only lasted for an hour. In a nut shell, the official looking gentleman was actually talking a very sick passenger out of the lavatory and off the plane. Then comes the "not-very-official" cleaning crew with gloves and masks (looking none to happy about the clean up call) to clean up the mess. We were up in the air at about 7:10a. It was a 3 1/2 hour flight, all in all, it went smoothly. I made my connection at Dulles and arrived in Greensboro at 1:45p. I gather my luggage and head outside to meet my bro who was picking me up. I give him a quick ring and find out he is ONLY behind schedule by an hour and fifteen. SO, I head back inside to relax in one of the "extremely" affordable restaurants. Upon my arrival, I suddenly remember my luggage. Yep, I left it back outside with my other brothers wedding suit in it...OOPS! It was fine though, two cops were guarding it for me when I got out there. Fine men in blue! Now, it's bachelor time for me until my honey returns home. Sorry this episode was so long. I still need to update everyone on the Bolder Boulder run Leigh did.

From the Standpoint Of...

I feel I must give an explanation. At NIH there is a rather "annoying" anesthesiologist. I say annoying - that puts it mildly - "SHE MADE MY WIFE CRY!!!" Leigh just doesn't normally cry. This crazy woman actually brought her to tears. And, one of THE most annoying things ever, she would start off each (seriously, each) sentence with "From the standpoint of." Try sitting through forty five minutes of that! You must realize I am required to see the chief anesthesiologist EVERY time I have surgery at NIH. That is at least six times in the last four years. So, now Leigh and I like to use that line every now and again just to be funny. We however thought it appropriate to name our blog "From the Standpoint of..." to describe the life and times of Us - The Lesters.

6 Days 'Til Gabe is 3!

Yawn. 8:14 pm and I am beat! The morning started off with my alarm at 5:20. I rubbed my bleary eyes and went downstairs for an English muffin and some coffee to load me up for a nice morning run. By 6:05, I was on the road with a lady from church who invited me to run with her. One hour, 4 min. and 6.5 miles later, I was back on the road to change my clothes, rinse the sweat off my face and head over to Waid Park, where Ryan and I were helping register folks for the Pigg River Ramble. Not sure why registration started at 7:30 when the canoe race didn't start until 10:45, but it was fun chatting with everyone and getting involved. It poured down rain at one point which was kind of discouraging, but it cleared up pretty quick.

Our canoe launched at 11:14 and 2 hours later plus a dump at The Ledge and one other spill (both my fault--I am NOT a great canoer!) we finished at Lynch Park. We have sore necks and shoulders and backs (and I learned many a life lesson on leading (I'm not great at it)/following (not great at that, either)/trying to navigate only to find out Ryan was steering from the back (kinda made me mad)/and even if we passed Bryan & 4-year-old Andrew AND Ray and 8-year-old Jake, we still didn't really win anything. Hmmm. But we did pass them.

Enough about today...
This next week is going to be here and gone before I can take a breath! Ryan has an open house at his office on Thursday, Gabe's birthday is Friday, and we leave for Colorado on Saturday, so I want time to speed up and slow down all at once. I can't wait to see my family, but I am really excited about Gabe's birthday simply because he is so excited to be 3. Here is how a conversation with him goes these days:

Anyone: How old are you?
Gabe: I'm two. My birthday is May 15th. Then I'll be 3! I'm going to have cupcakes. Then, the day after my birthday, we're going to fly {he cups his hand into a tiny plane shape and zooms it through the air} to Grandpa Dave's house. On a big, big plane. And we're going to go very, very fast!

We are all very excited to go, but not before we eat cupcakes!

Other things to get excited about...
-Sleeping with the windows open.
-Spring thunderstorms.
-Getting on a workout routine again.
-Running the BolderBoulder with my brothers and sister-in-law.
-Mestizo's CD release party the day we get to CO.
-My hammock.