Park and Pottery Wheel

Hello everyone! Another week has flown by, and we're already well into a short month. We are finding out first hand how windy spring can be down here. The weather warmed up quick and we were having some nice gentle breezes and then the weather guy started talking about the winds. They kick up pretty fast and they bring a lot of dust and sand with them. We hear that this is the big allergy season down here. Alana has been fighting off all kinds of bugs as of late. She had a very dry unproductive cough for a few days and she wasn't eating. Janelle took her to the Dr. and they said she was borderline pneumonia. They gave her some antibiotics among other things and followed up with her a few days later. She is feeling much better but she is still pretty congested. At least she is eating again. The other two kiddos have stayed pretty healthy, they have had the sniffles and a cough but no where near what Alana was and is dealing with. Dax continues to enjoy pre-school and make new friends. His latest thing are the Transformers, they have more kid friendly Transformers cartoons now and he's been working on memorizing their names. He got a "Bumblebee" transformer toy for part of his Valentines day gift, he's pretty proud of it. Apparently the new transformer toys have labels now with descriptions of age level appropriateness, Dax is the "very easy" level. I remember trying to put one of Diego's transformers together and it was giving me a really hard time. Dayna has started to read Junie B. Jones books, they're kids books, Junie is the character not the author. Dayna is doing very well with her reading and she really enjoys it. I can't remember ever having that feeling of "I can read, and now I want to do it all the time", but that is what Dayna is all about now. Yesterday we ran some errands and then came home and took the kids to the park. There is a park about 3-4 blocks from our house, so makes for a nice easy and short walk. The kids have just gotten into a new Pirate show on Disney Kids, it has captain Hook but not Peter Pan. They played that on the playground the whole time, I got to be the mean old captain hook. Alana does pretty good on the smaller playground, but every once in a while she wants to chase the bigger kids around and climb on their playground, she does pretty good except for climbing latters and all of the sudden drop offs on the bigger playset

We went home and I put together my Christmas present, I got a pottery wheel for Christmas but hadn't put it together yet. So the kids helped me put it together and then we gave it a quick try. I have to admit that I was pretty rusty after more than 5 years of no practice but I was picking it up pretty quick. Of course the kids wanted a try, I was able to trick Dax and Alana into a bath but Dayna wasn't budging until she got her turn. She did pretty good, and we both got pretty messy. It was a lot of fun now I just have to figure out where I can fire the pieces and glaze them and what not.

This week work was very busy. Last month we saw 92 new patients and this month we've already seen 130 with a little over a week to go. Our hygienist is working 3 days a week and we're talking about adding at least another day to her schedule. I was also told today that they are working on getting an additional dentist down here starting in April or May. The dentist will be coming down from Moses Lake WA, I guess they dropped Adult Medicaid dental benefits and that reduced his patient pool quite a bit out there so we was needing a new job. So that will be interesting, we'll probably be really busy by then. Janelle has found a new friend down here. Here name is Sarah, she lives a few houses down from us. Her son Kaden N. (Dayna always calls him) is in Dayna's class and they have become good friends especially when they found out that they lived right by eachother. Kaden has a little brother tyler that is a little older than Dax, they play really well together too. So Sarah has come over with the boys to play with Dayna and Dax a couple of times this week. It's nice to see everyone making friends! Well that does it for the New Mexican Dickson Clan. Hope you're all doing well, we love and appreciate each of you, thanks for your support, thoughts and prayers.




Love

Jon, Janelle, Dayna, Dax, and Alana