Happy 2016

Happy New Year everyone!

This last year was a year of growth.

I am proud to say that I went all of 2015 without being in the psych ward or treatment and this is quite an accomplishment. I had a lot of help from all of you, friends, Gus and the dogs and my treatment team but I am very proud of myself. As I move into the New Year I am starting EMDR therapy which is a very intense process that involves recalling trauma memories. I anticipate things might get a little rocky so I'm celebrating this victory while I can. We've also been working with my medication and that is always dicey so things in my world may get a little rough for awhile. But I'm ready for it. I've needed this time of stability in order to face these next hard steps of healing and moving forward. I can't fully recover until I face all of my past and it's time to do that now.

I am excited to say I will be celebrating five years outside of treatment in February. I arrived home from The Center for Change in February of 2011 and have managed to remain in recovery for my eating disorder so I am excited to celebrate. We are planning on going to Hatch Studios which for those who do not know is a place in Hutchinson where you can go and they will help you paint a picture. You are all invited!

Of course the big news in The Givan world is that Chris is engaged! I'll let him tell the story but I'm very excited we will be adding Theresa to the family. I've always wanted a sister and she already considers me one so I'm loving that she'll be around permanently. We have been having Harry Potter movie nights and making Chris sit through them (she started them and has invited me to the last couple) with us and it's been lots of fun. We just have the two parts of 7 left.

I'm continuing to love my little house with Brutus (the cat), Shona and Gus living with me. Benny has moved to stay with the parents for more consistency and to live where there is no cat. Surprisingly seizure Benny does not do well with cats. I see him almost everyday though and he is very happy. Gus is Gus and is going through a rebellious teenager stage but he still works well on vest. We'll take his public access test sometime this spring I believe.

I believe that's all that's new in my world. I'm looking forward to the new year even though thinks could be challenging at times. I hope you are all looking forward to your 2016 as well.

- Kate and the dogs (plus one cat)

Shook News and Notes

October brought birthdays for Tim and Vicki.  Unfortunately we have left the "50 somethings".  We had many Happy Birthday wishes from family and friends.

We visited Erik in Tulsa and went to their acquarium.

We also went to Chicago for Thanksgiving.  Andrew and Katie hosted in their new house.  There were 13 total with Katie's parents, brothers, one girlfriend, and one set of grandparents.  Tim and I were treated to an evening at the opera as our birthday gift from the kids.  Tim said it was more of a musical with opera singing since it also had speaking and it was in English.   "The Merry Widow."
The sets were amazing, a grand ballroom with 2 circular staircases, a back courtyard and a brothel.
We also visited a BaHai temple and the Chicago Educational center

Andrew and Katie were home for a short visit in December and currently James and Hannah and Erik are home for Christmas.  Yeah!

The handbell group gave an amazing Christmas gift.  They all helped make the quilt shown below.

Samuel continues to improve.  He has started the vocational rehab interviews and job assessments and they hope to have a place for him to start work within a couple of months.  He has found a new kitty to join our family.  Her name is Nadia.

Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all

Rivers Ripple

We are enjoying the Christmas season!  Olivia had her preschool program this past Friday and has been off this week, so we've done some visiting, extra Christmas things, and just relaxed some too.

Since we last blogged we enjoyed a trip to Walt Disney World in October!  It was so much fun, a much needed escape, and just a great trip all around.  The girls, especially Kinley, are ready to go back.  Per Kinley we missed visiting a few princesses.

Dan has been busy at work.  His big news there is the sale of KWCH, which is pending final approval.  That's made for a stressful fall.  His band gigs have slowed through fall and he will take a break with the New Year while we adjust to new baby and family life of 5.

Sarah has been busy at home, keeping the girls on track, the house managed, and working on the weekends a couple of times a month.  In between, we've been busily preparing as much as possible for baby girl's arrival in February.  Lots of rearranging, reorganizing, and appointments.

Meeting the princesses was a highlight.

The girls also met Doc, Sophia, and Jake.

Olivia has loved preschool this fall and all her friends there.  She's very social at school, as evidenced by the round of high fives she distributed upon her return from Walt Disney World when I picked her up that first day back.  She's continued in gymnastics and enjoys it.  And her request for swimming lessons was squeezed in Nov and Dec.  She's actually taking lessons at a youth stroke introduction level, having learned front crawl, back stroke, elementary backstroke, and been introduced to breaststroke.  She's been focused on learning to breathe to the side this session.  At home her imagination flourishes and she is often the leader of whatever she and Kinley are playing.  Olivia turned 5 in November and was super excited for her birthday and the party she had for family.  Unfortunately, the day after she came down with a fever and was out of commission over Thanksgiving week and into the week after.   Upper respiratory virus and Strep A.

Rainbow kitty(Olivia's invention) and Crumbs.

Birthday girl.

Kinley playing Sheriff Callie and guitar.

Grammy and Kinley at the pumpkin patch.

The cousins at Olivia's party.

Kinley turned 3 this week.  She, too, was excited for her birthday party and having her "birthday friends" over to celebrate this past weekend.  She loves to play Lalaloopsy's, doctor, and whatever Olivia dreams up.  She enjoys learning activities, and often requests our daily activity time.  She wants to be able to take some lessons and will do so in the spring, once we've figured out our new routine with baby girl.  Kinley started sharing a room with Olivia in November and often talks a bit too much for Olivia's taste at bedtime.  Overall the transition has gone well.  We do music together on Mondays while Olivia has preschool and play together on the other days, in between errands.  She soaks up that time, as do I.

Brisco turned 9 years old in November and Dan pulled one of his teeth a few days before his birthday.  Overall he's doing well, with a small recent allergy flare up.  Maybe the Christmas tree?!??

Our visit to Santa this year.  :)

Anyway, hope everyone is well.  We look forward to Sunday's Christmas celebration!

Chris' Update

Officially, I'm two days late with this post--sorry all!

I guess work is a large part of what kept me procrastinating on this. The last time I posted this, I was probably also late because I was enjoying work. This time not so much. Life in the Education department is tense. We've begun HR proceedings against our boss for what essentially amounts to bullying. So our CEO decided to talk to her on Friday (yay-ish!) before he left for Korea for a week (wait, what?). That leaves us with at least another week of limbo, during which time our boss thinks we hate her as a human being (not necessarily true, we just don't think we can work with her because she's a bully) but still is working with us. Laurie found some depressing statistics about how often the victims of workplace bullying leave and not the bully, but I'm hoping to bend those the other way in this case. Unfortunately that means a long, tense wait.

This is compounded by the continuing work we have to do, so I've been spending most of my time working on a Van de Graaff generator which will make insane amounts of static electricity in a visually impressive fashion. You can read all over the internet how you can basically slap this thing together out of anything. I haven't found that to be true. Very frustrating.

Theresa is still doing poorly--her stomach/appendix has been on the fritz recently causing her a lot of pain and downtime. Doctor's appointments haven't been too helpful and even been lost in paperwork so the one we had the most hope for ended up not being scheduled at all. We're keeping at it though because that's what we do.