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By Anthony on January 6, 2012, at 3:10 pm
I haven’t been neglecting or forgetting to post. I’ve just been waiting for pictures (cropped and edited) to accompany the posts that fill my head. But I think I’ve come to the conclusion that those few readers would probably rather read anything than nothing at all, which is what’s been up here lately. So, text it is.
Maybe I’ll link to a few Facebook pictures.
Things have been going great with us over in Texas land. In September I became a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers, having lost a total of 35 lbs and keeping it off for a couple months. Angie did excellent as well, losing about 25 lbs. I could write a long post solely about the goals we set and how we achieved them to lose the weight, but I won’t bore you with that. Yet.
And my reward for achieving my goal was an iPad 2. Happy day.  Maybe I’ll post some iPad pictures.
The start of October was pretty scary – on the 7th my awesome little nephew (then just 18 months) was bit by a rattle snake and placed in the NICU department of Cook Children’s Hospital for 5 days or so. He’s fine now, but it was a while before things were back to normal. It was a scary time for us all, but my sister and brother-in-law were superb examples of faith and good parents through the whole ordeal.
We have the most accident-prone family on earth, and I feel the next generation is only adding to our growing list of family “adventures”.
Thanksgiving consisted of 22 hours of driving, turkey, ham, fried okra, dumplings, catfish, hush puppies, ping pong, terrible attempts at darts, games on the inversion table, hiking/bouldering, more driving, family pictures, surveying tornado damage (my grandpa lives in Rainsville), and a drive-in double feature in 35 degree weather (still very enjoyable).
The whole vacation was very enjoyable.
Christmas was wonderful as well. I got 2 days off for Christmas “vacation”, making a 4 day weekend that was milked for all it was worth. Angie and I spent Christmas out in Nevada with her family. While it was cold, rainy, and gray in North Texas, it was clear, sunny, and beautiful in Las Vegas, so we totally lucked out. Angie got to spend a whole week with her family, shopping, cooking, playing games, and laughing together.
 Nelson Family Christmas
2012 looks to be a great year, with plans already made. I’ll be applying to graduate schools to get my MBA, our apartment lease expires and we’re looking for a bigger place, and this June I should be celebrating my first Father’s day.
By Anthony on August 22, 2011, at 1:01 pm
It so happens that Angie is no longer the only married member of her family (besides her parents, of course). Angie has gained a new sister!! Her brother Dan is now husband to Katie, and they should be back from a fabulous honeymoon in Hawaii. I assume it was fabulous – how can Hawaii not be?
Angie and I took off to Vegas on a red-eye flight late Wednesday night (8/10/11 for those following along with a calendar) and got to Vegas only an hour after leaving Fort Worth, even though it was a 3 hour flight. Thank you time zone shift. The flight wasn’t that bad, with ear plugs that is. We couldn’t hear the jet engine noise, the pesky flight attendants, or even the screaming baby back on row 18. Just…silence. As it should be at midnight on a flight. 
We spent the next 2 days getting ready for the wedding, swimming, getting ready for the wedding, dancing to the Kinect, getting ready for the wedding, and sleeping. While the wedding was the main course of our week-long vacation, I was due for some long needed rest after Youth Conference, High Adventure, and a musical fireside I put together. All in 10 days. My eye twitched for 3 weeks. 
Back to the wedding. It was wonderful . The sealer gave some fantastic advice that I found quite applicable to Angie and me, and Dan and Katie both looked radiant. I don’t know Dan or Katie as well as Angie does, but they looked on top of the world there in the sealing room. We took pictures afterwards, of course, and the weather did a fantastic turn-around just in time. The sealing was at 1pm, and all morning the skies were dark, thunder was rumbling, and the rain was off-and-on. But during the sealing it cleared up and the sun came out, just in time to make it feel like Texas humidity. But that was a lot better than dark rainy.
Here are some pictures we took with our camera. We obviously don’t have the money pictures, like with everybody in front of the temple and all, but these are ones I liked that we got.
 The suspense is practically unbearable
 Dan & Katie Nelson!
 Close-up
 Stealing a kiss
 Picture-perfect pose
 Beautiful Angie  Matt and Autumn
 Bekah  Angie and Josh
 Taking pictures
 I love the temple
By Anthony on August 22, 2011, at 10:59 am
And we’re back. Sorry for the long downtime. You know, it’s funny – my second-to-last post was about my hospital stay last year, and right after my last post of pictures, I got sick again. This time I just stayed at home, but it lasted over a week. Ironic, huh? Once I was sick I just didn’t feel like posting. And then once that was over, I just…didn’t.
Well, we’ve got a lot to share! During this blog’s inactivity, Angie’s been out to Vegas, we’ve had a big family reunion, and the weather has been all topsy-turvy, from storms, hail, and tornadoes, to relentless, record-breaking heat. It’s been meteorologically busy lately. Then we went out to Vegas again for a wedding (hooray!), then back to TX. We’ll fill y’all in soon! Like, probably later today to start. Hahaha.
By Anthony on March 21, 2011, at 4:55 pm
Since it’s officially Spring, and I couldn’t sit still at work, I wandered outside and took a few pictures. Imagine this greenery, breezy (perhaps a little too windy), and temperatures in the upper 70′s to mid 80′s.
 Grassy area around the office building
 My office building. Too bad I'm on ground level
 Looking towards the street
 The first Bluebonnets at my parents' place
And the trees behind our apartment are just starting to bud! Since we moved here in November, we’ve never seen leaves in the trees outside our balcony. I’ll probably post again when the trees are clothed. Right now they look indecent…
By Anthony on March 18, 2011, at 2:21 pm
I promised a while back that I would write a post on my hospital stay back in October, less than a month after our Costa Rica trip. While reading through comments a few days ago I came across one that mentioned the suspense of waiting on the hospital post. I know this is past due, but somebody wants to know about my staycation at Harris Methodist Southwest Hospital, so here it goes.
Oh, to understand the reason behind the hospital stay, we’ll need to learn some history.
On the glorious morning of August 2, 1983, I prematurely entered the world in St. Louis, MO. 15 minutes later the glory all faded as Ben followed. But that’s not important right now. A couple days later I was diagnosed with nectrotizing entercolitis. I had a 2 major surgeries within a few months (including a colostomy), then all was good until 2 scar revision surgeries when I was 12. After that, I was just fine. Or so I thought. In February 2007 I went to the ER with intense abdominal pain (intestinal spasms = not fun) and vomiting (yes, that was intense, too) and was diagnosed with an obstructed intestine. After 3 days in the hospital without any food and having an NG tube shoved up my nose then down to my stomach (literally shoved - it was a nursing student), I was good to go – the obstruction cleared itself, supposedly. The thought behind the cause was that the scar tissue in my bowels was causing kinks that would stop “stuff” moving. Heh heh.
Fast forward to November 2008. Angie and I were engaged and I had mono (ugh). To add insult to injury, the intestinal spams started up again and I felt “obstructed”. After taking a painkiller, I slept off the pain with instructions to go to the hospital if I threw up. I kept everything in, and just drank chicken broth for 4 days until things decided to move again.
Now, here we are in October, 2010. It was Saturday, Oct 2, and after watching General Conference all day, I was at church with Dad enjoying a manly dinner before the Priesthood Session (seriously, the dinner was only composed of men). My abdomen was feeling a little funky on the way to the chapel (around 5pm), and I grew increasingly uncomfortable until 6 or so when I couldn’t remain there. We went home and I took some medication and laid down on my bed trying to remain calm. A few hours later it was obvious something wasn’t right once I started vomiting again. Off to the hospital we went, where I was quickly diagnosed with (wait for it…wait for it…) an obstructed intestine. AGAIN. I was quickly taken to a real room (from the ER) and had an NG tube once again shoved through my nose to my stomach. This time, thankfully, it was much less painful, being done by a very experienced nurse. Behold:
 It looks worse than it was, really
 Making the best out of a bad situation
 Please ignore the floating pillow behind me. Thank you. After 4 days in the hospital (and missing most of Conference) I was released, being officially diagnosed with something that sounded like asymmetric peristalsis, meaning my intestines just get confused sometimes and don’t work together, creating a traffic jam. And it’s something that I’m gonna have to deal with for the rest of my life. Oh well, there are worse chronic conditions out there.
Maybe I’ll develop an intestinal pacemaker. Hahaha.
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