Brandon and Lexi's 2024

JANUARY

We had a fairly quiet January. We woke up on the 22nd planning to celebrate our anniversary, but Brandon’s eye had other ideas and his retina detached. We spent almost 8 hours trying to figure out what was wrong, and then what doctor to see, and then what to do. We ended up with a specialist who decided to try a laser surgery to (hopefully) fix his eye. 

They wouldn’t let Lexi in the room for the surgery, but Brandon reported his vision being purple for the next hour.

After doing his best to heal up for a week, his eye said, “Sorry, kid,” and detached again. We went back in on the 30th and Brandon had to have actual surgery. 

And so begins the saga of Brandon’s Retina.

FEBRUARY

Neither of us can remember what we did for Valentine’s day this year, so we likely spent it at home. 

While Doug and Liz were on vacation, we went to their house and hid around 200 tiny plastic ducks.

Legend says they’re still searching. 

Right around the end of February, Brandon had a work trip in Austin, so we flew out for a few days and decided we never wanted to fly again. 

While in Austin, we rented a car and visited the aquarium. They had a ton of lemurs at the entrance that all came and screamed at you while you walked in. 

Things we did while we were there: 

• Pet a capybara (I honestly thought Brandon was going to die from pure joy)
• Fed manta rays 
• Pet a wallaby 

MARCH

At some point on the business trip, one of Brandon’s co workers mentioned that he was having a lot of the same medical issues as Lexi and that allergy testing had fixed most of them, so Lexi spent a lot of March being tested for all kinds of allergies and autoimmune disorders.   

APRIL

Hands down the busiest month of our whole year. Brandon had another business trip (this time in Arizona), and we were serious about not wanting to fly again, so we drove all the way down. We woke up at 5 AM and we definitely planned on arriving around midnight, but life happened and we rolled in at 4:30 the next morning.

On our way back home, we stopped at The Museum of Miniatures, which was so fun. We also decided that we were not going to try and make the return in one day, so we stopped and stayed at the worst motel we’ve ever been to.

The manager asked to see both of our IDs to “make sure we were married” before letting us stay in a room with one bed (which, by the way, we reserved beforehand), and then took down Lexi’s information and tried to befriend her on social media. He put us in a room with two very small beds instead of the one we reserved and gave us the wrong key to the wrong room. The room was falling apart at the seams and it was super dirty. It looked like the maids came in after whoever was there before us and just pulled the old sheets up.

Brandon had started a (somewhat) new medication a few weeks prior, and on the drive home he developed the worst rash all over his body. We put calamine lotion everywhere when we got home in an attempt to calm the rash, and in doing so got one of the best pictures ever taken.

April was also the time when our sourdough starter started finally making really good bread. We were so proud of one loaf in particular.

MAY

We spent May mostly gardening. We also redid our kitchen cabinets, painted our new dresser, and painted our front door.

At some point, Brandon decided he wanted to try waxing his nose. We don’t remember the full details, but there was a kerfuffle and we ended up also getting some of his arm hair. It took 2 months to grow back.

Right at the end of May, Brandon found an old rototiller on Craigslist for pretty cheap and tried to fix it. The tiller was from the 80's and was missing some fairly important safety features (namely the safety cover for the rapidly-spinning drive belt). While using the tiller-of-death, his thumb got caught in the drive belt and he gave himself his first ever broken bone and broke his thumb. He wouldn't let Lexi take him to the hospital for over 2 weeks because he thought it was just bruised. When we finally went to urgent care because the swelling wasn't going down and it was still painful, we were told that they probably would've operated if we had come in on day one. 

JUNE

We were finally able to harvest some of our fruit! Lexi started micro crochet.

We installed a section of chain link fence in late June. Brandon was trying to pound a metal post into the ground and hit a piece of rock but didn't know, so he tried to slam harder and ended up not lining up the post pounder all the way. He slipped and hit his head. 

He let Lexi take him to the ER that night and was told he had a minor concussion and he needed to take it easy for a few days. 

JULY

July is when our garden really started to bloom. 

We had the opportunity to visit yellowstone this summer for a family reunion, and it was breathtaking. BUt, because we can’t have nice things, Lexi developed a really bad infection from (we assume) a bug bite. We ended up visiting the hospital at Yellowstone and were told to go home early so we could be near an ER. Somehow, it was the best doctor we’ve ever had.

We stopped and saw Craters of the Moon on the way home, though, and that was neat.

Two days after we got home, this teenage turd smashed our windshield and egged our car.

We didn’t know this kid. Apparently he and a buddy had been going around wreaking havoc on the whole neighborhood for a few months. He was arrested 3 days after smashing our windshield for stealing a car and then crashing it. As of December 8, 2024 he has been sentenced to at least a few years in jail, from what we’ve been told.

AUGUST

It was so hot in August, neither of us can think of anything that happened. We mostly just tried not to evaporate.

SEPTEMBER

In September, in honor of Brandon’s birthday, we took a camping trip to Succor Creek in Oregon to look for geodes. We also had a final harvest of our garden.

OCTOBER

In early October, Brandon had to have cataract surgery since the first retina surgery caused a cataract.

Once his eye had healed a little bit we attempted to take our family photos for the year. Succor creek and our camera had other plans and made sure that it was super windy and the camera refused to take a picture that wasn’t grainy. 

We managed to capture this beauty, though.

For Halloween this year, we went as Marilyn Manson and The Beautiful People.

NOVEMBER

We had a very nice Thanksgiving.

DECEMBER

We took some really nice family photos.

We plan to go see the Caldwell Christmas lights again this year as well.

Other things that happened this year

This stray cat adopted us. We named him Noot Noot. Our neighbor’s dogs scared him really badly, though, and we haven’t seen him since before Halloween.

We grew some cat grass. 

And we saw so many beautiful sunsets.

Thanks for tuning in!