Summer

Summer is coming so fast! Only nine days of school left and then we are FREE! 

Personal photo

Summer is a good time to travel, relax, hang out with your friends and family, and catch up on some well overdue and well deserved sleep. After nine months of getting six hours of sleep or less, I think it's safe to say that you can sleep in.
Though summer is amazing and all, often you find yourself bored with nothing to do. Here are some ideas of things to do this summer: 

1. Go to the beach or the pool: we are fortunate enough to live in the beautiful state of Michigan where there are so many lakes and public beaches. Grand haven beach on Lake Michigan is only approximately an hour away from Okemos, and is fun for everyone. Every night in the summer there is a firework show at dusk. The downtown has many great shops and restaurants to enjoy also. Also in the area there are many options for places to go to the pool. There is Court one, the MAC, the Uclub, and many more. 

   

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2. Walk around campus: Officially or just by yourself. Summer before junior year of high school is the perfect time to tour colleges and MSU is right in our back yard. Don't limit yourself just to that though, there are tons of wonderful colleges in our state to look at as well. he Decision of what to do after high school is approaching fast... better be prepared and start looking sooner than later

   

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3. Make homemade popsicles: This is a thing that my family does all the time in the summer. These popsicles are very healthy for you and taste so much better in my opinion. There are many ways to do this. 1) Blend whatever fruits together then pour them in the mold. 2) Put yogurt in a mold. 3) Put plain fruit into a mold (watermelon is my favorite for this kind)           4) Make a smoothie of your choice and pour it into a popsicle mold. This is a good way to stay cool during the hot summer also.
4. Explore trails in Okemos: There are many trails in Okemos, some that not many people know about or use. They are perfect for riding your bike, walking, or running through. There are trails at Kinawa, Sylvan Glen, Briarwood, Harris Nature Center, Lake Lansing and many more wonderful trails.

   

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5. Pick Berries: There are many very farms around the Mid-Michigan area that have options of different berries to pick. The best time to go is words the middle of the summer because that is when they are the most seasoned 

   

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I hope that this has given you some ideas of things to do this summer! Have a wonderful summer. 

Childrens Ballet Theater of Michigan's: Cinderella

Every year the Children's Ballet Theater of Michigan prepares for months and performs the Nutcracker at the Wharton Center and then in the spring we perform a story ballet at Holt High School's auditorium. The Ballets are top notch and you won't find anything like them anywhere in mid-Michigan ( no matter what anyone tells you, and no I'm not being bias). The costuming, sets, props, music and choreography is all carefully done to make our shows look almost as professional as a production done by any professional company out there.

I have been a member of this company for many years now and I am extremely excited for the upcoming production. This spring we are doing CINDERELLA the ballet. In the ballet there is the ugly stepsisters, who bring a lot of laughter to the show, Cinderella, who everybody knows and loves, Prince Charming, Fairy Godmother, The stepmother, And the four fairies, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter there also are other parts, but these are the principal ones. Though the four fairies are not seen in the movies, all ballerinas know that they are always in the ballet version of Cinderella.

Photo Credit: CBT 

The ballet version of Cinderella is  sort of different than the fairy tale version. Cinderella starts showing the story of how her mother dies, then her father re marries and then her mother dies and she is left to live with her mean stepmother and her two stepsisters, who none of them treat her well at all. There is a scene where Cinderella lets homeless children eat at her house and her stepmother freaks out and then that is when the Fairy Godmother comes in and takes her away.
First they end up in a beautiful forest, where Cinderella's Fairy Godmother resides. There they meet the four fairies, who dance for her, and other creatures of the area also welcome her with dance. The Fairies present her with a gown, a mask, a crown, and shoes to wear to the ball. She changes within seconds and looks like the true princess. When it is time to leave, the "time keepers" come to let her know it's time to leave and off they go... to the ball.
At the ball, Prince Charming is looking for a suitable princess and he ultimately chooses Cinderella but before she has time to reveal herself to him, the time keepers return and Cinderella must leave once again, and on her way out the prince finds one of her shoes and is determined to find her.
Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother end up in a village where they meet the locals and have a great time while hiding from the prince's men and her family who are looking for her.
The next morning, The prince and his men come to the house of Cinderella and try the shoe on everyone and it fits her (because it's her shoe) and her and the prince get married and live happily ever after.

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I am overjoyed that I was cast as one of the four fairies. It is my first principal role in my ballet career and I have never been happier. I was cast as the Summer Fairy. It is extra exciting for me because i get my own solo/variation plus I get to do other things such as codas and dances that I normally would not get the honor of doing.

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Our production is based off this story and so much more, anyone who comes to see it will not be let down. The show runs may 6-9th, the 6&7 are at 7:00pm and the 8th is at 2:00pm at Holt High School Auditorium. This is a link to the video of a preview from the ballet a couple years back and it is still a good representation of the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRrkN70a_CY

Fruit Pizza

On a happier note than my two previous posts i thought i would share a recipe. With spring just around the corner, i thought it would be appropriate to share a recipe that screams spring. The recipe is a "fruit pizza". It is super easy to make and super delicious at the same time. My family always brings it to group events because it can feed a lot of people for desert or even breakfast.

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Ingredients:

1 package of refrigerated sugar cookie dough

1 package of cream cheese 

1 container of frozen whipped topping (thawed)

2 cups of sliced strawberries
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/4 cup of water
2 bananas
3 kiwis
1 small box of blueberries
lemon juice (optional)

creative commons 

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees  
2. Slice cookie dough and arrange on greased pizza pan, overlapping edges. Press dough flat into pan. 3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden. 
4. Cool for 10 mins 5. In a large bowl, soften cream cheese, then fold in the whipped topping. 
6. Spread evenly all over the cooled crust. 
7. Chill or arrange the fruit.8. Slice strawberries in half, along with slicing bananas and putting lemon juice on them so they do not brown 
9. Arrange strawberries in a circle around the outside edge. Continue with other suggested fruit of your choice, working towards the middle. 10. In a saucepan, combine sugar, salt, corn starch, orange juice, and water. Cook and stir over medium heat. 
11. boil for 1 or 2 minutes
12. Remove from heat
13. Allow to cool but don't let it set completely 
14. Spread the mixture evenly over fruit. 
15. Chill for a few hours, then cut into wedges and serve.

This can feed up to 16 people and takes approximentaly 45 minutes to make it in total. The most fun part in my opinion is that you can choose the shape that you want to place your fruit in! Sometimes you can make it festive. For Christmas you can place the fruit in the shape of a tree or at spring you can make a flower. For someones birthday you can put it in their first initial or something fun like that!

Ear Extravaganza pt. 2

So this is the "fun" stuff. Actually it is not fun at all but it is an interesting story to tell and many people find it fun to listen to or gross either one works. So last post, I shared the story of discovering the disease and what it is and how it can effect me.Now i am going to write about the adventure that got me to where i am today!

After the initial discovery I underwent 4 different procedures in Ohio, where i lived at the time. And besides the fact that surgery sucks, is that the surgurys all were a dramatic fail! with that said, When we moved to Michigan for my dads job, we got into another ENT office in Lansing. I had another few surgeries with him. He also failed even more dramatically than the other doctor.
We determined it was too big of a problem and we needed to see a better guy.

I was then referred to Michael LaRouere from the Michigan Ear institute, and he was very confident that he could "cure" me. So he performed three surgeries i believe, on me that were more invasive to try to get all of the cells during surgery. When he got in there he found that it was much more than he expected. Cholesteatomas can be the size of a pearl or the size of a baseball ball.

You can't actually see the cholesteatoma on this X-ray 

He found that the cholesteatoma had spread all throughout my mastoid and destroyed my whole inner ear and was ONE MILLIMETER FROM MY BRAIN and it had WRAPPED ITSELF AROUND THE FACIAL NERVE.
This is so terrifying! So they had a huge challenge to get the whole cholesteatoma without toughing the brain or facial nerve plus trying to keep as much of my hearing intact as possible. In hindsight, if I did not have that surgery the day that i did there was a huge chance that i could have facial paralysis and / or brain damage. And they would not know what happened with my brain or facial nerve until i woke up and spend some extremely boring and painful time in the hospital, but they already knew that i had lost all of my hearing. Thankfully it turns out that i had no brain damage or facial paralysis.

Three years later we find out that the Cholesteatoma has come back, this time it has grown out of the capability of my doctors hands. So we had to go to the University of Iowa Children's Hospital in Iowa  City and see Dr. Bruce Gantz. He does a different kind of surgery where he, shaves the right side of your head, opens you up a little above your ear in a semi circle, removes the cholesteatoma and takes some skull, shaves it down to sawdust kind of, and uses the bone to fill the all the space that the Cholesteatoma grows that is harder to reach. And the surgery was super successful but still no hearing. Six months later i have another surgery with Dr. Gantz to put hearing devices in my ear that is supposed to help me hear better. That ultimently failed.
After every surgery my head is wrapped in an inch deep layer of head gause and a big cone around my ear and it makes you look so funny because you can't open your mouth and you have a bunch of tubes coming out of you and for ear/head surgery you had to have a tube from your head, its a sad/funny type of thing (trying to keep it light). And the recovery is awful but i won't get into that.

So in the end i am Cholesteatoma free and half deaf, not ideal but better than brain damage and facial paralysis. Now i just go to Iowa a few times a year to make sure i'm okay!
3 Cholesteatoma surgeries
3 Surgeries to try and restore hearing
5 Other surgeries to prevent Cholesteatoma
THE END

ear extravaganza part 1

      So most people don't know a whole lot about the ear. I am one of those people who have a lot of knowledge about the little hearing machine. It is so complex and interesting I often wonder why more people don't have an interest in this. The story I am about to tell is what feels my drive to be an Otolaryngologist (ENT) eventually.
       When i was about four years old, I began getting awful ear pains so my parents took me to the doctor. The doctor would give me some medicine and  diagnosed me with an average ear infection. This happened about 10 times before the Pediatrician realized that this was not normal and there was something greater going on that they could not fix for me with medicine and referred me to a specialist.
      They sent me to an ENT and they ran a MRI scan and a CT to see if they could get any more information and they ended up learning nothing. They assumed there was just a bunch of pressure built up behind my ear drum so they made me have a surgery to place tube in my ear, that would relieve my pain. But what they found once they put the tube in that allowed them to see into my ear better was that what they were dealing with was not just a little pressure but it was a rare aggressive and destructive tumor that had invaded my inner ear and who knows where else.
      So with that said they scheduled another surgery to explore my inner ear and skull space (mastoid) in a surgery called a mastoidectomy. They would shave a little of my head, and make an incision behind my ear, open it up and see what they find. I was four at the time so this was extremely scary. They found that the tumor was called a Cholesteatoma and thankfully they removed it but it wasn't easy.

      What happens is the growth starts in the middle ear due to a poorly functioning eustation tube and it feeds off of water or any type of moisture, so anytime you shower or go swimming, it essentially grows. Next it basically eats your whole inner ear leaving it not working and you not be able to hear which really sucks. After that it progresses to fill all of the pockets of the mastoid bone ( it gets compared to an english muffin because of the holes in it) and when it gets to that point it is extremely hard to remove because of how intricate the space it grows is. Next it gets through the mastoid bone and reaches the facial nerve if it goes in one direction or the brain if it grows in the other or both. This is the worst case scenario because you end up with facial paralysis or brain damage.

     Thankfully they found it only invaded my inner ear leaving me basically deaf in my right ear(which really is super annoying) and not allowed to get it wet which means no swimming and a new way of showering but more importantly little did the doctors and my family know, the surgeons were not able to resect the whole tumor and it would grow to be much greater and extremely dangerous in the future.
      This that I just told you is basically the back story of how they discovered that I had something wrong with me and what it is. My next post will get to the "good" stuff when it reaches the facial nerve and gets basically to brain!!

Snickerdoodle Blondie Bars

Blondie bars are one of the most delicious desserts on this planet. Along with the blondie bars, snickerdoodle cookies are my absolute favorite cookie. So when you put the two together in one recipe and make snickerdoodle blondies you will never make another dessert again. I made these yummy treats over winter break because there was so much down time and they were magnificent.

(photo credit: pinchofyum.com)

Ingredients you will need: 

• 2 & 2/3 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 cups of brown sugar
• 1 cup of butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of cinnamon chips

Now what you have you ingredients, it's time to make the batter/dough!!

Instructions for making the batter/dough:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray, then line the pan with parchment paper ( let it drape over the sides a little bit), then spray the parchment paper with cooking spray.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cream of tartar and salt together(set this bowl aside)
4. In a large bowl, mix together butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer for three to five minutes. next, mix in eggs to the brown sugar and butter one at a time, then vanilla.
5. Stir in the flour mixture so it is well blended.
6. Stir in cinnamon chips
7. Pour the batter into the pan and spread it out evenly (it will be thick). You can spray your hands with cooking spray and pat the batter down evenly. 
8. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the surface of the batter comes back up when it is lightly pressed down.
9. Remove from the oven. Let cool completely.
10. Once it is cooled and ready to be cut and eaten, use  the ends of the parchment paper to remove the bars from the pan.
11. Enjoy!

Now that you know just how yummy the bars are, I have thought of a few ideas of different ways to serve and eat your snickerdoodle blondies. 

-You can serve them cooled

-You can serve them warm

-You can serve them warm with vanilla ice cream on top

-You can cut two identical pieces of the bar, and put ice cream in the middle! (just like an ice cream sandwich) 

I hope you enjoy these as much as i did!

Christmas Traditions

During the Christmas season there are many traditions that happen every single year for many families that I know of. My family has so many traditions I thought I would document them on the blog. 

1) Christmas cookies with all of the neighbors: Every year since my family moved to Michigan, our next door neighbors, the Connor's have all of the neighborhood children over to decorate cookies. It is a pretty big group of people and the ages range from as young as two years old to parent aged people that all come together to decorate cookies together. So fun!

  

Photo Credit: Personal Photo 

2) Cutting down a christmas tree:  The Heise tree farm was a Christmas tree farm in Ann Arbor owned by my family; the Heise's. Unfortunately when my grandfather passed away, they had to shut it down and sell the land and it is no longer a tree farm. But since that happened, we have gotten a tree elsewhere. Every year my family brings our grandma along with us to pick out a tree for our house and then we bring it home and decorate it together and put lights and ornaments on it. 

Photo Credit: Personal Photo

3) Christmas Eve Baking and Movie Marathon:   Every Christmas eve all of the girls in my family wakes up early and begins baking hundreds of baked goods. Regularly we make chocolate chip tea cakes, peppermint bark, sugar cookies, and chocolate buttons plus any random things we think of making as well. After everything is made, we put a mixture of the treats on different plates and wrap them with plastic wrap with a bow on top and deliver them to our family and friends.

After Church, all of the kids of the family (even the babies)  and some adults if they're up for it, the cousins all have a movie marathon we normally watch an average of five or six movies. 

4) Christmas Day:  Have you ever watched the show on abc called "Modern Family" about a huge crazy family? Well that show might as well be about the Heise family. My family is huge and crazy, there are 9 cousins, 3 sets of uncle and aunts plus four grandparents. It's madness. They all live in ann arbor area or willis michigan and because my immediate family s the only ones who live in okemos, we have to drive all the way there, but it's well worth it to see my family.

5) Massive Sleepover at Grandma's house and Costco:  Just for fun all of the cousins sleepover at my grandma's house every single christmas and have a massive sleepover. The next morning we eat breakfast then soon after the uncles pile us into the cars and we go to Costco. Kinda weird right? Apparently there's good deals on food or something. The girls seem to get lost in the store every year.

6) Neighborhood kick the can tournament:  After the actual Christmas celebrations and everyone's back home from their holiday celebrations with their family, we play kick the can with the neighborhood kids, this tradition started three years ago and I assume it will continue this year as well. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday break, what are some of your family's holiday traditions?