Doermann Family Blog

I burst into tears and ran upstairs to see just what had happened to my hair. Initially it appeared I had lost TONS. It just looked like a frizzy mess of burnt hair. IT was that, but that was just the top layer. When I touched it, gobs were coming off in my hands, and it smelled so bad. Greg helped me wash it (after I realized my hand was on fire, figuratively at this point, and couldn't wash my own hair). After I got out of the shower we realized it wasn’t quite so bad as it had seemed. I lost a good amount around my part and the front of my hair, but not all the way to the scalp. Thus, it just looks like my hair is thinning. So my hair is worse than usual, but I console myself with the fact that it wasn't my best asset to begin with. The sorriest loss, are my eyelashes. The top lashes, as you can tell from the close up, are shorter than the bottom ones. Don’t my eyebrows look nice and trim! I think I might keep them this way… but maybe with scissors next time.

Also, we have access to the attic from the ceiling space in between ours and Pearl's room (the bedrooms are upstairs and around a few corners from where the blast was) and apparently the force or change in pressure , could be that those are the same thing (Greg explained the physics of it to me at the time, but I was more concerned about my hair and hand at that point) ...caused the little door to pop open, and I'm assuming fly up and break when it landed all crooked in the spot where it used to lie nice and flat.

Apparently it takes about 4 hours for the unbelievable pain from a 2nd degree burn to stop. So, it was a pretty long night for me. My forehead, as you can see in the pictures didn't suffer too much. Just some small 1st degree patches all over my face. I didn't even realize that had happened until two days later when I had red, sensitive patches everywhere. BUT MY HAND!!! Labor was the worst experience of my life, but it was a different kind of pain. This though, the 4 hour burning, was so horrible. I mean, I sobbed, and I am not one to cry in pain—at least not as an adult. So, embarrassing as it is to admit how stupid I am at times, if my mistake can prevent someone else from such an experience... it's worth sharing.

So, we came home one evening and there were a bunch of kitties right outside our door (not that uncommon). Pearl refused to come inside because she wanted to pet the kitties (also, not that uncommon). So, we let her stay on the porch trying to get the kitties to let her hug and kiss them. The door was barely open so we could keep an eye on her. After a few minutes she decides to come in, so I shut the door and go back to making dinner. A few seconds later Greg comes in the room and says "Why is there a cat in the house?" No wonder why Pearl willingly came inside! She was sitting on the floor just loving that cat. Naturally it wasn't allowed to stay for long, and Pearl of course went right outside with it. This time we shut the door. Pearl opened it herself, and went up the stairs with it (which are out of my sight from the kitchen) DISGUSTING!!!! But she loved it. Too bad everyone's allerigic and they have hair and are gross and annoying, otherwise we might be pursuaded to get her one for Christmas. No way though. A good percentage of Pearl's day is spent talking about, looking for, staring at and chasing kitties. It's just as bad with dogs, but there are less of those in our neighborhood.

Pearl and Grandma at the Festival of Trees. It's a charity event for Primary Children's Hospital where people decorate trees, wreaths, etc and they are sold at auction. Pearl was such a good sport... there were hundreds of beautiful trees that Pearl could only look at. She loved the bear and dog themed trees the most.

Never turn your back on Pearl and a block of cheese.

Pearl loves to destroy her room every day during nap time. She pulls out all her toys, books, stuffed animals and plays with them and then usually crashes right in the middle of them.

Pearl on Halloween! We had a neighborhood carnival then went trick-or-treating. Pearl LOVED her costume and all the candy.

Oma got Pearl a new dress when we went to Oktoberfest at Snowbird this year. She was so proud of it and flaunted around as though she was the prettiest thing in the world.

We took a vacation with the Doermann side this week. We went up to Jordanelle State Park near Park City, UT. The first night was a bit scary with lightning all around us for a couple of hours. One even hit the lake about 100 yards from us.

It was Pearl's first time sleeping in a tent... and she had a great time. The first night she spent two hours running all around the tent squealing with delight while we tried to sleep.

We had a fun time boating as well. I tried to wakeboard and kneeboard as much as Tyler... and in the morning I was too sore to do anything... It was awful, I felt like an old man. I did seem to get more air than him though... and he kept falling (see slide show). It was fun to see him continue to crash and burn.