Day 11 - GUEST POST!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome Dear Readers to the first (of possibly many) Guest Posts.

Today we hear from world renowned authors Gaby Stava and Courtney Camperell, Jen's most favorite people in the entire world.

Craving of the Day: Gaby and Courtney

We should start off by letting you know that when we travelled in from Los Angeles, we had many fears. These included….making Jen laugh too hard…and killing her. Making Jen cry…and killing her. And eating too much food in front of a sleep and food deprived Jen Maillo…and killing her spirit. However, when we arrived late Friday night, we were pleasantly surprised!

You can wire a girl's mouth shut but you can't wire shut her spirit.  As soon as we saw her trying to smile with her eyes we knew the same ol' hilarious Jen was in there.  We asked some questions, shared some stories and laughed a little - but not too much for fear of night time spasms. We even were treated to a video of Jen's surgery experience! After awhile we could understand most of Jen's grunts, and if not there was always her vocal app (Stephana Hawking) Kevin shuttled us off to the apartment complete with thermostat tutorial and thorough TV remote instructions from Ms. Jen.

After a restful night of sleep, we set off to grab breakfast (with college chums Cady Kollen-Fuste and Annie Green) in order to avoid eating in front of Jen. We only had beef broth Jen, I promise. Afterwards, we headed back to Jen's moms for movies, avoiding Francis's bites, more movies, and general hangouts. People texted us throughout the day asking how Jen was, and we pretty much continually had to brag about how well Jen was doing. I swear, I don't think we would last a day with our mouths wired shut, trying to still crack jokes, while on an all liquid diet (including a lemon poundcake concoction we found good, but pretty sure Jen was just putting on a good face for--pun intended). Eventually, us non-bane humans needed to have dinner, and Jen went on an outing with us to dinner without complaining once!

After a delicious "Thai" dinner from Taiwan we headed back to watch Jurassic Park - yes everyone, I (Gaby) had not seen the entire movie until tonight but fear not I am officially a member of the team now.  My life has been changed for the better and I feel like a new person.  All and all the weekend so far has been a blast.  We binged on some Theatre of Life videos and laughed until we spasmed.  Jen is doing 4,000 times better than we expected.  I was thinking we'd see her for an hour or so and that she'd look like death.  The girl is a champ and between her sarcastic noises and text-to-talk app it's like nothing has changed. She even doesn't look that swollen anymore! Show off…

We'd like to think that we are the reason for Jen's speedy recovery, but the truth is she has some pretty awesome people behind her. Her dad is always making her laugh and stay positive (even to the point where Kevin has to tell Jen to cool it down and stop laughing), her mom spends every waking moment making sure she is comfortable, and she has the most amazing boyfriend to keep her spirits up and brags about how much of a champ she's been. He even remarked on how cute it was that she could still do her "Jenny laugh" with her mouth closed shut. She's pretty lucky, and we have no doubt that she's going to rock this recovery.

Until next time (possibly tomorrow after more adventures), dear readers, good night!

Shows Watched:
House Hunters (with a weird guy with four cats!)
Footloose (the new one)
The Heat
Jurassic Park
Mighty Ducks

Shakes Devoured:
Ensure
"Fried Chicken"
Lemon/Apple Surprise
Chocolate Peanut Butter