Home Sweet Home

Sometimes I think the best part of a vacation is coming home and laying your head on your own pillow. Man that feels good!

First we drove straight through to the Washington, DC area to visit Hubby's family. We had a good time & for the first time in a long time, all of the grandkids were together. It was really nice to see some of Hubby's cousins that we don't get to see very often & we were thrilled to be able to finally spend some time with our cutie patootie niece.

So we got to DC in time to go to bed on Fri night (July 10) & we headed out for our vacation part of the trip on Tuesday morning. Vacation this time: Camping in the Smokey Mountains. We actually camped "in" Cherokee, NC & had a blast. We stayed at a Jellystone campground & Little Man was SO excited to actually see Yogi & Cindy Bear. SO CUTE.

Thankfully the rain pretty much stayed away during the day but the last 2 nights there saw some thunderstorms. That was interesting. That was also the end of our tent camping days.

We officially have a "pop up" fund for next year, lol.

So here we are, 3600 miles later, HOME SWEET HOME.

Pictures to follow once I get them onto the computer.

Hello from Jellystone!

We're in the Smokey Mountains.

In a tent.

It's raining.

THANK GOD for our fan.

We've Lost Our Minds

That's right folks...we've lost it! :)

Thursday I packed the van & when Hubby got home from work we left town, driving straight through to the Washington, DC area to visit Hubby's family. That's a long drive. No, really long as in over 24 hours. Especially with a 3yo & a 14mo. It really wasn't that bad though. The boys sure were ready to get out of the car when we got here though, lol. Who could blame them.

So we're here a few days & then we'll go camping in the Smoky's a few days before heading back home. Should be a decent get-a-way.

By the way: I just have to tell you how frustrated I am. People just cannot understand Apraxia/dyspraxia. I'm honestly just as sick of dealing with this stuff as I am of explaining it. I can't stand when we're away from home because Little Man hardly eats and being in groups of people makes it SO much worse. And honestly, until you've walked a mile in our shoes I don't think it's really even possible to understand it but that doesn't make it any easier on us when people choose to judge us, him or the situation.

Eh, I'm not really in a great mood tonight anyway.

G'night folks!

Home Sweet Home

Some people say Home is where the heart is. I say it's where the comfy bed is!! We stayed at a Radisson & Hubby was excited to try out the sleep number bed. UGH! He says it was the best 3 nights sleep he's ever had. I say 3 worst. Okay maybe not worst but they were bad.

We finally got home a little after 1am on Fri night/Sat morning and having a VERY full day of MA, RI & flying with 2 little ones to get home. My bed never felt so good. I couldn't believe how swollen I was! I'm not THAT far along (19ish weeks) and swelling daily now. Great.

The boys were great on the planes. Once again, it never gets old to have people tell you how well your children behaved in a situation like that. Believe me, there is very little I can do to control my 13mo anyway, lol.

So nice to be home!

Will write about "the creepy guy" in just a bit.

PBS

PBS is one of those strange little things. It's not dependable. Disney is dependable. It doesn't matter what time zone you're in, you know what's going to come on & when.

Since I'm stuck in a hotel room on a rainy day with 2 little boys you'd better believe the tv is on children's programming in the background.

This hotel for whatever reason does NOT have Disney. They don't even have Nick!! I don't really care for Nick but I'd take that over all the news channels. This hotel does a lot of business with businessy types. Not so much the families.

I'm not sure if this is a station out of Boston or what but it SUCKS! Little Man LOVES the PBS line up we have back home. I was disgusted today when this station showed the same episode of Word World as they did yesterday. Come on now...I know there aren't just a jillion of these shows yet but did you really have to show it twice in a row?? Ugh! Little Man LOVES that show with all the letters and spelling.

They show Bob the Builder here. I had no idea ANYONE still aired Bob the Builder, lol. OMGosh! Some STUPID show, Martha the talking dog or something? Holy Cow that was just LAME...and also not on our line up down there.

Good thing we brought the DVD player & hook ups for the TV. :)

They are showing Barney right now for the second time today. Once is plenty...that's FOR SURE, lol. Oh wait! This is either the same episode as earlier this morning or yesterday. Great...how original!

Once this is over the kiddie programming is over. We'll go for a walk around the hotel (not outside because it's cold & raining) but the hotel itself is pretty cool. It looks like a castle & it's HUGE. Then we'll come back, have lunch & let them pick a movie to put on as their next round of background noise.

Tonight is our last night here. Tomorrow we are going to go see some beaches before we fly back home. We won't be getting home until VERY late tomorrow night. We took the last flight out we could get so we'd have the whole day to enjoy. :)

Random Thoughts

One of the most disgusting sounds to me: Scooping scrambled eggs out of a larger container of scrambled eggs. YUCK.

Today, I again took the boys down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast (included in our stay) and as I dipped that spoon into that big nasty batch of eggs, the squishy, nasty sound just made me cringe. As it did yesterday & I'm sure it will again tomorrow. YUCK!

Now You know why I called it Random thoughts!! lol

Little Man is eating up the spelling like crazy. Today at breakfast he learned how to spell EGG & BUG. Yes there were eggs, but no...thankfully no bugs showed up to join us. Speaking of eggs, he is STILL obsessed with them. I brought him his plate of food and he insisted that I go back and get him eggs. Yesterday I FINALLY got him to take one bite. It went something like this.

Me: "Good Job eating the yummy egg! Was that yummy?"
Him: "Yeah" (just so you know he's allowed to say 'yeah' because he cannot say 'yes' and at least everyone understands 'yeah' unlike his previous chosen word of 'ah-hee')
Me: "I'm glad you like the eggs, do you want another bite?"
Him: "MO" (that means NO)

And that was it for the eggs. Today I asked if he had any intention of eating them and he told me, "MO". I asked if he was just going to look at them and he said, "Yeah". HA! I love that kid!!!


He can now spell (& pick the word out of a line up) & write:

• ball
• cat
• mom
• dad
• bug
• bat
• dog
• hi
• big
• hot
• fly (he learned this one on the airplane)

He can also spell his & his brother's names. Although he can't say either of them properly. Or even close for that matter, lol. There are probably more words but this is all I can think of off the top of my head.

Peanut. That kid is a mess. First night here none of us got any sleep. Yesterday the child who still usually takes 3 naps only took ONE 1 hour nap. OMG! So he's asleep right now, YAY!

Yesterday he took like 3 or 4 slow steps sideways while he thought I wasn' t looking so I decided to try to get him to walk some more but this time noticed that now he's turning his right foot out, dragging it & really doesn't want to walk forward. He's had no problem with us holding his hands and walking, he just won't do it on his own. But now even with holding our hands he's doing this. I hope it's extremely temporary.

He laughs hysterically when you call him a monkey or a piggy. He also loves to be tickled of course. It's been quite some time since I've had my camera out so I took a few last night.

Man I hope Peanut grows into his head.

What a Day!

Well we did make it here to New Hampshire today. Most of the 'drama' was of the amusing kind.

Things like our taking bets on how long it would take Peanut to start screaming on a plane. (I won!) Things like the only pull up I had left that ended up in the toilet at the airport in Cleveland. Watching poor Little Man do the potty dance for what felt like forever while waiting to get off that airplane in Cleveland. Hubby's "happy child at Christmas" routine when he realized it was in deed a Tahoe that we were renting.

I can only imagine what we must have looked like with each of us pushing a child in a stroller and lugging 2 car seat bags, one large suitcase, a laptop bag with TWO laptops in it, the portable DVD bag, diaper bag, Little Man's Elmo backpack, & another bag that had nothing but snacks for the week in it. Yes, we know how to travel light! :)

At least we're old pros with airport security even though it's still a PIA.

I think we've sworn off flying for a while. Also still a PIA. Maybe when the kids are older but UGH on how much it takes to get from point A to point B. Then there was the issue of where we flew into (Providence). We typically opt for the straight through flight. Somehow we ended up with a connecting flight but the only thing I can remember about booking this travel was that it had SOMETHING to do with cost & schedule.

Let me just say, I live in the wrong place for summer! At home it's been up near 100 for the past week it seems. Yes, that's well above normal for us there this time of year. We were talking to the man driving the shuttle for the car rental from the airport when we mentioned how great it feels outside. He informed us that they are getting irritated here because it's been more cool & wet up here lately. They are ready for summer. I am thankful their summer has not yet arrived!

We are sleeping with the hotel window open tonight and I'm pretty sure I'll have to close it before I go crawl in bed.

On the other hand, I have ZERO desire to ever live in a winter wonderland again. NONE. Not to say I wouldn't, just that I don't care to.

Now since I have rambled on & on, I leave you with the icing on our cake this evening (because I have a couple of 'bad' stories that I can't even tell here. I'd get Hubby in TOO MUCH trouble) ...Shortly before bedtime tonight, I discovered that Peanut has scarlet fever. Great.

Good News: No fever, he seems to be fine so we'll call his pedi in the a.m. & have her call in something up here.

And a recap for those who don't remember when Little Man had it a couple of summers ago (ironically shortly AFTER visiting NH) Scarlet Fever needs a name change so that people will stop thinking about how things were 100 years ago. It's just strep folks. It's a rash that is caused by toxins released with the strep. If you're sensitive to the toxins, you get the rash. There are lots of forms of strep.

OH: One last thing before I go; it took Peanut about 2 seconds to start screaming when we got on the plane. Almost like he was claustrophobic or something. He did calm down & take a good nap on the plane. He actually did really well on both flights & gave us limited trouble.

Not a Happy Camper!

Yesterday morning after looking at the preschool that Little Man is going to go to in the fall, we headed out for the nearly 4 hour trek to Garner State Park. The plan was to spend a relaxing weekend in preparation for the next 5 weekends, which will not be so relaxing because we have so many plans for them.

On the way there, it became incredibly obvious that little man was experiencing an allergic reaction to the antibiotic he was nearly done with taking. OMG...that's it's own story but here are the pictures that just don't do it any justice.

We finally make it to Garner, between phone calls with the nurse & stopping for much needed things. After the 3rd attempt to pick a site, we finally decide on one and set up camp. It really wasn't THAT busy Fri night & of course the park is massive. There is nobody in the 10+ sites near us. As I laid there pondering how in the world we were going to stay warm that night, I hear Hubby say, "Look who's moving into the neighborhood." I look and think to myself, 'OMG' but instead say, "It might not be so bad."

Unfortunately these people fit every single stereotype you could think of. It was AWFUL. And they weren't drunk yet!!! They had clearly picked those spots due to the close proximity of the restrooms since there were so many children with them. Oh yes...and several of the ladies were pregnant, lol. Once they crank up the music I hear him say, "Oh Hell No!" And the rest is history.

We also had a little issue with the tent. The canpoy that is supposed to go over it is missing and neither of us realized it. That meant that even though we'd taken a heater with us, that warm air was going to go out as fast as it was coming out of the heater.

With all of these issues going on, we decided it was time to go. We packed up and got home about 1:30 this morning.

We're headed out now to a park closer to the house. Maybe this time I'll have good and "fun" pictures to share. :)

St Louis - Part II (The Arch)

First of all, Tammy & Mike...THANK YOU! for hosting us. We all had such a great time and Little Man had a blast. He calls Tammy, "Hammy" OMG so cute. The weather was awesome for 99% of the trip. With temps well above normal we were able to spend a good amount of time outside.

Anyhow, first a few pictures from the Gateway Arch.

And a few random pictures taken from the trip:

How cute are the boys? Seriously though!

St Louis - Part I

Obviously we've been back almost a week and I am just now getting this together. I've been sick and now both of the boys are sick as well so energy isn't exactly what I'd call plentiful right now.

To get back in the groove, let's start with pictures from the St Louis Science Center. That place was SO COOL! Free unless you indulge in the concessions or shows and the place has so much to do! The kids had a blast. We really should have spent more time there but I know we'll be back.

You have to take the skywalk across the interstate to get to the bulk of the place and this is the view. There are radar guns so you can see how fast the cars are going but as is apparent from the people chasing their dog in the middle of the freeway, it was closed for construction.

More Random Pics from the Science Center

They have an arch there that you build, which is really cool. Just a few shots of 'construction.'

Sea World

For Little Man's birthday we went to Sea World in San Antonio. Here is the slide show. Other than the fact that I got very sick while we were gone we had a great time.

Just want to point out that you can speed up, slow down or pause the slide show in the bottom left corner of it.

Updates

I am FINALLY trying to get some things updated around here. I've been working like mad to get pictures off the camera and onto the computer & eventually uploaded to the online photo album. I don't think I've ever been this far behind, but I also don't think things have ever been quite this crazy!

Things should settle down into a routine now and we can get back to business around here. Little Man had his physical therapy evaluation today and that was interesting. There is definitely much to be worked on and while his trunk is strong, his arms, hands, legs, ankles, etc are not. He has his assessment with the school district on Thursday to determine what services he'll be eligible for through them. Again...that should be interesting.

One of the great things is that Little Man is VERY interested in signing and he's trying hard. He's learning what they mean quickly. He can now spell his name if you sign the letters to him. He can also pick those letters out of a line up. Not too bad. I've got him spelling his name on video and you can find that in our online photo album in the VIDEOS-2008 Album. We're so proud of him. If you don't have the link handy, email me so I can send it to you.

I realized after I posted about Peanut's 4 month check up that Peanut is the same size at 4 1/2 months old as Little Man was at SIX months old. Crazy to me, especially considering Peanut was almost 2 months early when Little Man was only a month early. CRAZY!

And last but not least, a few pictures from our trip to DC.

Little Man with his adorable cousin.

Little Man making a face at me while feeding the ducks.

The 3 of them. Our niece (who was so upset we had to stick that pacifier in her mouth to get her to sit still, lol), Peanut & Little Man.

Remember how I said Peanut slept on the tray? Here it is. He slept like this basically the whole flight home.

Yay for clothes!

The good news is that our bag was found. The bad news is that it's not going to be delivered to us until sometime after midnight tonight, so I'm sleeping in tomorrow dang it!

I swear DC is cursed! LOL!!!!! Anyhow, not getting into that silly discussion here tonight, it's too late. We just don't have good luck here.

We're having a good time and it's really been great to spend time with our niece who recently turned 1. I don't have a nickname for her yet because I don't know her personality as well. Since we don't live near her, we aren't involved in her day to day life and we haven't even seen her since she was 4 months old.

Long story short, she's cute & just as busy as a 1 year old should be.

First pictures tonight are of the boys on the plane. Little Man is a seasoned pro (although it's been a while this time) but it was Peanut's first flight. He did so well and as I mentioned earlier he slept most of the flight on top of Hubby's tray. Gosh that was cute! I'll be sure to get a picture of it on the way home.

On a side note real quick, the thing Little Man is 'wearing' is the C.A.R.E.S. Restraint and we LOVE it!

I can't tell you how many ooohs & ahhhs we got today over Peanut sitting in the stroller like this:

Our niece (insert clever nickname here) thought Peanut was pretty cool. He reciprocated.

She's into EVERYTHING, lol. Including Peanut's carrier. :)

Okay I'm getting mad that I haven't heard from the courier service that is bringing our suitcase back to us yet. Grrr....

I cannot wait to get that dumb suitcase back. The more I thought about what was in it today the more upset & angry I got about it. At least Little Man will have his fleece Thomas blanket back for tomorrow night.

Time to go lay down and get some rest anyway.

I do NOT heart flying!

Well, we made it to Baltimore...but our clothes didn't.

On our way to the airport (we left the house at 3:45am) I realized neither of us had picked up Little Man's shoes. Thankfully Wallyworld is open 24 hours and I stopped in and bought the only pair in his size! Little did we know that was a sign at how our day would go.

The flight went smoothly and both boys did really well. Peanut slept on Hubby's tray for most of the flight (since he was by the window). We even got compliments from the people in front of us afterwards that our boys did so well & they didn't even realize there were kids behind them. That always makes a parent smile.


HOWEVER...Just beware that Southwest has decided to start charging $25 for EACH leg for a gate checked stroller. The lady was kind enough to waive it for us this morning and agreed it was a stupid policy. Yeah, like 2 of us are going to be able to carry all of our carry on items AND 2 kids. WHATEVER. Talk about taking advantage of people. BTW: Our carry ons consist of apnea monitor, laptop, portable DVD player, diaper bag & another diaper bag used for other toys and blankets. Then add on 2 car seat bags, a small suitcase, and a large suitcase. Believe it or not, we carried ALL of that by ourselves.

Of all the bags for the airline to lose, they lost our big one which had ALL of our clothes in it. Needless to say we are NOT happy and even more turned off than ever before on flying.

Okay, gotta go buy some clothes. I'll add some pictures of the boys on the plane later on. I've also got one of Peanut sitting in the stroller instead of the carrier. I can't begin to tell you how many people oohed and ahhhed about that, lol.

Okay...off to buy clothing for a family of four. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Great Trip

First of all, an update on my mom. She's doing better. They succesfully put her under and cleaned out the infected area. They should get the cultures back tomorrow (hopefully) to actually confirm the suspicions of MRSA. Hopefully she'll be able to leave the hospital on Wed and be back at work next Monday.

On another note: DAMN it feels good to be home, lol.

We did have a great trip though. 4300 miles worth of great trip.

Here are a few of the highlights.

Seeing old friends....

The National Zoo

Hanging out with family: SIL & her DD (b. Aug 3) & Cousin & her DS (b. July 19) and Little Man with the kids great grandma.

Little Man LOVED playing the piano with Granny

Pittsburgh Zoo (& Aquarium)

Eating Cake in Michigan

More friends...

The St Louis Zoo with friends...

By now you know where the rest of the pictures are *wink*

There are a ton of them and some videos too. Although I'm not done uploading the videos yet.

New England Vacation

July 16, 2007

We got back last Wed from a vacation in New England. We had a good time and really enjoyed getting to see the area up there. It's absolutely gorgeous with the mountains in New Hampshire and Maine's incredible coastline. We were disappointed with all the rain there which forced a lot of changes in our plans, but that's life.

A couple of pics from Maine:

You can view all of our vacation photos by checking the online album. If you don't know where it is, email me and I'll send you the link.

Little Man had so much fun with his grandparents and his cousin Daniel (who happens to be 11 years older than him).

Little Man will be starting his real feeding therapy at Texas Chidlren's Hospital next week. Hubby & I are both so excited about that and are extremely hopeful that this is going to teach him how to eat. If it doesn't work for some reason, we've got an evaluation scheduled for Sept at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

That's about it really. Plans for the week include a day out at the fair grounds in Brenham (Fri probably) to help celebrate Blue Bell's 100th Anniversary. Free Ice Cream anyone? LOL.

~a