I've been very busy recently, so here is an abbreviated summary of the end of 2009 for my family.
As previously noted, my father-in-law had moved in with us in November, and then he suddenly passed away the week before Thanksgiving. His funeral went well, and I spent one day before the funeral going through some of the things he had left in his old place that he had intended to move looking for financial paperwork. Then, my wife and I spent another day with a lot of help from friends and neighbors of his moving things out of his place and into storage before the November rent ran out. Each trip was 3+ hours each direction, so we tried to get as much done as we could each time. Sadly, the passing of my father-in-law lead to yet another straw on the camel's back of my wife and her remarried mother's relationship, and combined with the many other straws that had been piling up as my wife and her mother tried to build a new relationship, it has lead to my wife realizing that her mother is emotionally abusive to her and is not changing. We have cut off all contact again to protect my wife and children from further abuse.
In December, my oldest son had some difficulties at home and at school due to missing his grandpa. They were very close. We were afraid that he might try to start another fire, but instead his former obsessions with water and electricity manifested themselves when he took a radio power cord at school, filled a sink in the girls bathroom with water, and then connected the wires for the water faucet sensors to the radio power cord and dropped it in the water. Fortunately, he then went to the office to report that "someone" had done all that. We got him into his counselor, and he's been dealing with the grief and loss better since then. He's been helped a lot by having good family and friends around to spend time with.
The week before Christmas, we had my youngest son start wheezing due to some kind of cold combined with his asthma. We went to the doctor's office, and the PA who examined him did a strep culture, which came back negative. He then told us that it must be the flu, and the only flu going around right then was the swine flu. My youngest was put on Tamiflu, along with myself and another of my children since it was thought that we would have the most severe consequences if we got swine flu too. I started working from home so as not to infect anyone, and by about the third or fourth day we started thinking that it was a misdiagnosis. Thankfully, no one got very sick from whatever it was, but it was a pain to lay out $150 for all the Tamiflu. Still, that's better than what it would have cost without insurance.
It turned out to be a blessing that I was working from home that week. A few days before the "swine flu" incident, my wife started feeling sick to her stomach and having a lot of diarrhea. The week of Christmas, her pain intensified and became so severe that I had her into the ER early Wednesday morning, then again Christmas night, and then again the next morning. All of the tests were coming back negative, but the pain was so severe that she was admitted to another hospital so she could see a GI doctor before the next week. She was in the hospital for 4 days, and all of the tests still came back negative. She's been home for a week now, with little change. She can consume fluids, but anything very solid causes intense pain and vomiting. The best guess as to the cause has been an allergic reaction to some mineral supplements, but I'm doubting that guess now because she has stopped taking them and still isn't getting better. We are grateful that at least she can be home and rest in more comfort for the time being. She is scheduled for further testing next week, and we are considering what other options we might have in finding the cause and treatment for this condition.
Christmas itself was a very wonderful occasion, with both Santa AND a Secret Santa making an appearance at our house. We received a great outpouring of love and support from family, friends, and neighbors, and our hearts have been and continue to be touched by the kindness and generosity and love we have witnessed. My parents and youngest sister came out for a visit, and we had a wonderful day together (until about an hour or so after they left when the sudden pain for my wife came on).
So much for a brief summary! I just can't let this post end without pointing out that I think I understand the phrase "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" now. Even though we have had a rough several weeks, I find myself generally happy and feeling more grateful than angry or upset. God has heard and answered our prayers. His Son provided a way for us to return to live with Him again, and we celebrated his birth into this world. His children on this earth have been amazing examples of His love as they have so willingly stepped up and sacrificed of their own time and resources to assist my family. How could I feel anything but gratitude in the face of so many blessings?
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
How You Doin'?
It's been a while, so I thought I would give an update on what's been happening in our lives.
I have been able to take advantage of some time between clients to work on what my company calls "The Bench." This is time when I get to learn new technologies and skills to make myself more marketable while my company both pays my salary and tries to get me lined up with another client as soon as possible. I hear from my management that it's likely that I'll be on the bench through the end of the year, and after that, lots of clients will have new budgets and no more holiday slowdowns to deal with, and engagements should pick up again. It's been nice to be able to learn new things while also not having a lot of deadlines to deal with because my family has been having other issues to deal with. It's also been nice because I have been able to take some more time to learn from some investing classes, one that I bought about two years ago and have been slowly working on, and another from the same company that they asked me to beta test for them in exchange for free access to the class. I feel bad that I haven't taken better advantage of the opportunities to learn that I've had over the past few years, so I've been working harder to take advantage of these opportunities now.
My wife has been dealing with her online business, www.ctr-ring.com, taking care of our four kids with special needs, helping her father deal with his medical and work issues, and dealing with her own health problems. She has been dealing with a chronic sinus infection, along with other general aches and pains. She may need to have surgery at some point to straighten a deviated septum, but we've had so many medical bills this year that she is trying to postpone that for now. She is a real trooper to put up with all of the things going on, but I can tell that it exhausts her.
Her father is unable to pay his rent on the disability income he is getting from his employer right now, so he is going to work on getting loose ends tied up where he is and move in with us in the next month or so. We will charge him less rent and help with food and utilities expenses while he works on getting his pain management and disability issues ironed out. The hope is that he can be settled down and into a new job based on the amount of social security disability income he can get in 3 to 4 months.
My oldest son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with new medicines, a new school year, and new routines. We've switched off from one of his two new medicines as it seemed to make him more anxious rather than less, and we've put him back onto his old medicine for the time being. The other new medicine continues to appear to be working well for him. He is trying to learn how to deal with the way the Aspergers causes him to interpret the things that are happening in his life, and that can be a stress for him and us. Overall, though, he seems to be much more like his old, wonderful self, with far less inclination to carry thoughts to extremes.
My second son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with my older son, a new school year, and new routines. He sometimes seems to have middle child syndrome, where he feels that he is being overlooked since so many other things require so much of our attention. He loves to go on dates with us, but he also likes to try to avoid doing his chores and other responsibilities in order to earn those dates and other rewards. He is a good worker when he puts his mind to the task, though. He recently got to move to the basement along with his baby brother, and he seems to be enjoying being the one "in control" of the room, except when he has to clean it. He continues to do very well in school and being the charmer in his classes.
My daughter has been getting several evaluations recently to see if she has Asperger Syndrome, now that we know what it looks like. All indications so far point to her having it. She scored higher in the academic testing than any other child her age that this doctor had ever tested, and she scored pretty low in the social skills testing, which is very typical of Aspergers. We don't think that she has the Tourette Syndrome that our oldest has, so at least it's a little bit easier in that regard. At this point, there doesn't appear to be any need for medications, but we continue to work toward getting an official diagnosis so that we can arrange other services for her help, especially once she starts school next fall. She loves to dance and be a princess, and she is usually quite helpful when she's not tired. She too loves to go on dates, especially when she can convince us to take her to McDonald's so she can play in the playground and eat ice cream.
My youngest son continues to have occasional bouts with asthma, though we are getting a little better at treating him before we have to end up in the ER for oxygen. The last time we went to the ER, his oxygen levels were low, but not quite low enough to keep him there for as long as we have had to in the past. He was given oxygen as a preventative measure while the medicines kicked in to open up his airways. He is learning to talk a lot more, though, as the youngest, he doesn't feel a lot of drive to learn everything right now. He says what he wants to say, and he just goes and does what he feels like he wants to do if he has to. He has learned to push chairs and other objects to where ever he needs to climb up on something, and we find him having obtained many items we had thought to be out of his reach. We also notice a slow decline in the amount of our silverware as he tends to throw away his fork or spoon after using them, especially if he was having something off a paper plate or bowl. He hates diaper changes and struggles to escape them, but he loves the attention when we play with him to distract him from the changing.
Overall, we are certainly faced with our fair share of struggles and trials, but it's our fair share and not more. We feel the Lord blessing us each day. On the worst days, we manage stay alive AND not kill each other. Most days are even better than that! *grin* In all honesty, as I read over what I've reported, I recognize that I have called out a lot of the hardships and fewer of the blessings, but I have to say that, thanks to the Lord and His gospel, we are a happy family. We are blessed with the strength to make it through these trials, to continue striving to do better each day, and to help those around us as we are able. I'm very thankful to have these blessings - they are the glue that keeps us together.
On that note, I share with you a picture of a pamphlet we received from a local Christian church that we do not belong to that made me laugh.
I have been able to take advantage of some time between clients to work on what my company calls "The Bench." This is time when I get to learn new technologies and skills to make myself more marketable while my company both pays my salary and tries to get me lined up with another client as soon as possible. I hear from my management that it's likely that I'll be on the bench through the end of the year, and after that, lots of clients will have new budgets and no more holiday slowdowns to deal with, and engagements should pick up again. It's been nice to be able to learn new things while also not having a lot of deadlines to deal with because my family has been having other issues to deal with. It's also been nice because I have been able to take some more time to learn from some investing classes, one that I bought about two years ago and have been slowly working on, and another from the same company that they asked me to beta test for them in exchange for free access to the class. I feel bad that I haven't taken better advantage of the opportunities to learn that I've had over the past few years, so I've been working harder to take advantage of these opportunities now.
My wife has been dealing with her online business, www.ctr-ring.com, taking care of our four kids with special needs, helping her father deal with his medical and work issues, and dealing with her own health problems. She has been dealing with a chronic sinus infection, along with other general aches and pains. She may need to have surgery at some point to straighten a deviated septum, but we've had so many medical bills this year that she is trying to postpone that for now. She is a real trooper to put up with all of the things going on, but I can tell that it exhausts her.
Her father is unable to pay his rent on the disability income he is getting from his employer right now, so he is going to work on getting loose ends tied up where he is and move in with us in the next month or so. We will charge him less rent and help with food and utilities expenses while he works on getting his pain management and disability issues ironed out. The hope is that he can be settled down and into a new job based on the amount of social security disability income he can get in 3 to 4 months.
My oldest son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with new medicines, a new school year, and new routines. We've switched off from one of his two new medicines as it seemed to make him more anxious rather than less, and we've put him back onto his old medicine for the time being. The other new medicine continues to appear to be working well for him. He is trying to learn how to deal with the way the Aspergers causes him to interpret the things that are happening in his life, and that can be a stress for him and us. Overall, though, he seems to be much more like his old, wonderful self, with far less inclination to carry thoughts to extremes.
My second son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with my older son, a new school year, and new routines. He sometimes seems to have middle child syndrome, where he feels that he is being overlooked since so many other things require so much of our attention. He loves to go on dates with us, but he also likes to try to avoid doing his chores and other responsibilities in order to earn those dates and other rewards. He is a good worker when he puts his mind to the task, though. He recently got to move to the basement along with his baby brother, and he seems to be enjoying being the one "in control" of the room, except when he has to clean it. He continues to do very well in school and being the charmer in his classes.
My daughter has been getting several evaluations recently to see if she has Asperger Syndrome, now that we know what it looks like. All indications so far point to her having it. She scored higher in the academic testing than any other child her age that this doctor had ever tested, and she scored pretty low in the social skills testing, which is very typical of Aspergers. We don't think that she has the Tourette Syndrome that our oldest has, so at least it's a little bit easier in that regard. At this point, there doesn't appear to be any need for medications, but we continue to work toward getting an official diagnosis so that we can arrange other services for her help, especially once she starts school next fall. She loves to dance and be a princess, and she is usually quite helpful when she's not tired. She too loves to go on dates, especially when she can convince us to take her to McDonald's so she can play in the playground and eat ice cream.
My youngest son continues to have occasional bouts with asthma, though we are getting a little better at treating him before we have to end up in the ER for oxygen. The last time we went to the ER, his oxygen levels were low, but not quite low enough to keep him there for as long as we have had to in the past. He was given oxygen as a preventative measure while the medicines kicked in to open up his airways. He is learning to talk a lot more, though, as the youngest, he doesn't feel a lot of drive to learn everything right now. He says what he wants to say, and he just goes and does what he feels like he wants to do if he has to. He has learned to push chairs and other objects to where ever he needs to climb up on something, and we find him having obtained many items we had thought to be out of his reach. We also notice a slow decline in the amount of our silverware as he tends to throw away his fork or spoon after using them, especially if he was having something off a paper plate or bowl. He hates diaper changes and struggles to escape them, but he loves the attention when we play with him to distract him from the changing.
Overall, we are certainly faced with our fair share of struggles and trials, but it's our fair share and not more. We feel the Lord blessing us each day. On the worst days, we manage stay alive AND not kill each other. Most days are even better than that! *grin* In all honesty, as I read over what I've reported, I recognize that I have called out a lot of the hardships and fewer of the blessings, but I have to say that, thanks to the Lord and His gospel, we are a happy family. We are blessed with the strength to make it through these trials, to continue striving to do better each day, and to help those around us as we are able. I'm very thankful to have these blessings - they are the glue that keeps us together.
On that note, I share with you a picture of a pamphlet we received from a local Christian church that we do not belong to that made me laugh.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
A Long Month
It seems odd to realize that it's only been 31 days since this all started - it seems like a lot longer.
The best part is that my wife and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on the day this all started. We went to a wonderful dinner about an hour away from our home, and as we were paying the bill, we got a phone call that our oldest had been accused of starting a fire in an empty lot across the street. We hurried home and questioned him, and every indication we knew to look for indicated that he was not responsible. The next day, another fire was started in a neighbor's back yard. We again questioned our oldest, and every indication was that he was not involved, not to mention that he would have only had about a 10 minute window in which to do it about half an hour before the fire was reported. The next day there were no fires, but the day after, there was a fire in one of our flowerbeds and in another neighbor's bush. There now began to be indications that our oldest was lying to us, at least about the last two fires.
In an attempt to remain somewhat brief, I'll just mention that there was lots of discussion with various neighbors in which information came out that our oldest had been seen outside of our backyard when we thought he'd been in the back yard the whole time. In addition, the following morning, I double checked the safe where we kept the only fire-starting implements we had in the house to find that one of our lighters was missing.
While all of this was going on, my father in law was staying with us in preparation for a major neck surgery he was having. We hardly slept the night before I found the lighter missing due to worrying about father in law and son. While my wife was getting her father into surgery, I again questioned my son about the fires, and armed with the information that he had been seen outside of the backyard and that a lighter was missing, he confessed to starting all four fires. After many calls to the Fire Chief, my son's counselor, and many others, it was determined that the best thing for the time being was to have him admitted to an inpatient program at a neuro-psychiatric hospital. Some wonderful neighbors took our younger children so that I could spend the next 8 hours or so getting my son admitted while my wife was with her father at his surgery in a nearby hospital.
Again, in an attempt to be more brief, my oldest son was in the inpatient program for 5 days, while my father in law was in the hospital for 3.5 days. My father in law came back to our house to recover, and my son was moved from the inpatient program to a day program where I would drop him off by 8:30 every morning and pick him up by 4:00 every afternoon. My father in law remained with us for another week, and my son has been in the out patient program the past 3 weeks.
For those who haven't heard, my son had been previously diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. After his time at the hospital, his diagnosis has been updated to Asperger Syndrome primarily with a secondary diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome. The OCD seems to just be anxiety in connection with the Aspergers. He's been put on new medications and we've all been given counseling on understanding the way his mind works and how we can work with him. While we still have our struggles, things have been improving a lot as we move forward with the new meds and information.
This has put a lot of load on our family, and we are glad that things are starting to come to a close as far as the daily driving to the hospitals and counseling sessions. We hope that the extra effort we are having to put forth to best help our son, as well as the rest of our children, won't drive us crazy!
Through all of this, we have truly felt the hand of the Lord sustaining us through family, friends, neighbors, and employer that have all worked with us to allow us to accomplish the things that have needed to be done. We are grateful for that help and support, without which we could not have made it this far.
Lastly, I want to tell my wife how much I love and appreciate her. Even with a long month like this, I would rather go through it with her than an easy month without her. She is my best friend and greatest blessing, and that just grows more true each day.
The best part is that my wife and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on the day this all started. We went to a wonderful dinner about an hour away from our home, and as we were paying the bill, we got a phone call that our oldest had been accused of starting a fire in an empty lot across the street. We hurried home and questioned him, and every indication we knew to look for indicated that he was not responsible. The next day, another fire was started in a neighbor's back yard. We again questioned our oldest, and every indication was that he was not involved, not to mention that he would have only had about a 10 minute window in which to do it about half an hour before the fire was reported. The next day there were no fires, but the day after, there was a fire in one of our flowerbeds and in another neighbor's bush. There now began to be indications that our oldest was lying to us, at least about the last two fires.
In an attempt to remain somewhat brief, I'll just mention that there was lots of discussion with various neighbors in which information came out that our oldest had been seen outside of our backyard when we thought he'd been in the back yard the whole time. In addition, the following morning, I double checked the safe where we kept the only fire-starting implements we had in the house to find that one of our lighters was missing.
While all of this was going on, my father in law was staying with us in preparation for a major neck surgery he was having. We hardly slept the night before I found the lighter missing due to worrying about father in law and son. While my wife was getting her father into surgery, I again questioned my son about the fires, and armed with the information that he had been seen outside of the backyard and that a lighter was missing, he confessed to starting all four fires. After many calls to the Fire Chief, my son's counselor, and many others, it was determined that the best thing for the time being was to have him admitted to an inpatient program at a neuro-psychiatric hospital. Some wonderful neighbors took our younger children so that I could spend the next 8 hours or so getting my son admitted while my wife was with her father at his surgery in a nearby hospital.
Again, in an attempt to be more brief, my oldest son was in the inpatient program for 5 days, while my father in law was in the hospital for 3.5 days. My father in law came back to our house to recover, and my son was moved from the inpatient program to a day program where I would drop him off by 8:30 every morning and pick him up by 4:00 every afternoon. My father in law remained with us for another week, and my son has been in the out patient program the past 3 weeks.
For those who haven't heard, my son had been previously diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. After his time at the hospital, his diagnosis has been updated to Asperger Syndrome primarily with a secondary diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome. The OCD seems to just be anxiety in connection with the Aspergers. He's been put on new medications and we've all been given counseling on understanding the way his mind works and how we can work with him. While we still have our struggles, things have been improving a lot as we move forward with the new meds and information.
This has put a lot of load on our family, and we are glad that things are starting to come to a close as far as the daily driving to the hospitals and counseling sessions. We hope that the extra effort we are having to put forth to best help our son, as well as the rest of our children, won't drive us crazy!
Through all of this, we have truly felt the hand of the Lord sustaining us through family, friends, neighbors, and employer that have all worked with us to allow us to accomplish the things that have needed to be done. We are grateful for that help and support, without which we could not have made it this far.
Lastly, I want to tell my wife how much I love and appreciate her. Even with a long month like this, I would rather go through it with her than an easy month without her. She is my best friend and greatest blessing, and that just grows more true each day.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 7
We didn't take any pictures on our way back home, but that doesn't mean that we didn't have a good time!
We started off our Saturday by going for a swim one last time as a family. Once that was done, it was time to get cleaned up, packed up, eat breakfast, and checked out by noon. At 1:00 PM, we were finally leaving the resort. *grin* After stopping for some gas (silly Costco pump only filled us up to about 3/4 tank, though), we headed back toward Las Vegas. Since we had eaten so late and brought leftovers with us, we hoped to be able to make it to Las Vegas without stopping to eat. Since we had forgotten to enforce bathroom trips before leaving in our rush, we stopped after a few hours to truly top off the tank, get some snacks, and hit the bathrooms. It was only a 10 minute stop, though, so that was nice.
One exciting moment came as we were driving on a section of I-215 in the right hand lane, about 100 feet behind a jeep pulling a trailer that was just in front of a semi. Suddenly, the jeep and trailer started fishtailing back and forth, with each swerve getting larger and larger. The semi, ourselves, and all the traffic behind us started slowing down sharply as we watched the jeep eventually swerve off the left of the road into the median, continue to fishtail, and finally come to a stop completely perpendicular to the direction of travel, blocking both lanes of traffic. It quickly moved to the right shoulder so the driver could check his vehicles. He waved us on to show that he was okay. It was amazing that no one was hit by another vehicle and that everyone drove away safely.
The kids hardly noticed the excitement as they variously slept, watched movies on the laptop, read books, and snacked. We were able to travel to Las Vegas without any other excitement and arrive shortly before sun down. The kids were glad to see my wife's aunt, uncle, and their rabbit again.
That night we ate a lovely casserole, got the kids to bed, and looked up a place to go to church the next day. We also listened to the party going on at the Cuban restaurant right behind the house, with our room being the closest to it. We were tired enough that we fell asleep anyway, although my wife was struggling as she had been getting hit by allergies all day.
On Sunday, we tried to make my wife feel extra special for her birthday as we got up and ready to go to church. This time, we arrived at the normal meetings and were greeted quite warmly. In fact, when we told people where we were from, we were surprised at how many people were familiar with our little corner of the world - it seemed like nearly half the people we talked to knew the town we live in from having passed through at some point. The kids enjoyed making new friends in the Primary classes, and we enjoyed feeling the joys of our worship services.
We returned to the house for a pizza and birthday cake party that my wife's aunt had planned for her. We all had a nice time together, and many of us napped or watched a movie for a while afterward. We finished the day by being treated to my one of my wife's favorite meals, prime rib, which her aunt had asked me about several times in preparation for the day. We were all able to enjoy the benefits of her birthday, and if you really think about it, we do that every day. She is a wonderful woman, and I'm the luckiest man in the world to have her.
On Monday, we got away pretty early to allow my wife's aunt and uncle to get on the road for their own vacation. We had breakfast at IHOP as a last hurrah, and we again traveled safely with only one stop for gas and a bathroom break before arriving home a little after 4:00 PM. We did a little unpacking and had some dinner and just generally tried to relax to the fullest before the normal routine began again the next day.
Vacation. It was AWESOME!
We started off our Saturday by going for a swim one last time as a family. Once that was done, it was time to get cleaned up, packed up, eat breakfast, and checked out by noon. At 1:00 PM, we were finally leaving the resort. *grin* After stopping for some gas (silly Costco pump only filled us up to about 3/4 tank, though), we headed back toward Las Vegas. Since we had eaten so late and brought leftovers with us, we hoped to be able to make it to Las Vegas without stopping to eat. Since we had forgotten to enforce bathroom trips before leaving in our rush, we stopped after a few hours to truly top off the tank, get some snacks, and hit the bathrooms. It was only a 10 minute stop, though, so that was nice.
One exciting moment came as we were driving on a section of I-215 in the right hand lane, about 100 feet behind a jeep pulling a trailer that was just in front of a semi. Suddenly, the jeep and trailer started fishtailing back and forth, with each swerve getting larger and larger. The semi, ourselves, and all the traffic behind us started slowing down sharply as we watched the jeep eventually swerve off the left of the road into the median, continue to fishtail, and finally come to a stop completely perpendicular to the direction of travel, blocking both lanes of traffic. It quickly moved to the right shoulder so the driver could check his vehicles. He waved us on to show that he was okay. It was amazing that no one was hit by another vehicle and that everyone drove away safely.
The kids hardly noticed the excitement as they variously slept, watched movies on the laptop, read books, and snacked. We were able to travel to Las Vegas without any other excitement and arrive shortly before sun down. The kids were glad to see my wife's aunt, uncle, and their rabbit again.
That night we ate a lovely casserole, got the kids to bed, and looked up a place to go to church the next day. We also listened to the party going on at the Cuban restaurant right behind the house, with our room being the closest to it. We were tired enough that we fell asleep anyway, although my wife was struggling as she had been getting hit by allergies all day.
On Sunday, we tried to make my wife feel extra special for her birthday as we got up and ready to go to church. This time, we arrived at the normal meetings and were greeted quite warmly. In fact, when we told people where we were from, we were surprised at how many people were familiar with our little corner of the world - it seemed like nearly half the people we talked to knew the town we live in from having passed through at some point. The kids enjoyed making new friends in the Primary classes, and we enjoyed feeling the joys of our worship services.
We returned to the house for a pizza and birthday cake party that my wife's aunt had planned for her. We all had a nice time together, and many of us napped or watched a movie for a while afterward. We finished the day by being treated to my one of my wife's favorite meals, prime rib, which her aunt had asked me about several times in preparation for the day. We were all able to enjoy the benefits of her birthday, and if you really think about it, we do that every day. She is a wonderful woman, and I'm the luckiest man in the world to have her.
On Monday, we got away pretty early to allow my wife's aunt and uncle to get on the road for their own vacation. We had breakfast at IHOP as a last hurrah, and we again traveled safely with only one stop for gas and a bathroom break before arriving home a little after 4:00 PM. We did a little unpacking and had some dinner and just generally tried to relax to the fullest before the normal routine began again the next day.
Vacation. It was AWESOME!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 6
On Friday, we returned to Sea World as we had determined that it was the most exciting for us. We also had bought new batteries for the camera, so I'll jump right into the pictures.
When we first walked into the park, we saw this costumed polar bear taking pictures with tourists. Being tourists, we decided to get our picture taken with it too.
The polar bear was pretty playful!
After seeing the polar bear, we already knew that the first thing we wanted to do was go to see the Clydesdale horses (Anheuser Busch owns Sea World) on our way to the watery roller coaster ride "Journey to Atlantis." My oldest son had an upset stomach the previous time we were at Sea World, and so my second son and wife had gone then. My son could hardly stop talking about how awesome it was, and that it was his first time on a "grown up ride." He had the whole family excited to see it when we went back.
We had a pleasant time seeing the horses up close and learning a little bit about them. For instance, in order to be on one of the teams that gets to pull the famed Budweiser wagons, the horse has to be at least 6 ft tall at the shoulder (I think that's 15 to 16 hands in horse measurements), be a certain shade of tan or brown, and have a white stripe on its face and head. We also saw a comparison of a standard horse shoe to a Clydesdale horse shoe. A standard horse shoe is about 3 to 4 inches across. A Clydesdale horse shoe is about 12 to 14 inches across. They are roughly the size of frisbees, and even the oversized horse shoes I've used to play the tossing game of horse shoes are smaller, not to mention far lighter. It was fun to see.
After the horses, we made our way to "Journey to Atlantis." We had determined that I would go on the ride with the older boys while my wife, daughter, and youngest waited for us. As this was the Friday before Memorial Day, it was much busier than it had been on Tuesday. While enduring the nearly half hour wait in line, I noticed several signs saying that you had to be at least 42 inches tall to ride the roller coaster. I thought that my daughter was nearly that tall, so I had the boys go and get her. We put her against the sign, and it appeared that she was about 41.5 inches tall, which I thought would be good enough.
When we reached the boarding area, we saw a man who, judging by his baseball cap, is a fan of the University of New Mexico. He was arguing with the park employees about getting his little boy onto the ride. The employees brought out a yardstick to measure in addition to the signs, and the kid was obviously no more than 39 inches tall. This man, however, was determined to show the park employees who was boss. We spent at least 5 minutes as the line moved watching him make a fool of himself trying to get his son on the ride. Questions like, "What if I can make him look like he's 42 inches tall? Would you let him ride then?" escaped his mouth, among other oddities. When we reached the head of the line, the employees had no choice but to check my daughter's height and deny her entry to the ride due to the poor sport, who was still wheedling nearby.
I couldn't just send my girl back to her mother with her hopes crushed, so I sent the boys on the roller coaster and waited my turn behind Mr. Belligerent for the head employee to talk to me. After finally offering Mr. Belligerent many benefits elsewhere in the park and getting him to leave, she came up to me and asked how many were in my group. I replied that there were six of us, and she gave us her business card with the following benefits written on the back: Front-of-the-line passes to the Sesame Street kids rides in the playground area of the park, free sky tram passes for the whole family, and free tower ride passes for the whole family. I thanked her kindly and took my daughter back to my wife, arriving just in time to see my boys come splashing down the final descent of the roller coaster. My daughter was pretty quickly mollified to learn that we'd be getting to go on the sky tram and tower rides, as we had planned on skipping those due to the extra cost.
I still think Mr. Belligerent was in the wrong in the way he acted, but I didn't turn down the extra benefits as I thought it was nice of the employee to offer them for having to put up with his antics while waiting for her.
We made our way over to the killer whale show, making sure to sit close enough to get splashed this time. We were fortunate that we were near one of the sides, as the majority of the splashing occurs in the middle of the arena. We were splashed once, lightly, and that was just about right for us. The show followed the same pattern as the previous time, but with several different tricks performed by the whales. Once again, it was a true delight to watch.
Following the whale show, my oldest and I went on a white water rapids type of ride while the younger kids petted starfish. We saw sea turtles, rode the sky tram over the bay, rode the tower ride, and went to see the sharks.
The shark exhibit has a tunnel going through the middle of their pool, so you get to be surrounded by them and see them from underwater. This picture shows just how close they get!
We made sure to visit the Sesame Street 4D movie that was showing at the park. I quickly discovered that a 4D movie is one that is in 3D on the screen and also has seating that vibrates and shoots water and air bursts on you at the correct times. It was pretty fun.
As the day started to wind down, we wanted to see the penguins and the Wild Arctic exhibits, as well as visit the Sesame Street play area and rides. This is when the part of our day that I will call "crappy" began.
The penguins that require cold water (we learned that there are several species of penguins that live in the tropic and sub-tropic areas of the southern hemisphere and don't require cold) and southern hemisphere lighting (near darkness since it's getting to be winter down there) are behind this glass. You can see several penguins standing and some swimming. One of the swimming penguins that I happened to be watching suddenly emitted a brownish cloud behind it. Lucky me.
The polar bear in the Wild Arctic area was napping when we first arrived. As we watched, though, it slowly woke and stretched, shown here. After finally rising to its feet, it sauntered toward the back, where its cave was, when it decided to stop, rear end facing the window we were watching from, squat (if you can imagine a four legged animal squatting its hind legs), and let loose a large batch of material that it hadn't digested. The only thing missing was the steam that would have risen from the scat had we actually been in the Arctic. The kids all groaned and exclaimed "Eww, gross!" whilst the adults laughed.
The Wild Arctic exhibit also had walruses (one of which we saw pushing some brown clod-like thing around on the window right in front of us with its mouth until it managed to eat it) and some beluga whales (shown above, which we did not see do anything disgusting).
One really interesting aspect of several of the exhibits at Sea World is that they are designed to allow you to view the animals from both above and below water. This way, you get to see them as mankind has since the beginning of time, and you also get to see some of the sights normally reserved for divers. Seeing the ease of movement underwater easily made up for also happening to see their bodily functions. As I said at the time we witnessed the polar bear doing its business, "Hey, that's what I do after a nap, too, and it's not like they provided a toilet!"
We finished the day off playing at the playground and riding the kids rides. My youngest also got to have another of his "firsts" in life (hint: it's not going on a ride).
Cotton candy! I love it!
Getting ready to ride our last ride of the day. I Love Mommy!
As my wife's birthday would be during our traveling home part of our vacation, we decided to go to dinner at Tony Roma's to celebrate her after we left Sea World. We found a Tony Roma's right next to the beach a few miles from Sea World, and we happened to walk up to the wall separating the road from the beach just as two local entertainers started performing a fire juggling show. We watched for 3 or 4 minutes before heading into the restaurant, departing with my oldest shouting "You guys were great!" and one of them replying "Thank you!"
We used the last of our AMEX gift cards from Wednesday to help pay for the meal at Tony Roma's, and it took long enough that the kids were falling asleep at the table. We arrived back at the resort well and truly exhausted, but we also felt that we had enjoyed our time to the best of our ability!
One more to come later.
When we first walked into the park, we saw this costumed polar bear taking pictures with tourists. Being tourists, we decided to get our picture taken with it too.
The polar bear was pretty playful!
After seeing the polar bear, we already knew that the first thing we wanted to do was go to see the Clydesdale horses (Anheuser Busch owns Sea World) on our way to the watery roller coaster ride "Journey to Atlantis." My oldest son had an upset stomach the previous time we were at Sea World, and so my second son and wife had gone then. My son could hardly stop talking about how awesome it was, and that it was his first time on a "grown up ride." He had the whole family excited to see it when we went back.
We had a pleasant time seeing the horses up close and learning a little bit about them. For instance, in order to be on one of the teams that gets to pull the famed Budweiser wagons, the horse has to be at least 6 ft tall at the shoulder (I think that's 15 to 16 hands in horse measurements), be a certain shade of tan or brown, and have a white stripe on its face and head. We also saw a comparison of a standard horse shoe to a Clydesdale horse shoe. A standard horse shoe is about 3 to 4 inches across. A Clydesdale horse shoe is about 12 to 14 inches across. They are roughly the size of frisbees, and even the oversized horse shoes I've used to play the tossing game of horse shoes are smaller, not to mention far lighter. It was fun to see.
After the horses, we made our way to "Journey to Atlantis." We had determined that I would go on the ride with the older boys while my wife, daughter, and youngest waited for us. As this was the Friday before Memorial Day, it was much busier than it had been on Tuesday. While enduring the nearly half hour wait in line, I noticed several signs saying that you had to be at least 42 inches tall to ride the roller coaster. I thought that my daughter was nearly that tall, so I had the boys go and get her. We put her against the sign, and it appeared that she was about 41.5 inches tall, which I thought would be good enough.
When we reached the boarding area, we saw a man who, judging by his baseball cap, is a fan of the University of New Mexico. He was arguing with the park employees about getting his little boy onto the ride. The employees brought out a yardstick to measure in addition to the signs, and the kid was obviously no more than 39 inches tall. This man, however, was determined to show the park employees who was boss. We spent at least 5 minutes as the line moved watching him make a fool of himself trying to get his son on the ride. Questions like, "What if I can make him look like he's 42 inches tall? Would you let him ride then?" escaped his mouth, among other oddities. When we reached the head of the line, the employees had no choice but to check my daughter's height and deny her entry to the ride due to the poor sport, who was still wheedling nearby.
I couldn't just send my girl back to her mother with her hopes crushed, so I sent the boys on the roller coaster and waited my turn behind Mr. Belligerent for the head employee to talk to me. After finally offering Mr. Belligerent many benefits elsewhere in the park and getting him to leave, she came up to me and asked how many were in my group. I replied that there were six of us, and she gave us her business card with the following benefits written on the back: Front-of-the-line passes to the Sesame Street kids rides in the playground area of the park, free sky tram passes for the whole family, and free tower ride passes for the whole family. I thanked her kindly and took my daughter back to my wife, arriving just in time to see my boys come splashing down the final descent of the roller coaster. My daughter was pretty quickly mollified to learn that we'd be getting to go on the sky tram and tower rides, as we had planned on skipping those due to the extra cost.
I still think Mr. Belligerent was in the wrong in the way he acted, but I didn't turn down the extra benefits as I thought it was nice of the employee to offer them for having to put up with his antics while waiting for her.
We made our way over to the killer whale show, making sure to sit close enough to get splashed this time. We were fortunate that we were near one of the sides, as the majority of the splashing occurs in the middle of the arena. We were splashed once, lightly, and that was just about right for us. The show followed the same pattern as the previous time, but with several different tricks performed by the whales. Once again, it was a true delight to watch.
Following the whale show, my oldest and I went on a white water rapids type of ride while the younger kids petted starfish. We saw sea turtles, rode the sky tram over the bay, rode the tower ride, and went to see the sharks.
The shark exhibit has a tunnel going through the middle of their pool, so you get to be surrounded by them and see them from underwater. This picture shows just how close they get!
We made sure to visit the Sesame Street 4D movie that was showing at the park. I quickly discovered that a 4D movie is one that is in 3D on the screen and also has seating that vibrates and shoots water and air bursts on you at the correct times. It was pretty fun.
As the day started to wind down, we wanted to see the penguins and the Wild Arctic exhibits, as well as visit the Sesame Street play area and rides. This is when the part of our day that I will call "crappy" began.
The penguins that require cold water (we learned that there are several species of penguins that live in the tropic and sub-tropic areas of the southern hemisphere and don't require cold) and southern hemisphere lighting (near darkness since it's getting to be winter down there) are behind this glass. You can see several penguins standing and some swimming. One of the swimming penguins that I happened to be watching suddenly emitted a brownish cloud behind it. Lucky me.
The polar bear in the Wild Arctic area was napping when we first arrived. As we watched, though, it slowly woke and stretched, shown here. After finally rising to its feet, it sauntered toward the back, where its cave was, when it decided to stop, rear end facing the window we were watching from, squat (if you can imagine a four legged animal squatting its hind legs), and let loose a large batch of material that it hadn't digested. The only thing missing was the steam that would have risen from the scat had we actually been in the Arctic. The kids all groaned and exclaimed "Eww, gross!" whilst the adults laughed.
The Wild Arctic exhibit also had walruses (one of which we saw pushing some brown clod-like thing around on the window right in front of us with its mouth until it managed to eat it) and some beluga whales (shown above, which we did not see do anything disgusting).
One really interesting aspect of several of the exhibits at Sea World is that they are designed to allow you to view the animals from both above and below water. This way, you get to see them as mankind has since the beginning of time, and you also get to see some of the sights normally reserved for divers. Seeing the ease of movement underwater easily made up for also happening to see their bodily functions. As I said at the time we witnessed the polar bear doing its business, "Hey, that's what I do after a nap, too, and it's not like they provided a toilet!"
We finished the day off playing at the playground and riding the kids rides. My youngest also got to have another of his "firsts" in life (hint: it's not going on a ride).
Cotton candy! I love it!
Getting ready to ride our last ride of the day. I Love Mommy!
As my wife's birthday would be during our traveling home part of our vacation, we decided to go to dinner at Tony Roma's to celebrate her after we left Sea World. We found a Tony Roma's right next to the beach a few miles from Sea World, and we happened to walk up to the wall separating the road from the beach just as two local entertainers started performing a fire juggling show. We watched for 3 or 4 minutes before heading into the restaurant, departing with my oldest shouting "You guys were great!" and one of them replying "Thank you!"
We used the last of our AMEX gift cards from Wednesday to help pay for the meal at Tony Roma's, and it took long enough that the kids were falling asleep at the table. We arrived back at the resort well and truly exhausted, but we also felt that we had enjoyed our time to the best of our ability!
One more to come later.
Monday, June 1, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 5
After a nice, relaxing day on Wednesday, we piled into the van and drove about 20 miles to the Escondido area to get to the Wild Animal Park. As we were entering, we ran into some friends who live just a few blocks from us. We knew they were also vacationing in the area, and we'd known that they would be at Sea World on Tuesday, so we were surprised to run into them here instead. We had a quick chat, but the kids were anxious to go and see things, so off we went.
When you first enter the Wild Animal Park, it seems a lot like the zoo. I wondered why we had driven all the way out there for a while. We had decided that we would start with the bus tour (instead of leaving it for the end like we had with the zoo), and as we worked our way down toward the tour area, we stopped to ride a carousel (again, the 3 for 1 passes got us on this for free instead of having to pay a few dollars for it) and visit the discovery area, where they had a place for the adults to sit while the kids played with puzzles, toys, puppets, paper and crayons, etc, all under a nice, cool awning. The kids get to do that sort of thing fairly often when we're home, too, but we didn't mind taking a break. *grin*
We ended up taking the "short" way down to the bus tour, which involved a platform with an elevator to take us down about 30 feet in elevation. I was starting to realize how much bigger than the zoo this park was. We passed a bright yellow hot-air balloon that we thought about riding (it would have cost us about $70 for the whole family for a 4 or 5 minute ride, though), and made our way to the bus area. Once we were loaded on, we discovered that what makes the Wild Animal Park so different from the zoo is that they have large, multi-acre exhibits based on environment rather than animals. We saw the savanna area mostly, which had at least 10 different groups of animals all living together in the same exhibit. We saw a herd of antelope decide to take off running down one long hill and up another, all in unison. We saw two different kinds of rhinoceroses, about 10 giraffes, including a few babies, lots of antelope, gazelles, etc, and learned a lot about them from the tour guide. The tour guides sure seem to know their stuff, as they can tell us all about the animal's native behaviors, the status of their native environments as concerns habitat loss, and the names of most of the animals that live there.
We also saw several people who had paid (a lot) more money to either tour these various large exhibits on Segway scooters with off road tires or in a large, safari like pickup truck that drove inside the exhibit itself for extreme close up pictures.
These large exhibits are kind of a cross between a zoo and an actual safari. The animals are enclosed and (relatively) nearby, as with a zoo, but they are behaving as if they were in the wild and interacting with other animals, as with a safari. It was fascinating to me. I think the kids did a good job to not complain too much about how long it took. *grin*
After the bus tour, we made sure to see the elephants (and zoo keeper), the lions (the alpha male was sitting on top of a broken down jeep under a tree near the front of the exhibit), and we even managed to run across some native deer on our way back up that had made it into the park. We ate lunch at one of the restaurants (hot dogs and somewhat fancy sandwiches with the trimmings for nearly the cost of the balloon ride), stopped at an oasis that had water spraying out of kid friendly statues to help cool you down, and worked our way back up toward the front.
We stopped at a petting area, where my daughter very carefully made sure to pet every single specimin in the area, visited the discovery area again, where we had a lovely conversation with the employee on duty who complimented our kids highly (that always makes a parent feel good) and discussed our church (specifically, the San Diego Temple, which she had heard was closed for a while), and rode the carousel a few more times.
We learned that our good preparation of bringing water bottles that had been frozen overnight was even better when you remembered to do it. I guess our day off had caused us to forget our preparations.
I'm learning now, too, that without pictures, some of the specifics of the memories are fading kind of quickly (of course, the week that we've been back has been VERY hectic, so that contributes too).
In the end, I decided that the Wild Animal Park was worth visiting, but I don't know that I would want to go again with small children because they don't have the patience to enjoy the uniqueness of this attraction. At least, my kids don't seem to have that kind of patience.
More to come later.
When you first enter the Wild Animal Park, it seems a lot like the zoo. I wondered why we had driven all the way out there for a while. We had decided that we would start with the bus tour (instead of leaving it for the end like we had with the zoo), and as we worked our way down toward the tour area, we stopped to ride a carousel (again, the 3 for 1 passes got us on this for free instead of having to pay a few dollars for it) and visit the discovery area, where they had a place for the adults to sit while the kids played with puzzles, toys, puppets, paper and crayons, etc, all under a nice, cool awning. The kids get to do that sort of thing fairly often when we're home, too, but we didn't mind taking a break. *grin*
We ended up taking the "short" way down to the bus tour, which involved a platform with an elevator to take us down about 30 feet in elevation. I was starting to realize how much bigger than the zoo this park was. We passed a bright yellow hot-air balloon that we thought about riding (it would have cost us about $70 for the whole family for a 4 or 5 minute ride, though), and made our way to the bus area. Once we were loaded on, we discovered that what makes the Wild Animal Park so different from the zoo is that they have large, multi-acre exhibits based on environment rather than animals. We saw the savanna area mostly, which had at least 10 different groups of animals all living together in the same exhibit. We saw a herd of antelope decide to take off running down one long hill and up another, all in unison. We saw two different kinds of rhinoceroses, about 10 giraffes, including a few babies, lots of antelope, gazelles, etc, and learned a lot about them from the tour guide. The tour guides sure seem to know their stuff, as they can tell us all about the animal's native behaviors, the status of their native environments as concerns habitat loss, and the names of most of the animals that live there.
We also saw several people who had paid (a lot) more money to either tour these various large exhibits on Segway scooters with off road tires or in a large, safari like pickup truck that drove inside the exhibit itself for extreme close up pictures.
These large exhibits are kind of a cross between a zoo and an actual safari. The animals are enclosed and (relatively) nearby, as with a zoo, but they are behaving as if they were in the wild and interacting with other animals, as with a safari. It was fascinating to me. I think the kids did a good job to not complain too much about how long it took. *grin*
After the bus tour, we made sure to see the elephants (and zoo keeper), the lions (the alpha male was sitting on top of a broken down jeep under a tree near the front of the exhibit), and we even managed to run across some native deer on our way back up that had made it into the park. We ate lunch at one of the restaurants (hot dogs and somewhat fancy sandwiches with the trimmings for nearly the cost of the balloon ride), stopped at an oasis that had water spraying out of kid friendly statues to help cool you down, and worked our way back up toward the front.
We stopped at a petting area, where my daughter very carefully made sure to pet every single specimin in the area, visited the discovery area again, where we had a lovely conversation with the employee on duty who complimented our kids highly (that always makes a parent feel good) and discussed our church (specifically, the San Diego Temple, which she had heard was closed for a while), and rode the carousel a few more times.
We learned that our good preparation of bringing water bottles that had been frozen overnight was even better when you remembered to do it. I guess our day off had caused us to forget our preparations.
I'm learning now, too, that without pictures, some of the specifics of the memories are fading kind of quickly (of course, the week that we've been back has been VERY hectic, so that contributes too).
In the end, I decided that the Wild Animal Park was worth visiting, but I don't know that I would want to go again with small children because they don't have the patience to enjoy the uniqueness of this attraction. At least, my kids don't seem to have that kind of patience.
More to come later.
Friday, May 29, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 4
This is the part of the vacation where we discovered the batteries in the camera were nearly dead and didn't get them replaced until two days had passed. I hope my verbal descriptions suffice.
On Wednesday, we were pretty darn tired from all the fun and walking and heat and sun we had been participating in. We also had a resort presentation to attend at 10:00 in the morning to encourage us to buy into the system (we didn't). As an incentive, they gave us $75 in AMEX gift cards, which we promptly used part of to buy lunch at the Mexican restaurant across the street. This was another of the blessings we felt during our trip.
We also learned the lesson that, if your kid takes their hat off, hangs it on the chair, and promises to take care of it, you should probably put it back on their head (or your own) if you want to remain in possession of said hat after leaving the restaurant. We didn't notice it was missing until the next day, and when we checked with them that evening, they didn't recall anyone turning it in and couldn't find it in any of the areas they would have kept it. Hopefully the child learned a lesson as well as the parents.
We had seen several signs on Interstate 8 that said "Beaches", so after lunch, we got on the interstate until it ended (right by Sea World), and then followed some surface streets until we came to a beach. It turned out to be a beach where you could let dogs run freely, and many people were indeed doing so (we noticed on the way back out that the non-dog beach was just about 50 yards away, but it didn't really matter to us). The kids had never seen the ocean in person before, and they had a great time walking in the sand, running sand through their hands, getting sand all over their shoes and socks, grinning at the dogs until they came close enough to cause screaming and panic in our little 'fraidy cats, and enjoying the cool breeze. I should mention that all of this happened in the 2 or 3 mintues it took to walk from our car to the actual shoreline.
Being silly landlubbers, we went to the beach without any swimwear, towels, or any other useful items. Thus, the youngest (who waded about a foot into the ocean before a tiny wave made him rethink walking) and myself (who felt that someone might need to stay dry and thus didn't even remove my shoes, let alone enter the water) were the only two out of the six of us to not get soaked to at least mid thigh. My wife, older sons, and daughter all had great intentions of wading without letting the water get above the bottom of their shorts or rolled up pants, and the waves quickly removed them of all such inhibitions.
My sons enjoyed wading until they realized their shorts were wet, and then deciding to race the small waves back to shore, only to trip in the water, nearly literally falling onto their faces, and soak themselves head to foot. They repeated this event a few more times for good measure.
My wife and daughter enjoyed finding sea shells. My daughter continued to collect them in the shallows while my wife went to help the boys. My wife was soon realizing that her pants wouldn't survive the rise and fall of the water without a good soaking, and so she and the boys walked out about 40 yards and enjoyed the water. My daughter, not seeming to notice that the tide was slowly rising, as was her distance from the shore, continued to squat down and pick up sea shells until a slightly larger wave managed to tag her backside and the bottom of her pants.
I mostly held onto my youngest as he grinned and waved at dogs until they got close enough to cause him to squeal and backed up a few steps every few minutes to avoid the tide.
After about 30 minutes at the beach, my wife found some free floating seaweed to bring home many of the shells my daughter had collected, my sons were wondering if they could find a way to get the sand off their legs so they could put their shoes and socks back on, and we all made our way back to the van. After a few attempts at brushing sand off with hands and napkins, we finally just put the wet, sandy feet into plastic garbage bags and headed back to the resort. Judging from the general sense of elation coming from the kids, we were starting to feel that the short time at the beach was putting in some serious competition to Sea World for most favorite activity of the vacation!
Upon returning to the resort, we showered and bathed those in need of it, started some laundry, and just relaxed. Napping, watching TV, playing on the computer, and snacking were all enjoyed. We layed the youngest down for a nap (which he had not had much in the way of in the previous 4 days) around 5:00 PM PDT, and he ended up sleeping clear through to 7:00 AM PDT. The other kids and I made our daily outing to the resort pool for a bit, because as every kid knows, you can't go swimming too much while on vacation. We finished the day up with dinner brought back to the resort from a nearby Wendy's. It ended up being a great day for fun and true relaxation.
More to come later.
On Wednesday, we were pretty darn tired from all the fun and walking and heat and sun we had been participating in. We also had a resort presentation to attend at 10:00 in the morning to encourage us to buy into the system (we didn't). As an incentive, they gave us $75 in AMEX gift cards, which we promptly used part of to buy lunch at the Mexican restaurant across the street. This was another of the blessings we felt during our trip.
We also learned the lesson that, if your kid takes their hat off, hangs it on the chair, and promises to take care of it, you should probably put it back on their head (or your own) if you want to remain in possession of said hat after leaving the restaurant. We didn't notice it was missing until the next day, and when we checked with them that evening, they didn't recall anyone turning it in and couldn't find it in any of the areas they would have kept it. Hopefully the child learned a lesson as well as the parents.
We had seen several signs on Interstate 8 that said "Beaches", so after lunch, we got on the interstate until it ended (right by Sea World), and then followed some surface streets until we came to a beach. It turned out to be a beach where you could let dogs run freely, and many people were indeed doing so (we noticed on the way back out that the non-dog beach was just about 50 yards away, but it didn't really matter to us). The kids had never seen the ocean in person before, and they had a great time walking in the sand, running sand through their hands, getting sand all over their shoes and socks, grinning at the dogs until they came close enough to cause screaming and panic in our little 'fraidy cats, and enjoying the cool breeze. I should mention that all of this happened in the 2 or 3 mintues it took to walk from our car to the actual shoreline.
Being silly landlubbers, we went to the beach without any swimwear, towels, or any other useful items. Thus, the youngest (who waded about a foot into the ocean before a tiny wave made him rethink walking) and myself (who felt that someone might need to stay dry and thus didn't even remove my shoes, let alone enter the water) were the only two out of the six of us to not get soaked to at least mid thigh. My wife, older sons, and daughter all had great intentions of wading without letting the water get above the bottom of their shorts or rolled up pants, and the waves quickly removed them of all such inhibitions.
My sons enjoyed wading until they realized their shorts were wet, and then deciding to race the small waves back to shore, only to trip in the water, nearly literally falling onto their faces, and soak themselves head to foot. They repeated this event a few more times for good measure.
My wife and daughter enjoyed finding sea shells. My daughter continued to collect them in the shallows while my wife went to help the boys. My wife was soon realizing that her pants wouldn't survive the rise and fall of the water without a good soaking, and so she and the boys walked out about 40 yards and enjoyed the water. My daughter, not seeming to notice that the tide was slowly rising, as was her distance from the shore, continued to squat down and pick up sea shells until a slightly larger wave managed to tag her backside and the bottom of her pants.
I mostly held onto my youngest as he grinned and waved at dogs until they got close enough to cause him to squeal and backed up a few steps every few minutes to avoid the tide.
After about 30 minutes at the beach, my wife found some free floating seaweed to bring home many of the shells my daughter had collected, my sons were wondering if they could find a way to get the sand off their legs so they could put their shoes and socks back on, and we all made our way back to the van. After a few attempts at brushing sand off with hands and napkins, we finally just put the wet, sandy feet into plastic garbage bags and headed back to the resort. Judging from the general sense of elation coming from the kids, we were starting to feel that the short time at the beach was putting in some serious competition to Sea World for most favorite activity of the vacation!
Upon returning to the resort, we showered and bathed those in need of it, started some laundry, and just relaxed. Napping, watching TV, playing on the computer, and snacking were all enjoyed. We layed the youngest down for a nap (which he had not had much in the way of in the previous 4 days) around 5:00 PM PDT, and he ended up sleeping clear through to 7:00 AM PDT. The other kids and I made our daily outing to the resort pool for a bit, because as every kid knows, you can't go swimming too much while on vacation. We finished the day up with dinner brought back to the resort from a nearby Wendy's. It ended up being a great day for fun and true relaxation.
More to come later.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 3
On Tuesday, we were off to Sea World. While it was only about 5 miles away, my wife had purchased a special lunch deal where you had lunch brought to you during the killer whale show. The food was average, but the kids got some Shamu-themed lunchboxes to bring home. The show itself is amazing to see.
Almost as amazing to see is the dolphin show. My wife was particularly excited for this one because our daughter, literally days before we were leaving on vacation and having no idea that we were going on a vacation, let alone to Sea World, had said something to the effect of "Mommy, I love dolphins. I want to see dolphins someday." Not only did she get to see them perform in a show (twice that day), but we even crowded into the construction-restricted dolphin holding area and managed to let her, my wife, and my oldest son touch one as it swam nearby. The second oldest son tried to touch it as well, but the positioning was such that he was unsuccessful. That was really the only major disappointment that we had with Sea World.
In reviewing our pictures from this day, I see that we only took the time to take pictures during the killer whale show, so that's what you get.
"Shaking hands" with a trainer
Leaping clear out of the water. As amazing as this is, there are things even more amazing in the show.
This is probably after one of the leaps, but it might also be during the "Shamu Slam" portion where they get the whales to intentionally splash as many people in the "Splash Zone" as possible. Our lunch tickets kept us out of the Splash Zone this time, but the kids made sure we were there on Friday.
You can see the whales entering and exiting the performance area during the show, which creates additional excitement as you see them dive immediately and then try to guess where they will appear next.
My wife got a 3 minute video of the show that I tried to add, but it didn't finish uploading in 3 hours. You may have to see that another time and/or place, if I can get it available somewhere.
More to come later.
Almost as amazing to see is the dolphin show. My wife was particularly excited for this one because our daughter, literally days before we were leaving on vacation and having no idea that we were going on a vacation, let alone to Sea World, had said something to the effect of "Mommy, I love dolphins. I want to see dolphins someday." Not only did she get to see them perform in a show (twice that day), but we even crowded into the construction-restricted dolphin holding area and managed to let her, my wife, and my oldest son touch one as it swam nearby. The second oldest son tried to touch it as well, but the positioning was such that he was unsuccessful. That was really the only major disappointment that we had with Sea World.
In reviewing our pictures from this day, I see that we only took the time to take pictures during the killer whale show, so that's what you get.
"Shaking hands" with a trainer
Leaping clear out of the water. As amazing as this is, there are things even more amazing in the show.
This is probably after one of the leaps, but it might also be during the "Shamu Slam" portion where they get the whales to intentionally splash as many people in the "Splash Zone" as possible. Our lunch tickets kept us out of the Splash Zone this time, but the kids made sure we were there on Friday.
You can see the whales entering and exiting the performance area during the show, which creates additional excitement as you see them dive immediately and then try to guess where they will appear next.
My wife got a 3 minute video of the show that I tried to add, but it didn't finish uploading in 3 hours. You may have to see that another time and/or place, if I can get it available somewhere.
More to come later.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 2
My wife had bought some 3 for 1 passes at Costco that got us into any of the San Diego Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and Sea World for 5 consecutive days. We decided that our schedule would be Monday - Zoo. Tuesday - Sea World. Wednesday - Rest and do whatever we felt like. Thursday - Wild Animal Park. Friday - Return to our favorite park.
We were trying to keep the kids on our MDT schedule while visiting the PDT time zone. This made for a few nights of putting the kids to bed at 6:30 California time (to match their normal school schedule bed time of 7:30). It also made for a few days of the kids waking up at 5:15 California time (I think they were excited). My dad says that 4:00 comes early in the morning, and I can attest that 5:15 feels awfully early too. As the week went on, they tended to go to bed later and get up later, but it seemed to help them when we returned to go to bed at close to the normal time.
Monday, we made our way to the "World Famous San Diego Zoo", as the GPS called it. We arrived to find that it was field trip day for about a thousand elementary school kids. We were afraid that it was going to be very crowded, and the whole point of going when we did was to avoid crowds. Our first stops (after the gift shop to buy my son a San Diego Zoo hat for his birthday, which you'll see in some pictures, and which he promptly managed to lose on Wednesday) were the flamingos and the reptile house, right inside the entrance. They were very crowded, so we made our way off to the side to an area designed for young children that the school kids seemed to be ignoring. From that point on, we seemed to do pretty well at being near a fair amount of people without feeling crowded.
Here are some pictures of some of the things we did. We didn't get pictures of everything we did at the zoo, but we got some of the human animals and some of the non-human animals. The kids seemed to feel that the highlights of the day were the "Skyfari" sky tram ride and the bus tour that allowed us to see far more of the zoo than we would have had energy to walk through. For my wife and I, the highlights were the fact that we were only 2 miles from the resort so we could go back for lunch and a short nap, and the fact that the churro vendor that we were going to buy some snacks from near closing time had already closed his shop and so gave us 6 churros and a pretzel for free, plus the fact that the 3 for one passes allowed us free rides on the sky ride and the bus tour.
This bench was at the entrance to the kids area of the zoo.
There was a petting zoo in the kids area. My son really knows how to pet animals carefully, don't you think?
There were lots of interactive things to play on and around throughout the zoo. These were in the kids area.
As fans of the Disney Channel show "Kim Possible", we had to get a picture of the naked mole rats. Rufus!
There were some bear statues near the polar bear exhibit that the kids thought would be fun to sit on. An interesting thing about the polar bear exhibit is that we didn't get to see the polar bear because it had been taken off exhibit. We heard that it was because one of the small deer-like animals from across the way had gotten into the polar bear exhibit. The story goes that they weren't afraid of the deer getting caught by the polar bear, but rather that the deer would fall into the very deep and steep pool at the front of the exhibit and drown. Supposedly, the polar bear was taken off exhibit to allow the zookeepers to rescue the deer. Sadly for us, we didn't get to see polar bear, deer, or zookeeper in the exhibit, and we ran out of patience waiting for any of them to appear. That happens pretty fast with small children.
I found that gibbons like this move the way that I usually think of monkeys moving - swinging from branch to branch, using vines, and so forth. They don't have tails, though, so that part is out. This one seemed to find us as fascinating as we found her.
My boy really knows how to enjoy a churro to the fullest.
This wallaby and koala were in the same exhibit. The koala was asleep and therefore not shy, but the wallaby didn't want to look at us. Or it just happened to be facing the other way when the picture was taken. They look a lot like small kangaroos when you can see more than their backside. I kind of think the backside looks like a huge rat in this picture.
Pandas are sensitive to noise, so we had to be quiet near them. When the bus tour went by, the guide told us we had to be quiet and he didn't say anything until we had passed the exhibit. We went back to see them since the exhibit was fenced from the road. They looked to be pretty pleased with their arrangement - all the food they could eat, relative quiet compared to the rest of the zoo, and comfortable surroundings. People even hope for them to reproduce the way an older couple "encourages" their adult children to get married and give them grandchildren! Sounds like a great gig if you can get it! *grin*
The gorillas were the penultimate exhibit we visited. They were kind of hard to get pictures of, but these statues held still much better, so we got pictures of them instead.
Last, we returned to the reptile house to see the huge yellow boa constrictor. Unfortunately, the picture got cut off just below the very tip of the mouth, so it looks like we took a picture of another tourist taking a picture of something with a yellow snout. The snake snout is at the bottom left.
More to come later.
We were trying to keep the kids on our MDT schedule while visiting the PDT time zone. This made for a few nights of putting the kids to bed at 6:30 California time (to match their normal school schedule bed time of 7:30). It also made for a few days of the kids waking up at 5:15 California time (I think they were excited). My dad says that 4:00 comes early in the morning, and I can attest that 5:15 feels awfully early too. As the week went on, they tended to go to bed later and get up later, but it seemed to help them when we returned to go to bed at close to the normal time.
Monday, we made our way to the "World Famous San Diego Zoo", as the GPS called it. We arrived to find that it was field trip day for about a thousand elementary school kids. We were afraid that it was going to be very crowded, and the whole point of going when we did was to avoid crowds. Our first stops (after the gift shop to buy my son a San Diego Zoo hat for his birthday, which you'll see in some pictures, and which he promptly managed to lose on Wednesday) were the flamingos and the reptile house, right inside the entrance. They were very crowded, so we made our way off to the side to an area designed for young children that the school kids seemed to be ignoring. From that point on, we seemed to do pretty well at being near a fair amount of people without feeling crowded.
Here are some pictures of some of the things we did. We didn't get pictures of everything we did at the zoo, but we got some of the human animals and some of the non-human animals. The kids seemed to feel that the highlights of the day were the "Skyfari" sky tram ride and the bus tour that allowed us to see far more of the zoo than we would have had energy to walk through. For my wife and I, the highlights were the fact that we were only 2 miles from the resort so we could go back for lunch and a short nap, and the fact that the churro vendor that we were going to buy some snacks from near closing time had already closed his shop and so gave us 6 churros and a pretzel for free, plus the fact that the 3 for one passes allowed us free rides on the sky ride and the bus tour.
This bench was at the entrance to the kids area of the zoo.
There was a petting zoo in the kids area. My son really knows how to pet animals carefully, don't you think?
There were lots of interactive things to play on and around throughout the zoo. These were in the kids area.
As fans of the Disney Channel show "Kim Possible", we had to get a picture of the naked mole rats. Rufus!
There were some bear statues near the polar bear exhibit that the kids thought would be fun to sit on. An interesting thing about the polar bear exhibit is that we didn't get to see the polar bear because it had been taken off exhibit. We heard that it was because one of the small deer-like animals from across the way had gotten into the polar bear exhibit. The story goes that they weren't afraid of the deer getting caught by the polar bear, but rather that the deer would fall into the very deep and steep pool at the front of the exhibit and drown. Supposedly, the polar bear was taken off exhibit to allow the zookeepers to rescue the deer. Sadly for us, we didn't get to see polar bear, deer, or zookeeper in the exhibit, and we ran out of patience waiting for any of them to appear. That happens pretty fast with small children.
I found that gibbons like this move the way that I usually think of monkeys moving - swinging from branch to branch, using vines, and so forth. They don't have tails, though, so that part is out. This one seemed to find us as fascinating as we found her.
My boy really knows how to enjoy a churro to the fullest.
This wallaby and koala were in the same exhibit. The koala was asleep and therefore not shy, but the wallaby didn't want to look at us. Or it just happened to be facing the other way when the picture was taken. They look a lot like small kangaroos when you can see more than their backside. I kind of think the backside looks like a huge rat in this picture.
Pandas are sensitive to noise, so we had to be quiet near them. When the bus tour went by, the guide told us we had to be quiet and he didn't say anything until we had passed the exhibit. We went back to see them since the exhibit was fenced from the road. They looked to be pretty pleased with their arrangement - all the food they could eat, relative quiet compared to the rest of the zoo, and comfortable surroundings. People even hope for them to reproduce the way an older couple "encourages" their adult children to get married and give them grandchildren! Sounds like a great gig if you can get it! *grin*
The gorillas were the penultimate exhibit we visited. They were kind of hard to get pictures of, but these statues held still much better, so we got pictures of them instead.
Last, we returned to the reptile house to see the huge yellow boa constrictor. Unfortunately, the picture got cut off just below the very tip of the mouth, so it looks like we took a picture of another tourist taking a picture of something with a yellow snout. The snake snout is at the bottom left.
More to come later.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 1
As many of you may know, we just returned from a long vacation to San Diego. This was our first long vacation with just our family (meaning, we were on vacation with just us, not visiting other family for a long time, etc). It was an amazing experience, and I think that the kids have made some memories that will last a very long time too. A HUGE THANK YOU goes to my wife for putting it all together, my father-in-law for allowing us to use his vacation timeshare credits for lodging, to my wife's aunt and uncle for hosting us in Las Vegas on the way down and back, and to everyone else who helped make this possible!
Our camera's batteries were running low during the middle of the week so we didn't get any pictures of the beach or the Wild Animal Park, but we did get some fun pictures at the zoo and Sea World (we went there on two different days).
For starters, though, here are some memories from the trip down to San Diego, with a night's stay in Las Vegas.
Friday and Saturday:
My little girl had some MAJOR nose bleeds on the way from Utah to Las Vegas. I wonder if it was the AC running or changing environments, but we're talking major gushers! We pulled over to the side of the road for about 10 minutes to help out, stopped at a gas station for another break, and tried to keep ice packs on her neck the rest of the way to Vegas. Luckily, she didn't have any further problems for the rest of the trip. No pictures of this. You can thank me later. *grin*
My wife's aunt and uncle are getting up in age, but they LOVE our family, even if we are a handful! They have a pet rabbit (named Trouble, but the kids have, for some reason, dubbed it Strappy) that gets terrorized each time we stop by.
Here it is, facing the other direction but just as red-eyed.
We only permanently broke one thing that I know of. Here's something that was fixable.
Here we are enjoying the backyard before continuing on to San Diego.
I just missed the frisbee here, in case you are wondering why my arm looks so odd.
Other interesting tidbits about the journey included seeing a road in the desert part of California called Zzyzx Road (of particular interest to fans of "Kyle XY", though that Zzyzx was in a Washington state forest, not a desert), the GPS knowing where lots of things are, and also where lots of things used to be but aren't any more (paying $70 for a map update sure hasn't helped us at all, as we tried for about half an hour after arriving in San Diego to find a grocery store and a pizza place), and an eating establishment / playground / history center called "Peggy Sue's 50's Diner" in Yermo (near Barstow). The food was average, but the environment, from the 50's memorabilia to the "Diner Saur Park" in the rear, made for a fun family stopping point. Here are some of our pictures from there.
Part of the inside.
Part of the outside.
We were blessed to have the person behind us in line at the grocery store we eventually found let us use their loyalty card, thus saving us over $50 in groceries (about 25% of our bill otherwise). That was just one in a string of things that we felt were blessings from the Lord during our vacation.
On Sunday, we mostly rested at the resort, but we also looked up the meeting time for church nearby. It was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM, but when we arrived at that time, we found that it was a Stake Conference that was halfway over. We ended up sitting in the foyer for the last hour and then beating the traffic out of there and going to take a look at the San Diego Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of the temples are beautiful, but that one, in our minds, is especially so. Too bad we didn't take a picture though.
More to come later.
Our camera's batteries were running low during the middle of the week so we didn't get any pictures of the beach or the Wild Animal Park, but we did get some fun pictures at the zoo and Sea World (we went there on two different days).
For starters, though, here are some memories from the trip down to San Diego, with a night's stay in Las Vegas.
Friday and Saturday:
My little girl had some MAJOR nose bleeds on the way from Utah to Las Vegas. I wonder if it was the AC running or changing environments, but we're talking major gushers! We pulled over to the side of the road for about 10 minutes to help out, stopped at a gas station for another break, and tried to keep ice packs on her neck the rest of the way to Vegas. Luckily, she didn't have any further problems for the rest of the trip. No pictures of this. You can thank me later. *grin*
My wife's aunt and uncle are getting up in age, but they LOVE our family, even if we are a handful! They have a pet rabbit (named Trouble, but the kids have, for some reason, dubbed it Strappy) that gets terrorized each time we stop by.
Here it is, facing the other direction but just as red-eyed.
We only permanently broke one thing that I know of. Here's something that was fixable.
Here we are enjoying the backyard before continuing on to San Diego.
I just missed the frisbee here, in case you are wondering why my arm looks so odd.
Other interesting tidbits about the journey included seeing a road in the desert part of California called Zzyzx Road (of particular interest to fans of "Kyle XY", though that Zzyzx was in a Washington state forest, not a desert), the GPS knowing where lots of things are, and also where lots of things used to be but aren't any more (paying $70 for a map update sure hasn't helped us at all, as we tried for about half an hour after arriving in San Diego to find a grocery store and a pizza place), and an eating establishment / playground / history center called "Peggy Sue's 50's Diner" in Yermo (near Barstow). The food was average, but the environment, from the 50's memorabilia to the "Diner Saur Park" in the rear, made for a fun family stopping point. Here are some of our pictures from there.
Part of the inside.
Part of the outside.
We were blessed to have the person behind us in line at the grocery store we eventually found let us use their loyalty card, thus saving us over $50 in groceries (about 25% of our bill otherwise). That was just one in a string of things that we felt were blessings from the Lord during our vacation.
On Sunday, we mostly rested at the resort, but we also looked up the meeting time for church nearby. It was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM, but when we arrived at that time, we found that it was a Stake Conference that was halfway over. We ended up sitting in the foyer for the last hour and then beating the traffic out of there and going to take a look at the San Diego Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of the temples are beautiful, but that one, in our minds, is especially so. Too bad we didn't take a picture though.
More to come later.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tag
My sister tagged me in a simple game, and since the picture that came up was so cute, I decided to play along.
Rules:
Go to your picture files. Open the 6th folder, and the 6th picture. Post it on your blog and tell the story of the picture. Then tag 6 people.
Here is my photo:
This is my youngest child. He is at a friend's house. This particular friend is a photographer, and my wife was having some family pictures taken. She wanted to get our son in the Eeyore costume before he completely grew out of it. Oddly, we have a photo of our second oldest in the same costume, and it's kind of hard to tell the two apart, as our youngest has a strong resemblance to our second oldest. I'll see if I can find that picture too.
OK, so it's my two oldest, about 4.5 years earlier, but you get the idea.
I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you do decide to do something similar due to what you saw here, please feel free to drop a comment with a link to your offering. I'd be interested to see what turns up!
Rules:
Go to your picture files. Open the 6th folder, and the 6th picture. Post it on your blog and tell the story of the picture. Then tag 6 people.
Here is my photo:
This is my youngest child. He is at a friend's house. This particular friend is a photographer, and my wife was having some family pictures taken. She wanted to get our son in the Eeyore costume before he completely grew out of it. Oddly, we have a photo of our second oldest in the same costume, and it's kind of hard to tell the two apart, as our youngest has a strong resemblance to our second oldest. I'll see if I can find that picture too.
OK, so it's my two oldest, about 4.5 years earlier, but you get the idea.
I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you do decide to do something similar due to what you saw here, please feel free to drop a comment with a link to your offering. I'd be interested to see what turns up!
I Got Better...
It's been a while since I posted an update, and that's in large part because I haven't worked out in a while. The reason for that is because my family and I have been experiencing various illnesses recently. In fact, over one recent 8 day period, my wife made 4 trips to a doctor's office for various family members.
Someone told me recently that mid-February to mid-March in Utah is the time of year when doctors see the most patients for various colds and illnesses. I guess it's like the holiday season for retailers - busy, busy, busy, and possibly a large part of their yearly income? Anyway...
Some of us are better now. Some of us aren't. I did work out today though, so that's why you get to find out what's been going on. Hopefully I'll work out some more soon.
Someone told me recently that mid-February to mid-March in Utah is the time of year when doctors see the most patients for various colds and illnesses. I guess it's like the holiday season for retailers - busy, busy, busy, and possibly a large part of their yearly income? Anyway...
Some of us are better now. Some of us aren't. I did work out today though, so that's why you get to find out what's been going on. Hopefully I'll work out some more soon.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Children's Sleeping Habits
I intended to work out this morning, but due to what I'll explain next, I didn't. I weighed 349.0 lbs this morning, though.
Why is it that when my kids need to have the alarm set for 7:00 AM to get up in time for school, they can't seem to drag themselves out of bed for 15 to 30 minutes after, and yet, when they don't have to get up for school and the alarm is not set, like this morning, they are all awake and raring to go by 6:30?
This is not an unusual occurrence, either. It is very common for my children to fight to get up when they "have" to, and to be out of bed in a flash when they could be sleeping in. I don't know why that is, but I wonder if I'll miss it when they are teenagers and won't be out of bed before noon if they can help it!
Today's early risers were especially problematic for me because I wanted to let my wife get as much sleep as she could. She's not feeling very good. Since the kids were up, I decided to just shower and get ready for the day rather than work out, but while I was showering, they turned on the TV. My wife had to get up and stop them from watching TV because they don't do their chores if they start the day by watching TV. The whole day goes badly when they start it that way. By the time I was done showering, my wife was awake and downstairs with the kids, and I didn't get to let her rest at all. In fact, she was up earlier than she normally is on a school day.
I did manage to help the kids with their breakfast, and I tried to encourage them to do their chores quickly and cheerfully today. I don't have high hopes for that helping very much though.
Why is it that when my kids need to have the alarm set for 7:00 AM to get up in time for school, they can't seem to drag themselves out of bed for 15 to 30 minutes after, and yet, when they don't have to get up for school and the alarm is not set, like this morning, they are all awake and raring to go by 6:30?
This is not an unusual occurrence, either. It is very common for my children to fight to get up when they "have" to, and to be out of bed in a flash when they could be sleeping in. I don't know why that is, but I wonder if I'll miss it when they are teenagers and won't be out of bed before noon if they can help it!
Today's early risers were especially problematic for me because I wanted to let my wife get as much sleep as she could. She's not feeling very good. Since the kids were up, I decided to just shower and get ready for the day rather than work out, but while I was showering, they turned on the TV. My wife had to get up and stop them from watching TV because they don't do their chores if they start the day by watching TV. The whole day goes badly when they start it that way. By the time I was done showering, my wife was awake and downstairs with the kids, and I didn't get to let her rest at all. In fact, she was up earlier than she normally is on a school day.
I did manage to help the kids with their breakfast, and I tried to encourage them to do their chores quickly and cheerfully today. I don't have high hopes for that helping very much though.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Sneering at the World
Well, just when I thought I was getting all better from my illnesses, I woke up yesterday and slowly discovered that my lips and facial muscles were numb and not responding correctly. After a while, I started wondering if it might be Bell's Palsy, something that my brother had gone through a while back. After talking with him, I decided it may or may not be, and while driving home, I saw that my mouth wouldn't smile correctly on the left side. My right side pulls up into the smile properly, while the left side pulled back only a little bit, causing what appears as a sneer. I stopped to see the doctor, and it looks like it IS Bell's Palsy on my left side.
From some reading on Wikipedia and discussions with the doctor, it appears to be a fairly mild case, as I don't have any drooping features really. It's more just that the left side muscles don't respond as much as the right side muscles do. It could last 10 days, it could last 6 months, but it should go away in time. The doctor decided that I probably didn't need anything to treat the symptoms unless they get worse because the treatments would be bad for my blood sugar and not help enough to offset that for the mild case I'm experiencing. He also said that, if he had just seen me in the store and I smiled at him, he might not have noticed that anything was off. I don't know if he said that for my vanity, but if so, such a thing is wasted on me!
My wife has had some family members experience strokes in the past, and they have had a hard time smiling due to that, so it was really tough on her to hear that I was having that same symptom. The doctor said that, while I do have a lot of risk factors for stroke with my weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes, those factors appear to be fairly well controlled and improving as I lose weight. The fact that it is only one side of my face that is affected instead of one side of my body (my left hand, arm, leg, and foot are all feeling and working fine) also indicates that this was not a stroke. We are grateful for that!
Lastly, I got up with the intention to work out this morning, but my daughter came into our room just as I was getting ready to start. In the hopes of getting her to go back to sleep, I took her back into her room only to discover that our youngest was wide awake and anxious for me to hold him. I enjoyed spending time with them this morning instead of working out. :)
I did weigh myself and came in at 350.4 lbs.
From some reading on Wikipedia and discussions with the doctor, it appears to be a fairly mild case, as I don't have any drooping features really. It's more just that the left side muscles don't respond as much as the right side muscles do. It could last 10 days, it could last 6 months, but it should go away in time. The doctor decided that I probably didn't need anything to treat the symptoms unless they get worse because the treatments would be bad for my blood sugar and not help enough to offset that for the mild case I'm experiencing. He also said that, if he had just seen me in the store and I smiled at him, he might not have noticed that anything was off. I don't know if he said that for my vanity, but if so, such a thing is wasted on me!
My wife has had some family members experience strokes in the past, and they have had a hard time smiling due to that, so it was really tough on her to hear that I was having that same symptom. The doctor said that, while I do have a lot of risk factors for stroke with my weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes, those factors appear to be fairly well controlled and improving as I lose weight. The fact that it is only one side of my face that is affected instead of one side of my body (my left hand, arm, leg, and foot are all feeling and working fine) also indicates that this was not a stroke. We are grateful for that!
Lastly, I got up with the intention to work out this morning, but my daughter came into our room just as I was getting ready to start. In the hopes of getting her to go back to sleep, I took her back into her room only to discover that our youngest was wide awake and anxious for me to hold him. I enjoyed spending time with them this morning instead of working out. :)
I did weigh myself and came in at 350.4 lbs.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
A Weight and Health Update
I've had bronchitis for the past week or so, and on Friday I added an ear infection to it. I did see the doctor on Friday and got some medicine, and I seem to be on the mend again. I'm holding off on workouts until I stop coughing, though, because some of my coughs are pretty violent, and exercise would only exacerbate the problem.
In a positive side effect to this illness, I decided to weigh myself this morning. The scale said 348.7, which is the lowest I've seen since starting this blog! I'm melting, I'm melting!!!
In a positive side effect to this illness, I decided to weigh myself this morning. The scale said 348.7, which is the lowest I've seen since starting this blog! I'm melting, I'm melting!!!
Monday, January 19, 2009
19 January 2009 Workout
Time: 6:30 AM
Weight beforehand: 360 lbs
Length: 15 minutes
Program: TPRU Twist
Elliptical Reported Calories Burned: 327
Rating: I was happy to get a new high calorie burn number for this workout, but my youngest son provided me with an extra workout when I heard him crying (right after my shower, of course), and I found that he had thrown up and had a major blowout in his diaper. Cleanup on aisle everywhere, please! He's a cute kid, though, and was very cheerful in the bath and shower that ensued.
Weight beforehand: 360 lbs
Length: 15 minutes
Program: TPRU Twist
Elliptical Reported Calories Burned: 327
Rating: I was happy to get a new high calorie burn number for this workout, but my youngest son provided me with an extra workout when I heard him crying (right after my shower, of course), and I found that he had thrown up and had a major blowout in his diaper. Cleanup on aisle everywhere, please! He's a cute kid, though, and was very cheerful in the bath and shower that ensued.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
A Slowly Learned Lesson
First, my weight today was 354.7 lbs, which is down a tad from yesterday, but that might also be due to the reason that I didn't work out today. Without being overly graphic, I had a stomach issue that kept me in the bathroom most of the morning.
Now, for the lesson that I seem to be slow to learn. That lesson is this: I need to keep my wife's current emotional and physical condition in mind when we talk so I can give a helpful and uplifting response. Let me give some examples of how I am slow to learn this.
In each of our pregnancies, I have known that hormones would wreak havoc on my wife's emotions, but I didn't learn how to take that into account BEFORE I said something from my point of view, at least not until after I had crushed her hopes for understanding with my male point of view on something multiple times in the pregnancy. After she would shut down emotionally for fear of further pain, I would finally clue in that she didn't want my male point of view. She wanted me to understand what she was feeling and thinking and be a comforting listener.
As a related side note, I did pretty much the exact same thing to my sister over the holidays when she was visiting during her pregnancy. Fortunately, my wife knew exactly what was going on and stopped me before I said something I thought would be helpful (but would actually have been just the opposite). Later, as we were getting ready for bed, my wife reminded me that my sister was pregnant, and THEN I understood why she had stopped me, and I completely agreed with it too. I sure am unobservant, or at least very slow to process all of the available clues about a situation before opening my mouth.
Yesterday, I once again realized too late that I was still failing with this lesson. As some background, my wife is likely having an ovarian cyst getting ready to burst this week, which is both painful and hormone-ful. Yesterday, pretty much everything she tried to do with the kids and with her business and with her extended family relationships was going wrong and causing even more trouble. Also, as many of you know, my son has Tourette Syndrome, and we were scheduled to finally start our participation in a study on Tourettes after having put the guy off for probably 5 months for one reason or another.
Last night, around 10:00 pm after the study was finished for the day, the kids were finally in bed, and we'd had a small chance to finish our dinner and relax to a favorite show for a little bit, my wife mentioned that she has a fear of some doctor deciding out of the blue that the diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome is wrong for our son. If I had learned this lesson better, I would have recognized that, after an extremely frustrating, tiring, and emotional day, she wanted to share her fear with me and have her feelings comforted. Did I recognize this? Of course not!
My male opinion (and some of my OCD tendencies) kicked right in, and I made sure that she knew how I would approach the situation if it were to happen, and exactly how it wouldn't make any difference to me what it was labeled, and the technical differences in my understanding of syndromes vs root causes, and thank you for letting me finish what I want to say so my OCD will be satisfied, and a few other things that I thought might be pertinent. 10 or 15 minutes later, I finally got around to asking what she had originally wanted to say, and sorry for interrupting.
Yeah, she didn't want to share with me any more. I had ruined her hopes of feeling close to me by sharing her fears and knowing that I cared about them and understood them. I had ruined her chance to finally release some of the tension and stress that had built up over the whole day due to the situations that only she had been able to deal with, and I'd dumped some more on top of her. She had been vulnerable, and I hadn't noticed a bit as I drove the freight train of my thought process over her plea for help.
It's times like these that make me think two main things. 1) I am INCREDIBLY lucky that she still loves me after the many times that this has happened, and 2) I am INCREDIBLY clueless to this lesson. I hope that writing it down will help me to remember it before I speak instead of after.
Now, for the lesson that I seem to be slow to learn. That lesson is this: I need to keep my wife's current emotional and physical condition in mind when we talk so I can give a helpful and uplifting response. Let me give some examples of how I am slow to learn this.
In each of our pregnancies, I have known that hormones would wreak havoc on my wife's emotions, but I didn't learn how to take that into account BEFORE I said something from my point of view, at least not until after I had crushed her hopes for understanding with my male point of view on something multiple times in the pregnancy. After she would shut down emotionally for fear of further pain, I would finally clue in that she didn't want my male point of view. She wanted me to understand what she was feeling and thinking and be a comforting listener.
As a related side note, I did pretty much the exact same thing to my sister over the holidays when she was visiting during her pregnancy. Fortunately, my wife knew exactly what was going on and stopped me before I said something I thought would be helpful (but would actually have been just the opposite). Later, as we were getting ready for bed, my wife reminded me that my sister was pregnant, and THEN I understood why she had stopped me, and I completely agreed with it too. I sure am unobservant, or at least very slow to process all of the available clues about a situation before opening my mouth.
Yesterday, I once again realized too late that I was still failing with this lesson. As some background, my wife is likely having an ovarian cyst getting ready to burst this week, which is both painful and hormone-ful. Yesterday, pretty much everything she tried to do with the kids and with her business and with her extended family relationships was going wrong and causing even more trouble. Also, as many of you know, my son has Tourette Syndrome, and we were scheduled to finally start our participation in a study on Tourettes after having put the guy off for probably 5 months for one reason or another.
Last night, around 10:00 pm after the study was finished for the day, the kids were finally in bed, and we'd had a small chance to finish our dinner and relax to a favorite show for a little bit, my wife mentioned that she has a fear of some doctor deciding out of the blue that the diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome is wrong for our son. If I had learned this lesson better, I would have recognized that, after an extremely frustrating, tiring, and emotional day, she wanted to share her fear with me and have her feelings comforted. Did I recognize this? Of course not!
My male opinion (and some of my OCD tendencies) kicked right in, and I made sure that she knew how I would approach the situation if it were to happen, and exactly how it wouldn't make any difference to me what it was labeled, and the technical differences in my understanding of syndromes vs root causes, and thank you for letting me finish what I want to say so my OCD will be satisfied, and a few other things that I thought might be pertinent. 10 or 15 minutes later, I finally got around to asking what she had originally wanted to say, and sorry for interrupting.
Yeah, she didn't want to share with me any more. I had ruined her hopes of feeling close to me by sharing her fears and knowing that I cared about them and understood them. I had ruined her chance to finally release some of the tension and stress that had built up over the whole day due to the situations that only she had been able to deal with, and I'd dumped some more on top of her. She had been vulnerable, and I hadn't noticed a bit as I drove the freight train of my thought process over her plea for help.
It's times like these that make me think two main things. 1) I am INCREDIBLY lucky that she still loves me after the many times that this has happened, and 2) I am INCREDIBLY clueless to this lesson. I hope that writing it down will help me to remember it before I speak instead of after.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Parenting - The Final Frontier?
We've been having lots of issues with getting our kids to do their chores, be respectful of their mother, and generally be grateful instead of grating. My wife found a book called Have a New Kid by Friday that we have bought and are trying to follow. In essence, it tells us to not be afraid to let the kids fail at small things (being late to school, not getting breakfast, etc) if that is the natural consequence of their actions. Letting them feel the consequences of the real world will help them to understand that people, especially we the parents, will not save them from their choices, so they will have to become responsible for themselves. Of course, you only make them responsible for things that are appropriate for them at their current stage in life.
Well, it sure is hard to do at first. The idea is that the parents can stay calm and let things happen to their kids, but when they do things that irritate you, which is why you bought the book in the first place, it's hard to not get irritated and try to force the issue. It's also hard to know what consequences are coming to the kids for their choices and not try to intervene. In the end, though, I think the book is teaching us as much about what we need to change as parents as it is about what we need to teach our children to change.
Well, it sure is hard to do at first. The idea is that the parents can stay calm and let things happen to their kids, but when they do things that irritate you, which is why you bought the book in the first place, it's hard to not get irritated and try to force the issue. It's also hard to know what consequences are coming to the kids for their choices and not try to intervene. In the end, though, I think the book is teaching us as much about what we need to change as parents as it is about what we need to teach our children to change.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Obsessive Compulsive
My son has mild Tourette Syndrome driven Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). As far as I know, I don't have Tourette Syndrome, but I do notice OCD tendencies in myself. For example, I try to be very consistent in the format of my workout posts.
I used to use workout in the title, but then I decided Workout capitalized was more appropriate. I am using Dec for December this month, but I just noticed that I was using October in October, and I nearly went back to all my December posts to update them to be consistent.
Fortunately, my OCD let me write a post about it instead of making me go back and do it. Of course, it will also encourage me to make sure that the rest of my December posts will have Dec and re-evaluate which format I'll use when January comes around. *smile*
I used to use workout in the title, but then I decided Workout capitalized was more appropriate. I am using Dec for December this month, but I just noticed that I was using October in October, and I nearly went back to all my December posts to update them to be consistent.
Fortunately, my OCD let me write a post about it instead of making me go back and do it. Of course, it will also encourage me to make sure that the rest of my December posts will have Dec and re-evaluate which format I'll use when January comes around. *smile*
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Dealing With Errata
It's not quite 9:00 AM, and I've already been dealing with errata all day.
My oldest son is very bright, and he also has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) driven Tourette syndrome. Over the weekend, he discovered a computer game that my wife and I have enjoyed for some time that we thought he would like. It turns out he likes it so much that yesterday (about 6:10 AM) and today (before 6:00 AM) he has gotten up very early to play it before getting ready for school. This is of course unacceptable, and we've been dealing with him needing to understand why he can't do that, and having to hide the required CD to launch the game, and dealing with him being tired.
We also recently decided to cancel our home monitoring service and go with a new provider. In checking over my accounts today, I discovered that the old service was still billing us. I spent just over 15 minutes getting that resolved with them.
Then there's the video book report that we have to transfer to an actual VHS tape, finding out if Scouts really is going to be tonight or not due to it being Pack meeting week, etc, that my wife is handling.
Better busy that bored, but I think I was already kind of busy. I ended up not doing a workout today due to tiredness and errata.
My oldest son is very bright, and he also has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) driven Tourette syndrome. Over the weekend, he discovered a computer game that my wife and I have enjoyed for some time that we thought he would like. It turns out he likes it so much that yesterday (about 6:10 AM) and today (before 6:00 AM) he has gotten up very early to play it before getting ready for school. This is of course unacceptable, and we've been dealing with him needing to understand why he can't do that, and having to hide the required CD to launch the game, and dealing with him being tired.
We also recently decided to cancel our home monitoring service and go with a new provider. In checking over my accounts today, I discovered that the old service was still billing us. I spent just over 15 minutes getting that resolved with them.
Then there's the video book report that we have to transfer to an actual VHS tape, finding out if Scouts really is going to be tonight or not due to it being Pack meeting week, etc, that my wife is handling.
Better busy that bored, but I think I was already kind of busy. I ended up not doing a workout today due to tiredness and errata.
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