2014 Vacations Part 2

Halfway between Reno, NV and Salt Lake City, UT (commonly referred to as the middle of no where) is a town called Wells, NV. And this is where the RV would decide it cannot go one more mile. We noticed smoke while we were driving and assumed it was the hydraulic line again. Nope, this time a faulty torque converter decided to go instead. 

Thankfully we had our jeep which safely got us home

Thumbs up because this is what memories are made of

The last trip of the year was a homeschool trip to Disney World. We would not have chosen to go in Sept. due to the heat and the rain but at least the crowds were low and it was hospital free so I call that a success. I could not tolerate the heat for more than a couple hours per day but over the course of 6 days, we did it all.

Bring on the rain

So now the blog is officially up to date. I started it 2 years ago to document my early years and so my birth mom can see what I'm up to. I will try to do at least quarterly updates. 

Cheers!

Alexa

2014 Vacations - Part 1

Yikes...It's F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G

Since heading south is not an option right now, let's recap the warm vacations we took last spring and summer. 

Shortly after my birthday we joined the Lee family in California with some of their good friends and spent a week at Leo Carrillo State Beach in the rv. Mom has been BFF's with Kristi for almost 30 years. This was hopefully the first of many years we can spend spring break with them.  The set up is great because it's only a 1/4 mile walk down a private drive to the beach but the campground is tucked in the canyon so it's wooded and cooler.

Those who know us well have come to expect some sort of medical excitement any time we leave the house. We did not disappoint.  Mom and dad were ultra prepared for anything I could throw their way, so this time it was Drew who threw the curveball.

He was pushing me as I sat on a skateboard down the campground driveway. His foot got in the path of the wheel and brought it to a sudden stop. He instinctively used both hands to grab me before I fell, leaving his face to stop his body. I did not have a scratch on me but Drew didn't fare so well. Luckily mom had gotten the cell phone number of the local doctor who is familiar with my metabolic condition and he was able to hook us up with a plastic surgeon who saw us the same day. Thank you Dr. Goldstine! The surgeon got Drew's face stitched up nicely and 24 hrs later he was back to his old self. And we are pretty sure when he said "don't get the stitches wet", he accidentally left off "...unless it would make your vacation more fun." The Kellers are not known for their stellar compliance to medical recommendations. 

I'm sure the salt water kept the stitches clean

The Henderson cousins came to camp a night too

Super fun wrecking ball swing made with a volleyball and t-shirt

The big vacation of the summer was the RV trip to Canada, the Oregon coast, many RV repair shops, and the Redwood forest. 

1. Who knows where Wells, NV is?  We will come back to that answer

2. Who continues on after the RV catches fire on day 1 of the trip? No, it's not the Griswalds. They had the wagon queen family truckster, not an RV. 

Yes, day 1 started with a hydraulic line fire while driving through Utah. But it was no match for dad and his fire extinguisher. The shop said it was safe to drive it to Vancouver where the line could be fixed. 

Our first stop was Whistler, BC to celebrate my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. The RV went to the shop while we stayed at the hotel with everyone. 

Developing my downhill skills

Olympic Park

One of mom's favorite pics of all time

swimming with my cousin Megan

and swinging with my cousin Emily

Our next stop was to pick up the RV and camp in Vancouver, right across the water from Stanley Park. Great location. Great city. We had fun at the huge Capilano suspension bridge

Getting to the other side. Where's Waldo?

Group selfie. Great expression, right?

Popsicle Break 

Next stop was Canon Beach, Oregon. Another great camping location right in town. 

This trip

exact same beach in 2012

The last stop on the trip was the Giant Redwood Forest. 

 A perfect spot

And all that was left was the drive home...

How Vinny Testaverde must have felt

Can't a blogger retire in peace? For years after he "retired", every time a quarterback got hurt, Vinny Testaverde had to get off his couch and trade his leisure track suit in for pads in an attempt to save a season. Even though he just had his 50th birthday, when Carson Palmer was carted off the field Sunday, we wondered if he would get that call again.  Now I know how he feels. For now, I will step out of retirement and see how it goes. So here is what I looked like the last time I posted

And here is what I look like now. 

I decided to stop writing because I found something I liked better...talking. And do I ever talk. My vocabulary went from 4 words all of last year, to about 4000 and growing every hour. I am a sponge and quickly figured out the art of context and delivery. I can even scream the words "NEVER.EVER.NOW" in such a way that you would swear it was profanity.  People always tell mom when I say something funny that she should write it down. But let's face it, reading the words of a two year old loses something. So instead I invite you all at come spend some time with me. You won't be disappointed. 

My current stats are:
age- 2 years 8 months
weight- 26#
height- 34"
Words- as many as anyone reading this + some I've made up
Special skills- Gargling

Activities- I started gymnastics last week. We attempted the class last winter and I had no interest in doing "stations". I much preferred the "free for all/ stay on the trampoline as long as I want" style of class. But now I'm mature and the bars, mats, and beam aren't that bad. My friends are in the class too so it works for me. At 34", there aren't a lot of options and I need to burn off energy any way I can. 

Medical Update- Not much has changed which is good and bad. Good because I have not had any hospital stays this year. I weathered my first illness last March and managed to stay at home through high fevers and croup. My blood sugars never went below 60 which is when mom gets nervous. I'm not sure why she ever gets nervous...hello, I ate raw chicken and didn't even get a stomach ache! I'm a honey badger, remember? Ok, except for the one time I ate french fries and stayed in the heat too long and things didn't end well. Even honey badgers can make bad choices. The  bad in my health status quo is that my liver continues to give us problems. For the past 18 months my labs have been off. It started with just liver enzymes creeping up over the high limit. But after my metabolic crisis last summer everything went awry. The fat restricted diet brought all my numbers back to normal except triglycerides. Those keep rising. We are currently at 4 times over the high limit for kids and no one knows why. Last week I had an ultrasound to make sure the triglycerides were not accumulating in my liver and it looked fine. So for now they seem to be content just dancing around in my blood. We will continue to monitor and at some point, we may need to do more testing to find out why its happening. We tweaked my diet one last time to see if that helps. I am now only allowed 11 grams of fat per day so keep that in mind if you find me raiding your cabinets.  I have nothing to worry about for many years from a cardiac standpoint because I promised Dr. Brunson I would wait until I was under his care at age 18 to do anything really stupid like have a heart attack.  He said he can't wait to manage me and all my metabolic friends! I'm pretty sure he was sincere when he said it. 

Speaking of medical things, Brandon has one-upped me this year for sure. The last time I wrote, he had a halo on

He got it off in Feb and everything went well. This is him now.

And he decided to throw everyone a curveball by having a "googly" eye that started sometime after the halo surgery. Even in this picture from the summer you can see his left eye goes a little higher than his right. When he is looking to the right it's really freaky. He had an MRI today that showed a problem with a muscle so he will be having surgery to correct it soon. 

Mom had Tommy John surgery in May to repair a torn elbow ligament from tennis. It's been a slow recovery and lets just say, MLB is not in her future. For the best recovery, the preferred age is clearly 23. Sorry mom. The rest of the family is doing well. I promised dad I wouldn't mention the incident last week where he walked down a step the same way he does everyday and strained a calf muscle really bad. So if you see him limping and he tells you it was from an epic ride, just go along with the lie. It has nothing to do with his age. Hayley, Michael, and Drew have no issues. Hopefully they aren't saving themselves for something more memorable like enterovirus 68 or ebola. 

Well it will be impossible to write about the past 10 months in a condensed manner so I will do it in pictures instead. Hope everyone is enjoying the arctic freeze of 2014. To make eveyone feel warm, my next post will be our spring and summer vacation pics of 2014

Cheers!

Alexa

My 2nd Birthday and fat free cake

This ski season I got to ride the real lift

Everyone wears their pink floyd shirt to kindermusik, right?

Helping Tim take out the backyard landscape in the "bobo cat" in hopes that someday we will have a pool

Easter egg hunt on our beach camping trip

And my basket when we got home

A stroll with my baby who borrowed Mr. Potato head's glasses

Simon says, and I'm the bossiest Simon ever

Feeding the chipmunks at Grand Mesa

I fit perfect in Maya Rodgers bed

My hair is thick enough for headbands now

Loving fall in Colorado

The highlight of halloween, the pig and big bad wolf

21/22 Months

3 in a row. Yipee, I'm caught up!!!

And just in time because mom leaves tomorrow to take Brandon to Dallas for the surgery to take off his halo. This time I really am staying home and helping dad rearrange the cabinet items.  He likes it when I do that. 21 and 22 month milestones happened during the chaos of December and January but I will share the highlights and current stats. 

wt- 23.5# 

ht- 31.5"

This is a big deal. I am really starting to thin out and when I'm in a group of kids close to my age, I'm not always the shortest. This has never happened before. 

words- I finally have a vocabulary that is more than a rotating list of 4 words. I will imitate anything and spontaneously say a handful of things. I get confused on whether only mom is mom or if dad is mom too. So I will continue to call them both mom. Amy (my babysitter) is "mee-mee", Drew is "du", Hayley is "no!", Brandon is just a blank stare, a smile and a fist bump. My animal sounds are amazing. Next time you see me ask what a cow says. Apparently the cows I talk to are different than the std ones. 

activities- I started kindermusik last week. I'm not very good at sitting still so we will see if I can stay in the class. At my genetics appointment last May, my doctor told me I was the most hyper kid he has ever seen. Mom and dad thought he was crazy. Now they think he is a genius. I don't know how the other kids can sit nicely on those carpet squares when there is so much to see and do in the room. No matter where I am, I'm in motion. I have an awkward run but its efficient and quick so who cares. We could try physical therapy but they will never catch me. I went skiing once this year. It was a rare warm day so mom took me on the magic carpet. I can go down all by myself now.  I can't turn or stop so mom stays in front of me in case I veer the wrong way.

Mom was struggling to run backwards and film so it's short but you get the idea

Hopefully the weather will get warmer so we can go again soon. I refuse to wear mittens so the conditions have to be perfect.

sleeping- I am a one nap kid as of a week ago. My night routine is still the same, as I like to eat every 3-4 hours and I think I will stick with that for a while. Don't tell mom that. She thinks there is hope for a 5 hour stretch this calendar year. 

medical happenings- My only appt as we wrapped up 2013 was with a dietician. She looked at my records and labs and decided I needed to be on a diet that didn't stress my liver so much. As I've said before, I cannot process fats like everyone else so I am now on a very fat restricted diet. Since my favorite meal was pasta, olive oil, and avocado it meant big changes. Now that same meal is pasta, fat free butter spray, and chicken breast. We also had to change my formula but so far things are going great and I look healthier than ever.

Last week I took my first trip to the eye doctor. Some forms of my metabolic disorder can affect eyes so mom considered getting a baseline exam before Dr. L retires. Since nothing sounds more enjoyable than a non limited- verbal 22 month old at an eye exam, we went for it. And its a good thing. I couldn't quite figure out what words to use to tell everyone I can't see a thing out of my right eye. But Dr. L figured it out in about 30 seconds. So I'm getting glasses. I am nearly blind in that eye so my brain decided it was less confusing to just use my left eye only.  Right now, it doesn't appear to be related to anything metabolic. Just a lucky coincidence that we caught it early so there is a great chance my vision in that eye will improve with the glasses. The cool glasses are on order so you will have to wait until next post to see them. Mom says I look like a minion from Despicable me. So I will leave you with that image.

Cheers!

alexa

Holidays 2013

Brandon's surgery and Costa Rica seriously made this holiday season a blur. Thanksgiving was relaxing and fun because it was the first time Michael was home since starting college. Last Thanksgiving we were doing our midwest RV tour so this year I'm told is the norm. Lots of food and good football on TV. The Thanksgiving tradition is to give mom our personal meal list and her and dad will make it all. That way everyone gets to eat their favorite foods at dinner. Ironically, people picked turkey, ham, etc so it looked like a trad'l meal with some extra pasta. And of course mom's brussel sprouts.  I still love eating everything so I was content with what the other kids wanted. Little did I know it would be my last carefree feast for a while. More details about my new diet in the next catch-up post. 

Dad thought it would be nice for mom to be in the picture. You can tell by the clarity how often this happens. Mom's the one in the pink!

Next year, mom

We had cousins visit over the Christmas break which we love. Lindsey came out during Hayley's nutcracker weekend so she took my place at the show. I guess mom doesn't think my 2 minute attention span is quite ready for a ballet yet. 

But I did get to join in on the bowling fun

ready to let 'er roll

Cheering for myself. Look at that centered ball!

Christmas day was fun as always. We shopped early so we had a huge tree this year

You may notice the lack of ornaments at the bottom of the tree. Couldn't help myself. You know what they say about low hanging fruit

Dancing with the dog Drew got me

Pool toys. Will be even better if we get a pool.

Checking out my new stove from Santa. Grandma got me the cookware set and food so now the possibilities are endless

Mom and dad cooked a big Christmas Eve dinner so on Christmas night we went over to the Qualls for homemade pizzas and farkle

My Xmas shirt from TQ

making sure Brandon makes good choices

On the 27th,  the Henderson's arrived. Always fun

getting out of bed to see the NYE ball drop

Uncle Loyd in charge of the midnight selfie on NYE bc he had the longest arms

Not a bad way to welcome 2014. We are surrounded by a great group of friends and family.

Cheers

Alexa