Monday, March 31, 2008

Arkansas Trip - Part 2

Quick Edit to Part 1 - or better yet "Lesson on Acquiring Hotel Rooms"
I realized that I did not include a valuable lesson learned in my earlier post from the first part of our drive to Arkansas. Our first hotel stay in Albuquerque, proved to be fitness training for Guya and me. We arrived late, after 11:00 pm and Guya went into the Hampton Inn we found to get a room. They were pretty booked but told her they had one double bed room left we could have. We parted and then managed to load ourselves up with sleeping kids, backpacks, beloved blankets and suitcases to keep from having to make a second trip. We thought we were being smart. HaHa! We stumbled into the hotel, nearly dropping a kid or two, dropped the big suitcase which I managed to squat down just enough to grab the handle and put it back upright. The real trick wasn't the squatting is was keeping from peeing my pants since we were laughing at ourselves so hard and REALLY had to pee! I'm sure any outsider would have sworn we were drunk. So after picking up the suitcase we made it to the elevator, up 3 floors and to our room. Ahhh...we were going to rest...that is until we saw the trash on the floor and obvious uncleaned room. We nearly cried. By now the kids were awake and the thought of lugging everything back down made us miserable. Guya took the easy job and went back down to get another room. Miraculously they found another double bed room (hmmm....makes you wonder, huh?) and we gathered our stuff and went up another floor to a clean room. This room was better even if the toilet took two flushes to do anything and the sink didn't drain right.
So, lesson learned - check the hotel room BEFORE lugging everything out of the car and to the room!
Part 2
Upon arriving in Mountain Home, Monday morning, Aunt Kim guided us to the Hospice Home to visit Grandma Carol. The hospice center is fairly new and staffed with some of the nicest most hospitable people I've met. They have a family room stocked with a refrigerator, vending machines, microwave, tables, chairs, couches, two TVs, kid play area, collection of reading material and even a computer with Internet access! We spent some good quality time with Grandma that first afternoon until we could tell we were wearing her out. Around 3:oo pm or so Aunt Kim and Cousin Laurie (who was visiting from Illinois) led us to our hotel to drop off our stuff and we then followed them on to grandma's house to have dinner, hang out and visit with everyone.

The nurses were so sweet to bring in a couple of baby dolls for Boopy to play with. She enjoyed sharing them with Grandma.

Lots of love for Grandma.

Great picture of Grandma! Not taken by me but by Big Boy! Although I did have to do a bit of cropping, he's getting pretty good with my camera!


The kids really enjoyed the play area. They had it all to themselves the whole time we were there. We even took the legos into Grandma's room for them to play with while we visited.


Big Boy and Aunt Kim do some bonding.

Back at Grandma's house, Monday evening. Grandpa Frank had put in these crazy monkey weather veins in their front yard that has become the trademark for the house. Boopy really loved getting to check out the monkeys.



Uncle Tim scored big points when he pulled out two boxes of matchbox cars for the kids to play with! I think he had nearly as much fun as the kids!

Hanging out with Laurie & Aunt Kim at Grandma's house.

There's nothing more fun than making Boopy have a crazy face! At least she loves her Aunt Guya enough to let her torture her!

After a rousing game of attack Uncle Tim, the kids were rewarded by homemade chocolate milkshakes. I think they ended up being a bit more like chocolate milk when Big Boy poured a little too much milk in the mixer. Regardless, they enjoyed them!



Tuesday morning brought a little bit of excitement to our stay in Mountain Home. While getting ready in the morning to go to see Grandma, the fire alarm went off in the hotel. I stuck my head out the door and asked some hotel employees who happened to be in the hallway if the alarm was real. I told Guya and I don't think I've seen her ever get dressed that fast! Guya grabbed Big Boy, his shoes and the diaper bag while I grabbed Boopy, her blanket, the camera bag and purses. We literally ran down the stairs not sure what to expect when we got down to the lobby. We were ushered outside with the everyone else. Actually everyone else only ended up being hotel employees. All the other guests apparently had decided to stay in the rooms and wait for smoke before they believed the alarm. Needless to say, we enjoyed a nice adrenaline rush just to be told to it was safe to return to our room. There indeed was no fire but the sprinkler system had a pipe burst or some storm water had gotten in and triggered the alarm. Better safe than sorry though - especially with the little ones. At least the alarm didn't phase the kids, they just went along for the ride. Either they are really easy going or they're just used to Mama & Auntie "Guya" acting slightly crazy. Perhaps a little bit of both!
After our hotel excitement, we checked out of the hotel, assuring them it had nothing to do with the alarm, it was just that our Uncle invited us to save the cash and stay with the family at Grandma's house. We loaded our stuff in the car, in the pouring rain and headed down to see Grandma. Grandma had had a rough morning so far so after only 5 minutes it was obvious she needed to rest so we went to the family room to hang out for a while. In our down time while Grandma was resting we enjoyed visited with Aunt Deb, Aunt Kim, Cousin Laurie. This was taken Tuesday afternoon, just before Aunt Kim & Laurie had to leave. It was nice that our visits overlapped. With everyone living all over the United States we rarely ever see each other in person. It was also during this time that we had some good heart to hearts with our parents and encouraged them to go ahead and come out now to assure a quality goodbye with Grandma. Based on her status and recommendations from the nurses, there was not question that if Dad wanted to visit with Grandma while she wasn't sedated he needed to come soon. It didn't take Dad to book a ticket for him and Mom into Tulsa, OK for the next night. (Mountain Home isn't really near any airports and is only 4 hours from Tulsa or Little Rock)

Aunt Deb, Aunt Kim, Big Boy, Laurie, Guya, Boopy

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Outside Time Distractions

Yesterday, I ended up taking the afternoon off because the EEG we had scheduled for Big Boy took longer than Papa and I expected. While that I'll save the details of the EEG for another post, I did want to show what I got distracted by in the late afternoon. Papa Vaughn had to work in the evening. The kids and I decided to enjoy some wonderful spring weather and spend much of the late afternoon/early evening playing in the front yard. They chased bugs, played in the bushes and I played with my camera and then later, Photoshop. So, while you wait patiently for all my other posts, enjoy the pictures below!



Friday, March 28, 2008

First Visit from Toothfairy

Excuse the intermission from the Arkansas trip. I've got so much to blog, I'll be catching up bit by bit. :)

The Tuesday after we got back from our road trip and right after Easter, poor Big Boy had to have a visit to the oral surgeon. After his first dentist appointment to Papa and my dentist we were referred to a pediatric dentist who could better manage the needs of Big Boy's teeth. He has two cavities in his far back bottom molars that have needed attention. At the pediatric dentist office there were able to get a better variety of x-rays. In his front top teeth they were able to see that he had an abscess inside the gum, above his front right top tooth that was pressing up against his permanent tooth. It was explained that this was most likely caused by a fall at some point where he would have banged his tooth. This would have caused the nerve in the tooth to die eventually causing the graying color that we were seeing. Needless to say, the only way to properly protect his permanent tooth from damage from infection was to have the tooth pulled. For tooth extractions such as this, the pediatric dentists refers out to an oral surgeon. Not a happy day to say the least, but the right thing to do.
Big Boy did extremely well having his tooth pulled. He got anxious and we had a few tears as they administered the nitrous oxide to calm him which is understandable. Once he was calm, he was a trooper with no tears even through the shot in his gum to numb the area! He sat like such a big boy holding my hands and doing everything the surgeon told him. I can't tell you how much I hated having to have the loss of his first tooth this way, but I keep telling myself it was for the best.
You'd never know he had a numb mouth! This was just a couple hours after his tooth extraction! Poor little snaggle tooth smile.

Since this was ultimately Big Boy's first tooth to be lost, it could go without a visit from the tooth fairy! After the excitement of putting his tooth under his pillow, which incidentally Boopy had to inspect under her pillow for teeth, I explained that the tooth fairy might bring him something special for his first tooth! Indeed she did! In the morning, Big Boy was excited to find a $1.00 in quarters where his tooth had been AND the DVD "Meet the Robinsons"!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Arkansas Trip - Part 1

Wow, it sure has taken me a while to sit down and finally blog about our trip last week. Because I have so many pictures to share and stories to tell, I'm piecing the trip out in three parts. So, let's begin!
Friday, March 14th, I was able to leave work early, snag the kids and be on the road by 3:30 rather then 5, which put us in Las Vegas at a much more reasonable time of 10:30 pm versus 12 or 1 in the morning. And yes, that does seem like a longer drive than the actual 6 hour time frame, but with two little ones by yourself, two breaks with getting everyone out of the car is definitely needed. Besides, it never fails that 20 minutes prior to the time and place you plan on stopping, Big Boy declares he needs to go to the bathroom. Considering he's four and does pretty good about not having accidents, you can't really fairly make the poor kid wait another 20 minutes.
After getting myself absurdly lost, 5 minutes from my sister's house in Vegas we arrived to unload, unwind and get some rest before the much longer drive the next day. And before you ask how I managed to get lost seeing that I had the use of my work's GPS system, I must inform you that my sister's house is just a bit newer than the GPS software so it could get me to North Las Vegas but not directly to her home. The GPS by the way - we loved! For the most part it worked great, letting us know if there were hotels/food/gas in the next town and the expected time frame to get to our arrival destination. It even recalculated the time after our pit stops for gas or bathroom breaks. We did incidentally name her "Madge" figuring that sounded like a proper British name since we changed the voice to be British wanting to add a bit of culture to our trek. For a brief moment we contemplated putting her in a French or German voice but since we actually wanted to know when to turn and where we were we decided against it. Could have certainly added to the adventure though! Who knows we could have ended up in Alaska instead of Arkansas, they're close enough, right? HaHa!
Meet "Madge", trusty leader of our grand adventure!

Saturday morning, we woke up rested and ready to go. After a few small last minute errands we were on the road by 11:00am.

Big Boy and Boopy, buckled in and ready to go!

Me, all set to act as co-pilot and in car flight attendant to the two backseat passengers.


Our beautiful pilot, sister Anne, better known as Guya!

For the most part, our drive started out pretty uneventful. That is until an hour later when we were driving over the Hoover Dam to head into Arizona. For those of you not familiar with the area, as I was, the best way out of Vegas was to drive over the Hoover Dam which is unfortunately a major tourist area. This wouldn't be so bad, except that pedestrians rule the road and mindlessly wander about. It would have to be at this point, in the middle of stop and go traffic, with no where to pull off the highway and no bathrooms insight, that Big Boy announces that he needs to go potty. And this is ultimately how we start our trip.... I have the fun of sharing that Big Boy thought Mama was a bit off her rocker, but cooperated nonetheless, when I had him unbuckle, stand up and pee in my empty McDonald's orange juice cup. I think Guya was about to die from the realization that there was pee sitting right next to her in the cup holder adjacent to her coffee. And before you gasp about Big Boy's safety, we were in stopped traffic and literally no where to get out and desolate empty desert looming ahead of us. It was either pee in a cup or have a nice puddle in the backseat.

Hoover Dam - location of Big Boy's first time to pee in a cup!

Figuring nothing could top the fun of peeing in a cup, I think we were set to sit back enjoy the barren desert, watch Disney DVD's and enjoy each other's company. We were wrong! We ventured into Arizona easy prey! It's a good thing, Guya can put the pedal to the metal before these guys could catch us!


Things did settle back down after the great dinosaur chase with not much to report other than a crappy dinner in New Mexico. The kids rode along wonderfully, reading, playing and watching movies. We opted to stay the night in Albuquerque, New Mexico since we were tired and there didn't seem to be much in the way of towns just ahead. In fact Sunday morning we were really glad we didn't push it to Tucumcari, New Mexico. When we stopped there for an early drive-thru lunch we realized that there wasn't much to the town at all and not meaning to sound snobbish, but everything off the highway seemed to be a bit of a dump.

Booby had fun reading a Thomas the Train book. Don't you think she rather talented that she can read upside down?

Boopy also enjoyed copying Mama with her play camera. I bet she got some really great imaginary photos!

Big Boy, the quieter of the two, was very content watching movies and playing with anything truck related.



Later in the evening on our 2nd day, we found ourselves in north eastern Oklahoma. Hungry, we started looking for somewhere to eat in between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Normally, one wouldn't think this should be an issue, but since we found ourselves on a toll road, massive trees and now restaurant signs in sight, it became an issue. We did find an exit ahead that showed food symbols and took the risk to see what our choices were. After paying our exit toll, we found ourselves venturing 5 miles along a windy road into the small town of Chandler, OK and stopping at a Taco Mayo for mexican food. Thankfully this worked for everyone, since there was no other choice but the convenience store at the neighboring gas station. "Madge" did her job and got us back to the interstate after our meal.
A bit later after the DVD battery died and it was dark the kids were forced to entertain themselves. Boopy decided to try her abilities at a Houdini trick and proceeded to try to take her shirt off while buckled in her car seat. Why she insists (frequently) being half naked is beyond me, or perhaps it's just something I don't want think about much for fear that this pastime will transcend into adulthood. Regardless, she insisted "NO SHIRT" and ended up requiring a bit of help from the co-pilot, Me, to remove her shirt. It looked like so much fun that Big Boy decided to join her. The real fun came when Boopy tried to put her shirt back on (see picture below)!

Although we didn't quite make it to my Grandma's town the 2nd day, we did make it about 2 1/2 hours away, in Siloam Springs, just across the Arkansas border. Not too bad considering we started the day in New Mexico. We actually could have pushed it but Big Boy had one of the few meltdowns of the trip and woke up crying that he wanted to go to sleep in a bed. Really, who could blame the poor kid!

After a good night sleep we loaded back up and drove the rest of the way into Mountain Home, Arkansas for our visit to see Grandma Carol.

Pretty views on the drive in to Mountain Home, Arkansas.

Friday, March 21, 2008

We're Back! (Safe & Somewhat Sound)

Just a quick post to let you all know that the kids and I are back home. We've had quite the adventure! It was a VERY worthwhile trip but tiring as expected. Since it's late and I've got more laundry than one person should have in front of me and a house that is a complete disaster a longer post about our trip will have to wait. Be prepared though! It should be quite entertaining as the drive was filled with dead armadillos, cows and chickens, a 911 call (don't worry, it wasn't for us), a fire alarm, random hitchhikers, speeding coyotes, flying deer, strange alien red lights, wine coolers, oreos, too much Peter Pan and much, much, more!

Until later, I'll leave you with a couple pictures to show why it was all worth it! Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Spring Home & Garden Show 2008

It's officially spring around here. High 60's/low 70's, flowers in bloom, sun shinning and beautiful. And what better way to enjoy the outdoors and celebrate spring than to spend a few hours roaming around the annual Home & Garden show. We went with "Big D" (Darren) and Caroline on Sunday and had a great time drooling over things we'd love to do to our house. We did get the kids a treat. Big Boy fell in love with a bath/pool toy that is a battery operated submarine that moves all around the water. Of course Boopy had to have one too but she picked out a red fish. The past few days when I mention bath time, Big Boy has immediately stopped what he's doing and made a beeline upstairs to the bathtub all excited that he gets to play with his submarine. And yes, submarine is a major new word in his vocabulary. His vocabulary, by the way, is getting better and better. Preschool has REALLY helped and the more Boopy talks the more Big Boy talks. He's getting there. :)
The kids hitched a ride many times throughout the morning. Here they sweet talked Papa and Big D to lead them into the show.

The show is held at the fairgrounds. They've added really cool permanent play structures there that the kids love. They've got a giant tree fort with tube slides, a full size pirate ship connected to a pioneer like structure with waterfall and small hideaway house.

Not sure what kind of face Big Boy was making at me, but cute nonetheless. You can't really tell in the pictures but Big Boy got to have red styling gel in his hair and Boopy had it in her pigtails. We picked up a small tube at his last haircut for fun days like this.


Running back to attack Big D and Caroline who were watching our stuff and hanging out on a bench.

Part of the fun of the Home show is checking the landscape designs. They had small scale designs created by local highschoolers. Big Boy especially like this one with dirt bikes.

All in all a fun weekend!

This week has been crazy trying to juggle normal weekly stuff, getting ready for Easter plus getting ready for the upcoming road trip that I mentioned in my earlier post. I had originally planned on taking a couple of days off and taking the kids to visit my sister (Guya, as referred to by the kids) in Vegas during her spring break (she's a teacher). Instead due to news we received about our paternal grandma, I am instead driving with the kids to Vegas Friday after work, staying the night and then Guya, the kids and I will drive the rest of the way to Arkansas. Our grandma is battling lung cancer and has been put in hospice care. Neither Papa Vaughn or Uncle D will be going due to other commitments and work, but Guya and I know we can handle it and we'll have great memories to share with Big Boy and Boopy.

So...with our trip in mind, be prepared for a lull in my blogging. We'll be gone from Friday to Friday and be back home just in time for Easter. Phew...kinda makes me tired already just thinking about it. And while there may be a lack of blogging for the next week, the road trip and Easter will provide so much fun stuff to share that you may just get sick of us with the plethora of blogging adventures when I get back! Until then, Happy Easter and Happy Spring and please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for a safe journey next week!