California Vacay: Disney’s California Adventure Part 1

On this morning, we were just as excited to get to the park. Disney’s California Adventure opens a couple of hours later than Disneyland, so we didn’t have to get up early or rush at all. I even had time to run to the grocery store and pick up stuff for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. That saved us a lot of money.

Toy Story Midway Ride: We heard this was THE ride for kids, so we hit it first. This ride didn’t have a fast pass so we used the immediate entry pass we earned the previous day at Disneyland. It’s a 4D shooting game which the boys especially enjoyed. Instead of a gun, each rider has a wheel and a ball on a string that can be pulled. You can aim and pull the ball to fire. The fun part is that the 3D glasses combined with artillery that varied throughout the ride made the popping balloons and shattering plates a complete blast! This ride is amazing.

California Screamin’: I got a single’s pass to get closer to the beginning of the line for this roller coaster. I think it’s so fun. I love the weightless moments. Rob hit this one later on in the day and was equally thrilled about this amazing ride.

Mickey’s Fun (Ferris) Wheel: Madeleine had been eyeing this ride for a long time and it was at the top of her “to-ride” list. The whole time waiting in line she wanted to get in a pink car but ended up in green, much to her dismay. What was even worse, was she and Nate decided they really wanted a swinging car. Well, once we were in and got higher and higher and even higher, Madeleine started getting nervous. Then once we peaked at the top and started to go down and the car began its swinging, boy, that was it! She flipped out! She hung on for dear life and started screaming and crying! Caroline was also freaked out but only had a super scared look on her face, which I thought was hilarious because I’ve never seen her scared before. Nate was just fine and totally enjoyed the swinging but what I think he enjoyed the most, was listening to his sister scream. Hahaha. Rob and I also got a kick out of it; probably too much of a kick.

 

King Triton’s Carousel: While Rob went on the roller coaster I took the kids on the merry-go-round. After the ride ended, I lost site of Nate for a minute. I couldn’t see him from where the girls and I were riding and he got off before we did. When we exited, he wasn’t there. I looked around the area and couldn’t find him. After I made sure I was calm, I looked again at the carousel and there he was, running around and around it, not being able to find the exit. I called to him a couple of times but he couldn’t hear me. After a minute of this, he finally found his way out and straight to us. I’m so glad I didn’t lose him!

Golden Zephyr: The girls and I went on this low-key ride. Madeleine had recovered by now.

Silly Symphony Swings: Nate and Rob went on the swings. We could see them from our ride. Nate and Rob rode together in the same dual swing. They had a few extra restraints for the younger kids. He loved this ride!

Ariel’s Grotto: The girls and I went on this new ride and they both adored seeing Ariel and her friends and listening to the music.

Redwood Creek Challenge Trail: After waiting in lines all morning it was time to run around so we went to the play area. The kids loved this. Madeleine thought the rope net things, that you walk on and climb all over, were really cool. I also loved these so much when I was younger but sadly I never see them anymore. Caroline loved climbing through the tunnels. Nate loved exploring and finding everything to do on the map.

After this, we headed back to the hotel for a much-needed rest before the evening excitement.

California Vacay: Disneyland Part 2

After we all got refreshed from a nap, back to Disneyland we went. After waiting for 15 minutes at the gate to get our tickets sorted out (the ticket taker that morning messed up), off we went toward Adventure Land.

 

Adventure Land is my favorite Land. It’s so intimate and exotic and I’m sure it’s just like the real northern and central Africa ;) Rob was also blown away in this area. This was the area of the park he remembered the least from when he was here before. It was so much fun to be in that area in the evening and around nightfall. We had meat on a stick and chocolate milk for dinner. Make that a LOT of chocolate milk. I ordered one for each of us, thinking they were the little size. Instead they were the pint size. I’m not complaining, chocolate milk is good! And it also filled us up for a while.

Pirates of the Caribbean: This was fun. The kids thought the water shoots were fun. They were in awe of all the animatronic scenery. They kept asking, “Are those real pirates? Are those cannonballs real? Is that real fire?” Rob and I assured them and they thought the whole thing was pretty cool. Before this ride Nate had no desire to see the movie Pirates of the Caribbean and experiencing this ride has changed his mind. He thought it was so much fun.

Haunted Mansion: Nate and Madeleine decided they were brave to go in the Haunted Mansion. There was literally no wait so we went straight into the elevator. They didn’t know what to expect and they got a little scared, especially Madeleine. It was not their favorite ride (mine either), but they were fine.

Splash Mountain: Nate REALLY wanted to go on this ride. He’d seen video of it and knew what to expect. Rob took him and it lived up to expectations. Nate and Rob had a great time goofing off while waiting in line. They didn’t have fast passes for this ride but it was still only about 20 minutes or so. Rob pretended that he had no idea that the big splash was coming at the end. This created a lot of laughs for Nate. They had so much fun on this ride! Rob really loves the last photo of this set (despite bad focus guy) while waiting for Splash Mountain. It was a really good hug.

The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: The little girls and I went on this ride. No wait again! Madeleine thought it was “sweet” that we were riding in honey pots (actually beehives full of honey). Caroline really enjoyed this ride, too. By this time she was an old pro with the whole sit down, bar-over-lap thing and hung on just like a big kid. Her eyes were big as she was looking around. She really liked this one.

Jungle Cruise: The boys were still at Splash Mountain so the girls and I went on Jungle Cruise. This notoriously has a long wait, but we only waited about 15 minutes. Madeleine really liked this ride and still talks about it. She loved the animals and the spraying of water and everything else.

By this time the sky was dark and all the lights had turned on. I LOVE Disneyland at night. The ambiance is so, so fun and festive.

Tarzan’s Treehouse: We all met here and the kids had fun running around and being up high. This was also a lot of fun at night as the dark seems to add to the feeling of being far away from known places.

Indiana Jones: Rob really wanted to take Nate on Indiana Jones so he got some fast passes fort his ride earlier in the day. The lady near the entrance measured Nate and gave him the green light to enter. It is a good thing we only waited about 10 minutes because the lady in the boarding area checked Nate’s height again and refused to allow them on the ride. She gave them an immediate entrance pass good on any ride and set us on our way (this turned out to be very useful the next day). To be honest, this may have been an answer to Nate’s prayer. As they made their way to the boarding area Nate became more and more nervous about the ride. Ha!

Fantasmic: I left with Caroline for the evening and Rob stayed with Nate and Madeleine for Fantasmic, fireworks, and a couple more rides. They were standing next to some nice women that gave some really good advice about getting out of the area once the show was over (they had seen the show many times). As the show got closer Rob and the kids started to get crowded by a bunch of other people. The nice women grabbed one of the Disneyland employees and explained that Rob and the kids were really nice and were getting crowded by a bunch of other people. The Disneyland employee brought Rob and the kids down to a reserved area and where they could see the show in ease. What an amazing experience. Madi became scared a few times during the show but they both really enjoyed the show! So fun.

Fireworks: After Fantasmic they started to make their way toward fantasyland to ride the King Arthur’s Carousel (Madi’s special request) and had no idea that a great firework display was about to start. Once the fireworks got underway they found a good place to stop and watch. Madi started to get a little bored but Nate and Rob loved seeing the display and how it coordinated with rides and themes from the park. The Star Wars and Toy Story (the fireworks were shaped as gift boxes) themed portions were Rob’s favorite.

King Arthur’s Carousel: After the fireworks ended they made their way over to fantasyland. Madi was wearing my new jacket and I heard that Rob had to really watch Madi from chewing the cuffs (go figure). Madi and Nate were giddy as they chose their horse and had a blast spinning around and around. Rob told me that as they walked back to the shuttle stop he was just so happy about the amazing day and experiences we all had together that day. Total success!!!!

Clifton AZ–Through My Lens Part 1

During the month of March I spent a few weeks in the middle of nowhere (near Morenci), AZ in support of a mining engineering project. I drove through this town (Clifton) on my way back and forth from the mine each day. At first I paid no attention to this little town, choosing instead to be jaded from being in this area and annoyed for having to slow down for a few miles. Upon closer inspection I encountered a variety of interesting scenes. However, the town had a washed out and dull feel which was augmented by my loneliness at the time (being away from my family). I edited this collection of photographs to reflect my feelings at the time.

This business must be limited by the size of their front door….

I guess you can get a haircut here. I’m not sure I’d sit in a chair below a person with sharp scissors. There is a sinister look to this place…

This was behind the haircutting place. An alternate set for Helm’s Deep?

Visible from the main road. Seems stable enough right?

Caption Contest

Who can come up with the most clever caption for this photo? I’d love to hear them all!!

A Baby Shower

My little sister is having a baby soon. Between her and her husband, they have 5 boys already. And, yep, she’s expecting another boy!

My mom, sister, and I threw her a baby shower since she had gotten rid of all of her baby stuff. The three of us scoured Pinterest in order to find the cutest ideas. Colleen has decorated the baby’s corner with a jungle theme so here are the cutest monkey cupcakes ever.

Hand-dipped pretzels in Cummings Studio Chocolate, of course. Yuuuuuuum.

Poor Pirate Ducky is getting his undercarriage all frozen!

Diaper motorcycle (or snowmobile, or four-wheeler).

This blanket was made by my Grandma Allred for my nephew. Now that he’s way too big for it, my sister-in-law passed it on. It was such a sweet gesture.

Here is a gift of cowboy getup that I’m insisting Colton get his portrait taken in as soon as they fit. Yee-Haw!

Since expectant parents are always so curious to know what their baby is going to look like, I took the pleasure of using The Baby Morpher to put Colleen’s and Tyler’s picture together and came up with this cutie. Haha.

Good luck, Colleen and Tyler, in the next couple weeks and months that lay ahead!

More pictures from the shower are here.

Health Updates

Here are some updates regarding health in our little family. It’s long and there aren’t any pictures, but I felt like this should be documented.

Rob: Last week he had six fillings replaced. Cavities had developed underneath his old fillings. His mouth was so sore afterward! He is scheduled in a couple of weeks to have a bad tooth extracted. He will probably need a bridge put in after that. Not fun and it’ll be expensive but we’ve been putting it off for a couple of years now. It’s time!

Julie: Nothing new. Thank goodness!

Madeleine: Healthy as ever! She has only gotten sick 2 or 3 times her entire life!

Caroline: I’m a little confused as to what to do with her. She is still underweight and her pediatrician is still worried about her. We finally got into the endocrinologist to have her looked at and tested and Dr Simard told me she is about 0% worried about her. She didn’t even bother getting labs done. So, do I believe the doctor with the lab results or the specialist who doesn’t get so worked up about children who appear to be obviously healthy? I’m wondering if I should talk to Dr Wonnacott and tell her what the endocrinologist said and if she is still worried, they can have a conversion with each other and decide together if there is anything to be concerned about. I just want to be sure, especially since a persistent doctor caught Nate’s condition early.

Another note on Cara: The pediatrician told me she’s “verbally delayed” and if she doesn’t make major strides in the next 3 months we’ll probably need to see a speech pathologist, etc. The endocrinologist told me the pediatrician is crazy, that Caroline is obviously not delayed in any respect. Either way, Cara has made some progress in the last couple of weeks. Her really clear words are mom (which she yells constantly), dad, uh-oh, ow, and…well, that’s about it. Her words that we can only understand by way of experience are please (de), blankie (zha-y), Nate (nh), Madeleine (ngnh), hello (ya-ya), and there (deh). The rest of the time she just screams. Yeah…..not that great for a 1 1/2 year old.

Nate: First, his hearing. He had an ear infection in December. He has a high tolerance for pain so he never tells us anything until something is really bad, in this case, a burst eardrum. After a few rounds of antibiotics and sudafed, he still has fluid in his ear. He says he can hear and never complains about it, but it should sound like he’s underwater. We might need to take him to an ENT to see what else we can do to drain his ear.

Now, about his hypopituitarism. Over a month ago he started complaining about pain in the middle of his feet and the palms of his hands. I knew that I was supposed to be watching for pain due to the possibility of him growing too fast with his human growth hormone injections so after him crying about it on and off for a couple of weeks, making sure it wasn’t just him being weird, I called the endocrine nurse. She told me she didn’t think it had to do with his dosage amount but to be sure, she had us take him off the shots for a week (which was perfect because that was the week of our vacation). After this break we were to start administering his shots again, but at a half dose of .6 mg 5 days a week rather than 1.15 mg 5 days a week.

All during the week, regardless of how much we walked, Nate never complained about his feet hurting. When we got back, we put him on his half dose and 2 weeks later was his quarterly appointment with the endocrinologist. After vitals and a checkup, she did some calculations and decided that she wanted some new labs run, specifically Celiac Test (TTG), Growth Labs, and Thyroid Labs along with a Bone Age X-ray. She mentioned that there are some studies being done in Europe on the adults who had taken human growth hormones (hgh) beginning in their childhood. Enough time has finally passed to start seeing the long-term results, benefits, and drawbacks. She said they are finding out that those patients have a much higher possibility of having a severe internal hemorrhage. That’s serious! So she wanted to make sure that Nate was still needing the hormone, especially since he was showing signs that his pituitary gland has kicked in, which is rare, but a higher possibility if the condition was caught and treated early, which it was.

We had been praying and asked for others to pray that his results would show that his pituitary gland was now producing more growth hormone on its own. Have I mentioned how rarely this occurs? Well, it’s rare, especially for a 6 year old! This would be a huge blessing. Obviously, Nate hates getting a shot every night and Rob and I obviously don’t enjoy the routine either. Plus, we would rather not give him any drugs if he doesn’t really need them. Then I can’t even mention the cost of the medication and the hassle of insurance that we go through on a monthly basis. So, we prayed.

The results and recommendations came last Saturday. Her note said, “In light of normal growth rate of 1.3 cm/3 months and normal growth factor levels I recommend no change in GH dosing.” This means that although Nate can’t go off the hormone, his dose has been officially cut in half from what it was a couple of months ago (from 1.15 mg to .6). This is a wonderful blessing that we are thankful for. 1-The smaller dose is much easier to administer and less painful for Nate to receive. 2-We won’t go through the prescription so fast which cuts down our costs significantly. 3-There is still the possibility that Nate will literally outgrow his need for the medicine altogether.

He will never be tall, at the very most 5’9” with growth hormone treatment but probably more like 5’6” just like his dad. But without the boost he would have maybe reached 4’11” if he was lucky. Then there are the many other side effects since that particular hormone doesn’t just control growth, but a number of things. Some of those side effects include infertility, depression, major mood swings, inability to keep warm, and others.

We’re grateful for his doctors who have helped him since he was 18 months old. We’re grateful that his body is making strides in healing itself. We’re grateful for Nate’s courage every night when he lays on the floor, drops his pants, and holds his breath to get his poke. And of course, we’re grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves us and blesses us.

If you want more information on Hypopituitarism, here is a wonderful explanation.

California Vacay: Disneyland Part 1

Disneyland morning we made sure to wake up nice and early, caught the first hotel shuttle, and got to Disneyland before they opened. We found this to be very beneficial as it gave us more time and we got on a few rides before it got too crowded.

I’m basically going to do a ride-by-ride rundown, as this seems like the easiest way for me to summarize the day. Our wait times were AMAZING. Most were only 15-20 minutes long. A couple were 30 minutes. Not bad at all!! We utilized fast-passes on occasion and planned our day well. We also skipped a couple of the rides where the waits were too long to justify. This made the day so much easier and more fun!

Buzz Lightyear: The first ride was really fun, but very loud. I was afraid that it would bother Caroline and Madeleine but after a minute they were fine. The ride did stop inexplicably a few times, but that didn’t diminish the fun too much. Nate and Rob rode together and took out Zurg and his compatriots and restored peace to the galaxy. Blasters all get blasters and the goal is to shoot a bunch of targets in each area of the ride. This was soooo much fun!

Space Mountain: Rob decided to take Nate on this, against my better judgment. Nate was excited and enthusiastic about it the hole time while waiting and boarding the ride. Even during launch he was OK. The moment however that we really got into the ride Nate became really quiet and scared. He ended up not liking it because it was so dark. He’s never been on a roller coaster besides the tiny one at Jungle Jim’s and I thought it would be a good idea to get him on some small coasters first. But, he survived, even in complete darkness. Rob had a blast and the girls and I played outside. Then Rob stayed with the kids and I went on Space Mountain also. So much fun!

Finding Nemo: This was a cute ride inside the submarine. We all enjoyed it. They have done a good job updating the ride for the Nemo movie.

Peter Pan: Nice little ride. From here we could see the wicked queen from Snow White peeking out the castle window at us. It made Madeleine slightly nervous, but only for a minute. This ride is located behind sleeping beauty’s castle in Fantasyland. What a amazing place. Rob commented on how as an adult you really notice all the effort that is put into every detail. The entire area is stunning.

 

Dumbo: Madeleine and Nate saw this and really wanted to go on it even though it had the longest wait of 40 minutes. Caroline was getting quite antsy with waiting at this point and it was getting hot. The ride was over quickly, but they thought it was fun.

 

 

Gadget’s Go-Coaster: Rob took the older two kids on this smaller roller coaster. Rob and the kids thought it was a lot of fun. It was really fun to see how Gadget had built everything out of toothbrushes and all sorts of random things. The kids had fun identifying each random component of the ride.

Toon Town: There were lots of things to play on, but it didn’t really hold anyone’s attention for very long. We ate lunch here. $30 for hotdogs and snacks and water!

 

 

Princess Faire: The girls and I went to this where the princesses gather and teach a dance. Then all the little girls get to do a May Pole. We got there a couple of minutes late and Madeleine was a little nervous trying to follow along in the dance. Caroline, however, was in love. She watched in awe and was intrigued by the whole thing. After the dance, streamers were shot into the air. My girls stayed later than everyone else so they could gather as many streamers as possible. Then we hauled them in the stroller and back to the hotel so we could have a “party” with them later.

          

Star Tours: While the girls and I were occupied being princesses, the boys went on Star Tours. Nate absolutely loved this ride and said it was his favorite out of everything. All the things to look at while waiting for the ride (C-3PO and the other droids) were a lot of fun. Nate thought it was hilarious that the captain was late so C-3PO had to drive the Star Tours Speeder 1000. He wasn’t a very good driver and it was very funny. The new 3D effects were very good. Afterward, Rob took him to the Star Wars gift shop where Nate decided on his souvenir…a completely customizable, double-sided light saber. He was able to build this and choose each component, just like a real jedi!

We all met at Snow White’s wishing well.

 

 

Rob and I decided to take some priceless advice and we all went back to the hotel for an afternoon siesta. The shuttle was very convenient for this. We all took a nice rest and then we were more than ready to go back to the park for our evening fun. I truly believe that even though we missed 3 hours at the park, our experience was so much better than it would have been had we pushed through and tried to do it all.