Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been saving this picture for some time now...I can finally use it! I love Sesame Street :) For everyone out there, I have a quote taken from Denis Waitley that I think is very "Thanksgiving time" appropriate:

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude."

I think that just about sums it up! I wish everyone a fabulous day with their families...enjoy each other!

Cars, Trains, and Portland

This past weekend, Mike and I decided to get away for some very necessary relaxation...and some Christmas shopping. So on Saturday morning, we got up early, dropped the girls off with my sister, and headed to the Amtrak station. Mike had never been on a train before but I had taken a couple of trips prior, including one with my mom several years back, to Los Angeles. Talk about a long trip! Anyway, a couple of years ago, my employer took all of us employees down to Portland via the Amtrak, gave us each $200 and a sack lunch, and set us free to roam the city for the day. We also got paid for the day as it was a Friday. Such generosity!

I had so much fun that day that it has stuck around in my ever turning brain, waiting to be repeated. So with our bags in tow, we sat awaiting our late train :) We were only a little over an hour behind with no time frame so we just enjoyed spending time together. We never got the chance to go anywhere for our anniversary this year and then Rylee got sick so it was certainly time to get away.


When we finally arrived in Portland, the station that greeted us was much bigger than the one we had come from. Union Station had an old fashioned look to it that made us feel like we had stepped into another time.

We headed out the doors to the city and began our journey of finding the visitor's center. Portland has this great light rail system that is free to ride all around downtown. Luckily, it also went across the bridge to our hotel. We didn't pay a cent to travel around the city. After we found our way to Pioneer Square where the visitor's center is located (not knowing which tram to take, we walked about 15 long blocks), we got a map of the city and directions to our hotel, where we promptly dropped off our luggage. I'm not exactly sure how, but I managed to talk Mike into heading to the nearest shopping center almost immediately. After a couple of wrong turns, a man finally asked us where we were headed and if we needed any help..lol. We were obviously tourists so he pointed us in the right direction. Since we had forgotten the camera, I took a few (blurry unfortunately) pictures with my phone. Very cool mall!

After shopping for a few hours, we decided to head back to the hotel and check out the Skyview Lounge located on the 6th floor. Luckily for us, it was basically deserted and we had the nice old bartender to ourselves. He tried out a couple of his homemade concocted martinis on Mike and after our unscrupulous bill, we took his advice to take the tram back downtown and find a fun place for dinner. We ended up at the Rock Bottom Brewery and had a great meal and a couple too many beers :) I don't remember giggling that much with my honi in quite some time. It was very nice...

Our train didn't leave until 4:20 the next day, so we had the majority of the day to explore. I have not walked that much in a long time! We took our bags back to the train station and put them behind the counter for $3 so we wouldn't have to lug them around all day. Again, I was able to drag Mike around a couple of malls without any complaints! It must have been because there was no tax. We had lunch at Paddy's Bar and Grill and I've never seen so many choices that were not in a movie.

We finally made our way back to Union Station and got onto our cushy comfy train to come back to reality. Not a bad weekend get-away! I highly recommend it for holiday shopping and a lot of fun. One more cute picture to leave you with:

I'm So Outdated

I am obviously really behind the times here, but better late than never, right? I will however, be putting a few more up in a couple of days because my favorites (besides this first one of course) are not accessible to me at the moment. They are certainly worth waiting for though (Linda you know which ones I'm talking about) :)

I highly recommend having a party at home instead of going trick-or-treating. We bought tons of treats and the kids actually got candied out! Everyone had a really great time and we were nice and toasty warm...

Mah-Ken-Zee...Really??

I am a firm believer that parents should be the ones to inform their children of the birds and the bees and good morals, not fellow classmates or teachers; however, there are a few things I remember learning in school that go just beyond common sense. Take for instance: sex education. I recall learning the basics of the differences between males and females in the 5th grade. Apparently, they have now bumped this fundamental up to middle school and have replaced it in elementary school with AIDS education instead. This is a little confusing to me because they talk about fluids and how it can be spread anyway so.... they have to go into it a little, right? I suppose that is besides the point and that's why they're the teachers and I'm not (monetarily anyway).

So, my point to this whole post revolves back to my 11, almost 12 year old daughter. McKenzie is exceedingly smart and has been in accelerated courses her whole school career thus far. She is bright and funny and quite witty. Though we used to joke about her fashion sense, I can usually count on her to have the right answers and make good decisions. She was even all ready aware of a couple of definitions that I never in my whole career as a mother, thought I would have to give so soon. I would rather answer their questions, no matter how embarrassing they may be, than have them go back to their peers and get incorrect or much more graphic answers. So, we were driving home from work/school yesterday and I only had McKenzie and my niece Madison, in the car. They both had after school activities and the other girls were all ready home. I'm listening to music and basically tuning out their pre-teenage adolescent talk as I normally have to do. It's either that or feel like I'm in an episode of Hannah Montana.

Anyway, I just happen to come in on the tail end of Kenzie saying, "Thank goodness guys can't get pregnant." I kind of giggled to myself because I have said that many times (whiners anyway). So I decide to get in on the conversation, as my favorite song had just ended. I added, "Well honi, they can't but have you ever seen the movie Junior? It's not real, but it was funny because Arnold Schwarzenegger has a baby." She of course responds with an emphatic "No" (almost question mark at the end because I'm apparently very old). So I decided to end the conversation with a "Well you're right, thank goodness they don't get pregnant." Now this is the part that I begin to question my brilliant daughter's mind...She responds with "Well duh mom.....I know they can get pregnant, I just meant that they shouldn't and it's a good thing it doesn't happen very often." As my head unconsciously begins to cock to the side in silent astonishment, I ask the most obvious question, "Well where do they grow it? They don't have a uterus." Are you ready for it???

She says, "Oh my gosh mom....duh! In their bladders!!!" I just decided to keep my mouth closed.

I'm Back!!!

Unwillingly, I have obviously been absent from blog land for quite some time...Unfortunately, it wasn't for a happy reason. Rylee, my picture of perfect health, was up at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital for a week. When going through the usual round of health questions over and over and over (I could keep going), my answer to each "Any history of ____?" was NO. At first, when she first got sick, we were told that it was just the flu. Me, being intuitive of my own daughter and questioning ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, did not believe that easy diagnosis. I swear, doctors never listen to mommy's. We know our kids! Anyway (stupid St. Peter's Hospital), after one very long 7 1/2 hour ER visit and two regular doctor's visits, in which the only test done was an ultrasound, we were sent up to Mary Bridge's ER. My thoughts were: Normal flu's don't usually involve 104.5 to 105 degree fevers for 6 days and severe leg pain in one particular spot. No cough, no sniffles, no sore throat, and besides the pains that go along with a high fever, no body aches. Granted, I have no P.H.D., but it sounded a little fishy to me. Can anyone tell that I'm a little bitter regarding the high-paid professionals that put my little girl in harms way so they could say they think it's the flu?

So, MB got her right in to the emergency room, shot her over to radiology, took a CAT scan and an X-ray, and scheduled her for an MRI. By this time, we could hardly get her fever to come down at all. My pale little 4 year old baby lay on the hospital bed, crying and cringing when anyone would even get close to her because her leg hurt so bad. They finally got her up for her sedated MRI, which by the way works F.A.S.T! I wish we could get some of that for bedtime... After an hour and almost a half, out she came still sedated, with the words from the pediatric doctor: Keep her sedated and get her up to the O.R. immediately, the surgeon's waiting for her. Oh my gosh...you can't even imagine the thoughts that were rushing through my head! I don't think that I've ever been so scared~ not even the time that I got caught at Mike's house when I was supposed to be at my friend's house, scared me as much as that moment in time. All I could think was "I wish my mom was here, I wish my mom was here, she'd know what to do." But she wasn't...so we were on our own.

As not to not write for days, I'll make a long story a little shorter. She went into surgery so the doc could drain as much fluid out of a pocket on her hip joint, and an abscess on the tip of her femur, as he could. Somehow, bacteria entered her body, infected her blood, and flowed around until it found a nice place to settle and infect, which happened to be her hip joint. This infection had stopped any blood supply going to that part of her body and caused it to begin degenerating... well that and the huge infection that had settled.

After she came out of surgery, we were finally admitted to her own room and settled in for the night. That is where we spent the next week. She went from just having an IV with tons of different medicines (including morphine) continually dripping into her, to having a PICC line inserted into her vein up through the top of her heart. Phew...it just kept getting better and better! She had so many traumatic things done to her in such a short time, that she is still recovering from the stress. I was basically hooked to her the entire time and could not get more than a couple of feet away from her at any given time. Talk about stressful and exhausting at the same time. Mike, the wonderfully giving person that he is, slept on the floor and let me have the chair. He made sure I was eating and drinking and tried so hard to get me to get some fresh air, but I just couldn't. I felt like my heart was breaking every time I stepped out of her room.

She had so many doctors and nurses that I couldn't keep them all straight. She even had a team of 6 doctors that came in every morning and did a debriefing. Those were separate from the specialists and on-calls and all of the rest. Poor Rylee didn't like any of them! She screamed anytime her door would open and someone would walk in. Horrible horrible experience for all involved. We finally got to come home with a wheelchair and a walker because she could not walk, and her PICC line with antibiotics we had to administer every night for 45 minutes. We had a home nurse coming 2 to 3 times per week and numerous doctor visits in between. I'm so scared to open my mailbox every day because the bills are starting to trickle in.

So good news now, she's on oral antibiotics for another 6 weeks, walking with a slight limp still, no PICC line anymore, and the latest MRI showed that her Acute Osteomyelitis is getting better. Yay!!! What a scary time. I'm so thankful to all of our friends and family that offered up prayers and were so generous to our needs. I'm also thankful to Kelly for keeping my other girls at home while we were gone, and so sorry that Alyssa was so sick. We have such great support... Both mine and Mike's employers were also very understanding and supportive, thankfully. I wanted to include a few pictures I was able to take with my phone (sorry some are blurry) and a video of Rylee when she finally had enough strength to start using the wheelchair. She was a pro from the start! Surprising when you've lost 10% of your body weight from not eating for a week and a half :)

The first ER visit at St. Pete's


Right after surgery at MB




Trying to find some humor from her many stuffed animals


All of her glow stick necklaces together~Feeling a little better!

First time getting out of bed!

And she made it with the help of her walker!

Taking a picture of herself while I was talking to the doctor

Ry and daddy in the play room putting together a puzzle

Look at that hair! The staff called her "Rockstar"

Her hair was so matted by the time we left, it took 3 1/2 hours to get the dreads out. It was like a baseball helmet!

Driving home, after stopping at the "wheelchair store" as Rylee put it, it felt like we had been gone a month instead of a week. As we came into Shelton, this is the beautiful scene that greeted us:

I'm so glad this is almost completely behind us. Maybe I can get caught up on some things now... including my blogging!