Christmas In Boise

We were invited to come for Christmas to see John and Sharon Gilbert. We accepted and knew the only way we could do it was using all of our frequent flyer points and then some help. So we used them up and to use them there were rules about dates and if tickets were more than a certain amount than we couldn't fly into or out of certain cities.
A long story short, because our flight left Charlotte an hour and a half late we spent 12 horrible hours in the Pheonix, AZ airport with Ava and Cole. When we finally left we flew 2 more hours to Boise. Once we settled in and got over our nightmare experience with the airport we were able to start getting some time in with family.
This won't be super long because Cole is on the move crawling and pulling himself up and finding items in our house that are invisible to the adult eye, but harmful to babies that cause choking and putting them in his mouth. So we'll share some pictures.



Again I won't go into the story about having to come back from Boise by myself with Ava and Cole. It was as bad as you can imagine, but home was that much sweeter.

The Happiest Place on EARTH!

Hello all-

We realize that this website is all about Cole and that most of you would like updates on him. The truth is that he is doing absolutely fantastic and there is really nothing new to report. He is eating like a starved lion and growing like a bodybuilder on steroids. He is doing well. That being said, many folks are asking about our recent trip to Disney World so this post will be all about that. Since Ava is not a big enough diva to have her own blog, we got "Tubbs" to agree to share some bandwidth with her so that we could update everyone on the Disney trip.

After reading all of this, if you still somehow have questions about Disney, then you need to seek help, immediately. If you are not bored to tears with details after reading this post, then I have not done my job. If you are bored to tears, then you have my blessing to stop reading at any time.


THE TRIP
We awoke at exactly the "crack of arse" on Saturday, November 15. After we staggered around and finished packing, we woke up the babes. Ava was so excited that she had no problems getting up. Cole, on the other hand, looked at us as if to say "ummm, excuse me, but exactly what in the blue hell do you think you are doing waking me up this early?" He did not cry, but he was letting us know that he did not appreciate us interrupting his sleep.

The check in went smoothly, as did the security check. We boarded the "big ole airplane" as Ava likes to say and they let us go into the cockpit to see all of the gauges. Of course, Ava (the future engineer) loved that. The flights went fine and Ava behaved well.





THE HOTEL
We figured that if we are only going to do Disney once every 10 years or so, that we should do it right! I had not been there since I was 11 years old and we probably will not go back for another 5-10 years, so we stuck to the "only living once" ideal and stayed at the Grand Floridian Resort. I knew that we were in trouble when the Delta check in lady in Charlotte saw the tags on our bags and said "wow, the GRAND Floridian, Niiiiiccccce." Basically, I could have handed them my ATM card with the PIN number and then gone home and been less broke.

The hotel was beautiful! The rooms were nice and ours had a view of Cinderella's Castle from our balcony. This came in very handy for watching firework shows, etc. from our room. Also, the monorail had a stop at our hotel and the Magic Kingdom was only 1 stop away.






THE PARK
As we walked up to purchase the tickets, I remembered what my good friend Tony had told me: "the tickets are HIIIIIIGGGGGHHHH!" I figured it might be $300 or so for all 3 of us for 3 days. That is high to me. Then, once I explained that it would be 2 adults and 1 3-year-old and that we needed tickets to the Magic Kingdom only, the gentleman said that we would get a discount. Then he said to me "ok, 2 adults and a 3-year-old for 3 days for Magic Kingdom only with your discount will be $652." After I "shat" my pants, I changed my underwear and puked for a while. Then, as I handed him my credit card I knew later I would be getting one of those "Sir, this is Bank of America calling....did you, someone you know, or some moron just charge $700 for tickets to Disney World?" calls. Anyways, thanks Tony for the heads up....sorry I did not listen.

The park is beyond description. It is amazing. Basically every dream of a child comes true just by walking around. To try to describe it in words is like trying to convince someone scientifically that there is a GOD. Either they believe it or they do not. This is a place that you have to visit with your children to see the look on their faces to know how amazing it is.

Another way to look at it could be a well designed, well thought out evil master plan with the purpose of removing American currency from your pocket and depositing it into the Disney International bank accounts. Some things were very expensive and then some things were good deals. 2 hot dogs, 2 drinks, and 2 orders of fries was $22 at "Casey's" while a croissant, a banana nut loaf, an apple fritter, 2 choc chip cookies, a blueberry muffin, and 2 bottles of water was only $16. Weird, huh? The entire park was like that.

THE CASTLE - "Daddy, go talk to them"
Ava immediately pointed at the huge Castle, and said "who lives day-r?" We told her that Cinderella lived there and that there was about to be a big fireworks show any minute. Then, Ava said "I want to go inside dat Castle." I explained that they would not let us inside the castle (little did I know that we would go inside it several times later on) and she said "Daddy, go talk to them." Laura and I fell out laughing. As if I could just waltz up to the front door, knock, and then convince whoever came to the door to let us in while leaving the other 65,000 kids out. Ava has some extreme confidence in her daddy I guess, and I am a good salesman, but not THAT good.



THE MAKEOVER
On Sunday, Laura had planned a princess experience for Ava at the "Bibbity, Bobbity, Boutique." Come to find out, this is a boutique located in the back of the big Castle. Once Ava realized that she would indeed get to enter the Castle, she looked up at me and said "DADDY TALKED TO THEM!!!!!" It was priceless...she thought she was getting to go inside the castle because I had negotiated with them. I wish that was the case, but in reality it took two "Benjamins" to negotiate our way in, if you know what I mean.

What they do at this boutique is amazing. They take a little girl and let them pick out which princess dress they want to wear, which crown they like, which wand, etc....and then they fix their hair, apply a small amount of makeup, paint their nails, etc. They turn little girls into real life princesses essentially. I thought Ava would LOVE this and she did at first. She picked out her items and then Laura accompanied her into the dressing room. What happened next was the most puzzling thing on earth. Ava had a meltdown....no, a Meltdown....nah, a MELTDOWN. There were approximately 20 little girls in this boutique and one was crying and screaming, and I bet you can guess which one that was. We were so *proud* Anyways, after we calmed her down she actually had a decent time. This place would be amazing on any other day or maybe if she were a bit older, but one this day it was not a home run to say the least. We are still not sure why.




THE CHARACTERS/FAIRIES/PRINCESSES
Ava got to meet every character on a one-on-one basis over our 3 days. She met Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Cinderella, Jasmine, Belle, and all 3 fairies including "Tinkerbell."

I have included some of the best pics. Ava did well for the most part but she was shy and nervous around a few of them. Mickey was her favorite character, Cinderella her favorite princess, and Tinkerbell her favorite fairy.

I could share stories about every one of them, but Mickey Mouse was the best one so in the interest of time, internet space, my tired fingers, your schedule, and for all that is HOLY, I will only explain the MM meeting. We went to meet MM on the night of the "Very Merry Christmas Party" at his house. We waited in line for about 30 minutes (which is very short in comparison) and then when it was Ava's turn she RAN up to him and gave him the biggest bear hug! This hug is usually only reserved for mommy and daddy but apparently MM is now in our league. He then bowed to her and blew a kiss to her and held her hand. Once we told him that he was her favorite character, he danced with Ava and spun her around. She was in heaven. The smile we got to see on her face was worth every penny that we had paid. The finale was MM kneeling down and letting Ava kiss his nose. This was the highlight of the trip to that point, although all of the characters were cool.































THE RIDES
Ava's 3 favorite rides were "the Teacups, the Horse-ies, and the Dumbo." The Teacups is a ride where you sit inside of a big circular teacup and then twist the middle of the cup while spinning around and rotating at the same time. Ava loved this. The "Horse-ies" was a basic carousel and the Dumbo was a flying Dumbo ride. She loved all 3 of these and wanted to ride them over and over again.



ONE MORE RIDE - "THOSE HANDS"
The last night, After Laura and I carried an exhausted and freezing Ava to the front gate on our way out, she said to us "I want to ride the teacups one more time." Laura and I looked at each other in disbelief. How was Ava still awake? How could we still walk? My back was sore and Laura was sick. We were beat. We were so tired that we could have fallen asleep standing up. However, we decided that this was Ava's trip and it was not about us or how we feel, it was about her. We decided to take her back for one more ride and I thank the Lord that we did. Perhaps HE put that thought in her head to ride one last ride.

We rode the teacups ride and Ava had a blast, but got even colder. She was ready to go home. However, there was a ride called Mickey's Philharmagic that is indoors and was right beside the teacup ride. We must have walked past it about 50 times and had not ridden it, but since we all wanted to warm up and there was not a line, we decided to ride it. We walked into this open room and there were 4 sets of double doors in front of us. They lined us up in this room and we stood there and waited for 8 minutes (which was boring) and I thought to myself..."no wonder there was no line for this one, it stinks." Boy, I could not have been more wrong.

When the double doors opened, I saw a huge crowd of people leaving a theater and we took our 3-D glasses and entered the theater. We sat down and were treated to a 3-D show that was so real and captivating. It had the Mickey characters in it, as well as the princesses and Tinkerbell. It was so real that when they threw a bucket of water at the crowd (in 3-D no less), they actually sprayed us with water in the face. It was classic. Also, when wind would blow, your hair would be pushed back from the force of the wind. This was so real. Little did I know that the greatest part of our trip was about to occur.

As Ariel, MM, and Tinkerbell floated right in front of our faces, I saw Ava put her sweet little chubby hands up in the air to try to touch them. She was sitting on my lap and I looked around to her face and she was dazzled. She had this enthralled look on her face and she was reaching so far to try to touch the Disney characters. If you could see the sweet innocence that she had as she was dreaming with her eyes open, it would bring a tear to your eye. It brought a bucket of tears to my eyes....I sat there and cried during the entire ride/show and again, this moment was priceless. I will never forget how she looked at that exact moment. Never. I could not even talk about it an hour later without my voice cracking. That is my little girl and to see her that happy, I would give anything I have or everything I am to give her that again. You only live once. All the money this trip required paled in comparison to the look on her face and "those precious little hands."

THANK YOU
That about wraps it up. Our trip home went well and we were glad to see Tubby's face again. Cole stayed with my sister and her family, and we want to say THANK YOU to them for taking such good care of him while we were gone. If Ava only knew that it was you guys that made this trip possible, she would give you one of those big bear hugs that only mommy, daddy, and Mickey Mouse get. Thank you so much! We Love You.

Also, I want to say Thank You to our LORD for blessing us to be able to take Ava on a trip like this. It was expensive and really if we were being perfectly reasonable and financially responsible, we should not have gone. Again, you only live once and we took a leap of faith and it was amazing. Laura and I asked each other on the way home "how many 3 year olds can say that they went to Disney World, met all of the characters, went inside the castle 3 times, ate lunch with ALL of the princesses, was made into a princess herself, and stayed at the nicest hotel at the resort?" Not many, but our little Ava did. Thank You Lord!

Thanks for reading. God Bless. We Love Ya'll!

Crabby Cole and Fairy Ballerina Ava

Last night we packed up the wagons and started our walk up to "the green" at the community center with our neighbors and friends to see the pet parade and children's parade. It's so great to see all the little ones dressed up and the dogs who are another form of children in costume.


Here are our two doing their part to bring it with the costumes. I don't know how much a crab can bring it, but Cole was a good sport about it all.

Birthday for Sister, Colds, ,Apple Festival,Chili Cookouts and running like crazy

Hi everyone,

I know it's been a while. All of a sudden Ava's birthday party was here and we have been running ever since. Ava and Cole's Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Will flew in from the West Coast to be here to celebrate.

We have weathered two colds with Cole now and he has done really well both times. We are waiting for the Dr. to call us to have us come in for RSV shots again this year just to be on the safe side. They said Cole is probably strong enough to handle it this time around but they felt more comfortable doing it again this RSV season and we were for it too.
We have all had our flu shots and Cole is waiting on that too. Since he had an egg white allergy show up at the allergy testing they want to watch him for a little bit after. They feel it more important for him to get his flu shot than get the flu and we agree with that too. We'll give him some Benadryl before to help with anything that might try to give us problems.

This past weekend we went to the Apple Festival out in York/Clover, SC. It was a fun time as a family. We came home and that evening went back out to a chili cookout and music in the neighborhood. It was very cold, but still a good time.




A note for those of you who know the nightmare of Eczema and more specifically Cole's battle with it and people who have been praying for Cole's eczema, we have had some kind of breakthrough. God has answered some prayers because some things we changed for Cole again have seemed to help with his eczema...........dramatically. It's not gone, but it's night and day difference for us and Cole! We actually made it a whole week without having to use any steroids which has been impossible before this to go longer than 3 days without a head to toe breakout. When the doctors gave up on us and our dermatologist was careless with her information or non-information we tried somebody who does natural medicine. When you are left with nowhere else to turn and you watch your child suffering 24 hours a day you will do anything and try anything to help them.
Some of the items didn't hurt but just weren't strong enough to battle the eczema. Some of the items we are still using seem to be making a huge difference! We are still putting a drop of flaxseed oil in one of his bottles a day, and we changed our deteregent for a 4th time. I can't tell you if it's all of the above or what, but we are going with it because it has given all of sleep again. We are going on 2 1/2 weeks now and have only had to do spot treatments here and there.
We still have an appt. at Duke on November 4th since it was so hard to get in. It can't hurt to go.

We hope you enjoy the recent pictures and God Bless,

Laura

Note to Self

The oatmeal bath turned into a bad experiment. Cole looked like one big red blister tonight and what was almost cleared up returned even angrier. Oh well, now we know, oatmeal baths are off limits for Cole's case. We even bought distilled water to make the oatmeal paste with to be safe.

2 1/2 Months Later

We went back to see Dr. Bensky this week for a check up on him. This was our first time back since his post-op visit. We were even going back with Cole's first real cold. We were curious what his oxygen levels would be with a bad cold, but at the same time something we were glad we didn't know everyday that he has had this cold.

Anyways, Cole was weighed and measured. He came in at 20 lbs. and 28 1/2 inches. We don't call him Tubbs McGee for nothing:)

His oxygen came in in the mid 80's which is great for Cole.

He was able to come of his lasix also, so one less medication for him to have to take.

After Sean our male nurse took all the measurements and readings Dr. Bensky came in and he just started laughing when he saw Cole. He just laughs at how big Cole is in general but especially for a heart baby. Dr. Bensky almost seems like he wants to line up some pediatricians everytime he sees Cole to challenge them to see if they could tell him that Cole is a heart baby without seeing his chest where the incision is.

Cole and Dr. Bensky have a special bond that has grown and it's a good feeling as parents to witness this, since Dr. Bensky is such a big part and has been such a big part of our lives since I was 5 months pregnant.

Dr. Bensky listened to Cole and said "he sounds great, everything sounds like it should."

We don't have to go back until January so they can check Cole out. Next time will probably be an echo just to see how flow and function is doing.

Then Dr. Bensky said we won't see him about once every six months until the next surgery, as long as no surprises come up. This my friends and family is great news and a relief to not be going to so many Dr. appts.


This is just Cole with his new Veggietales toothbrush that sings veggietales songs while he chews on it. Cole showed me just how much of a temper he has when I tried to make him part with it for just a second.




On a different note, I decided to give an old fashioned eczema treatment a try........................oatmeal bath. Here is how it went. Very messy. Cole thought it was breakfast and started pulling it off and eating it and gagging on it while I tried to apply more and keep his hands away.
Maybe I was suppose to fill the tub with water and oatmeal and let him lay in it. I made a ooey gooey icky paste. I think it helped a little with the dryness, but the angry red patches were still there. Maybe it takes more back to back baths. Regardless, Cole had fun and it may not be the cure, but it seemed a little helpful at keeping him a little more comfortable and less itchy.

Family Catch Up

This past Monday, September 8th, Cole had some of the family come meet him for the first time.

For those of you checking in and wondering who belongs to who and how are we all related. George and Barbara are Matt's Aunt and Uncle from his mom's side and Lynn is another Aunt, also from Matt's side.

We had some good laughs with PawPaw's jokes and Gigi just being Gigi and we love that she laughs right along with us!

We won't bore you with more riveting conversation about Cole suffering from severe eczema and finding an alternative to the steroids, which made up a good bit of conversation for the day.

We all were wishing we could have just an ounce of Barbara's energy playing with Ava. Ava was so excited to have found this new family member that she stripped down to her bare skin to show Barbara just how deep her love ran.

At one point while I was able to catch up with Lynn, who you would just have to meet and talk to, to know what a sweet heart she has and a very special family member to us she is. Ava loved Lynn's vest with the birdhouse and bird on it. She immediately assumed it was something made just for her to play with and was in Lynn's lap asking questions and pointing to the interactive vest.

George and Cole had a very sweet bonding time. Cole snuggled and George rubbed that sweet little bald head and kissed it. Cole snuggled right in and went to sleep. It was a special moment to see.

Poor PawPaw was so desperate for some tv time he asked if I could hit play on the Praise Baby DVD that had been in from earlier that day and had sat on the same screen waiting for someone to hit play. He was very patient to have sat through all of our doctor and health talk and just family catching up talk, so I was more than happy to push play for him. I'm sure he added that to his Greatest of All Times Movie List along with his favorite, "Roadhouse," with Patrick Swayze. He likes a little Steven Seeeeagal movie too:)


We sure loved seeing all of you and had a good time! Thank you for making the trip down! We hope to come that way and maybe we can get everyone together up there. Ava and Cole are in for a treat to find out they have more family and more cousins!

Take care everyone!
Laura