handsful

On Tuesday, Randy and the big kids went white water rafting.  Since Lainey wasn’t old enough, I stayed back with her.  My friend Patricia lives in Banner Elk, so it gave us a wonderful opportunity to see her and her family.  She has 3 almost grown sons and 3 beautiful daughters from China.  You’ll have to wait on the pictures from this day :) 

Wednesday was our busy, busy day!  We got a slow start, but managed to do everything we had planned.  I’m counting on at least a few days of exhaustion when we get home from this vacation…there is always the recovery period! 

First stop, Mast General Store in Valle Crucis.  We went to two, the main store and then the annex Candy Barrel.  I could have spent the whole day here.  So much history, so much to look at and buy…lol.  We came away with a few things at the main store, and then headed for the candy.  If you’ve never been here, picture what a candy store must have looked like back in time.  Barrels and barrels and…of candy.  There are baskets at the door and you fill them to your hearts (or wallets) content.  You could go nuts in here if you have a sweet tooth (or a whole mouth full, like me).  The fun is seeing all the brands you remember as a kid…BB Bats, Mary Janes, Whistle pops, those little wax bottles with the sweet liquid inside, candy cigarettes (the kids were a little dumbfounded on that last one).  It sure brought back memories of when my dad would give me $1 to walk up to the corner store for candy.  I guess I can blame him for my love of sweets. 

Linville Caverns came next.  We weren’t sure what to expect, but we all ended up loving it.  Well, except Randy when he realized they were taking us down this extremely narrow passage that had only one way out.  He bowed out of that part.  Close spaces wig him out.  The highlight for the kids was “total darkness”, when they turned out all light sources so we could see how dark it is.  Completely dark.  Nothing, not even a hint of light.  Freaky! 

I carried Lainey in the Ergo since it would have been hard for her to walk and back carriers weren’t allowed.  She LOVES the Ergo and gets giddy with excitement when she sees it. 

Abbey saw a store with this sign, so we had to get Randy’s picture under it.  He loves to talk to the kids in a Scottish accent.  Weird.  They crack up. 

EJ was so looking forward to his time at the Grandfather Trout Farm.  They stock the ponds and provide all the equipment you need, clean, and ice pack the fish.  We were there for quite a while and only getting nibbles.  Lainey used the time to learn the fine art of rolling down a grassy hill. 

 

Finally, right as I was focusing this shot he yelled out “I’ve got one!”.  See the line pulling?

His first Rainbow Trout…the boy could NOT stop smiling.  We had trout for dinner :)

At the trout farm, there was also gem mining.  They loved the process of finding the cool rocks. 

The last stop of the day was Hawksnest.  During the winter months, this is a snow tubing place (years ago, it was a ski resort…when Randy and I were dating, we came here with friends for Midnight Skiing).  They are now in the process of adding a huge system of cables for zip lines!  They had 4 lines open, with plans to open a total of 14 next week.  Since Randy took the big kids rafting, I had the pleasure of zip lining with them.  I was a little nervous…heights aren’t really my comfort zone.  To say the least.  But, I have to say.  It was AMAZING.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Is it possible that anyone looks good in these things?

We did 4 runs, each one longer and higher.  The last one was 2000 ft. long! 

One of our guides was impressed with how aerodynamic Marley was.  We joked she was like an arrow shooting through the air. 

EJ flying through the trees!

On the last run, Payton had a very concerned look on his face!  He assured us he was fine and loved it. 

Favorite shot!  The guide said Abbey was a natural and asked her if she wanted a job :) 

Randy had the easy job of juggling picture taking, video, and Lainey.  The kids will love being able to watch the videos of themselves! 

We ended our day with a delicious trout dinner (thanks, EJ) and a boys vs. girls game of Pictionary (after Lainey went to bed).  A fantastic day.

Taken Sunday morning, from our balcony…

We’re having such fun here, and taking full advantage of the 5 full days we have.  On Sunday, we started our day at Banner Elk Stables.

This place had dogs and cats EVERYWHERE!  The kids loved that.

Abbey

From the back, Marley, other rider, Ethan, Payton, and guide.

Kinda fuzzy, but here is Randy and Lainey.  Ever tried riding a horse and taking pictures at the same time?  Ain’t easy.

Digger, my horse.  He was a hungry thing, stopping every now and again for a quick  bite.  This picture is the only somewhat proof that I was riding!

Better shot of Randy and Lainey…and, their horse Charlie.  Payton’s horse was Walter (my dad has always wanted a dog named Walter…), Marley’s was Tootsie (my grandmom used to call ME Tootsie…), EJ’s was Kidd, and Abbey’s was Ginger.  I know you were dying for the names of the horses.

Horse riding was fantastic…it was so relaxing to just meander through woods and up and down hills with the breeze blowing.  Everyone loved it!

Today, we went to Grandfather Mountain and did some serious climbing…pics tomorrow :)

Lainey proudly showing off the sticker Dr. M gave her on Tuesday.

Lainey had an appointment with a new ENT this week, to check on her ear tubes. Turns out her left one is still in and working, but the right one had fallen out and imbedded in some wax. He used a torturous looking device and pulled it out. Lainy winced and whimpered a bit, but she was so brave :) The ENT said her ears look fine, no fluid, so there shouldn’t be any need to replace the tubes when they both fall out. Great news.

I thought I’d do a quick medical update on where we are with Lainey’s cleft, future surgeries, etc. Hang on, this gets long…

Like I’ve mentioned before, Lainey is an on-going patient in our areas Cleft Palate Clinic, and is seen once a year by a team of professionals who make decisions about her ongoing care regarding her cleft issues. Her last clinic was this past February, and I got a call sometime later tellling me their recommendations based on everyone’s evaluations and their discussions about her case. Seems there is some disagreement among the team on when to repair her fistula. Backing up, her fistula is basically a hole that opened up in the middle of her hard palate, shortly after her palate repair last May…think of the seam in the backside of someone’s pants splitting – it always happens in the middle, right? Where it’s the tightest…Bad visual, huh?

The fistula makes it impossible for Lainey to build up air pressure in the her mouth for sounds like “p” and “b”. Thankfully, even with the fistula, she can blow air out (i.e. blowing bubbles) and suck through a straw, though it’s hard for her. The lead speech therapist on the cleft team thinks her fistula should be repaired now. We recently had a meeting with her plastic surgeon (who did her cleft surgery) and his recommendation is the wait 6 months and see what speech progress she is able to make between now and then (she has speech 1x per week for an hour), and re-evaluate her then. His reasoning is that she doesn’t have enough speech yet to determine whether she may or may not need an additional surgery, called a Pharyngeal Flap surgery, which he would prefer to do at the same time as the fistula repair. P-flap surgery is done when the child has hypernasal speech, which is common for cleft kids.

Are you still with me? Today, when we were with her regular speech therapist, we discussed whether she sounds hypernasal now and she (and another therapist that she called in to also listen) decided that she isn’t overly nasal at all. Good news. The therapist also said that she didn’t see any harm in waiting the 6 months that the plastic surgeon recommended…the same position that the ENT also agreed with on Tuesday.

To throw another thing into all this is a device called an obturator. Think of it like a retainer, that fits onto the teeth and has a piece that completely covers the palate – like a false palate. That would “fix” the air pressure problem without doing the surgery right now and allow us to not lose time on her speech development in the meantime. My next call is to the dentist, to see what he thinks about this option. I’ve talked to other moms of cleft kiddos who have had these with great results. I just don’t want to put Lainey through anymore than needed, but also want to take advantage of all the time we have to improve her speech.

If you happen to be in our “boat” and have dealt with these issues before, I’d LOVE to hear you take on it all. Obviously, we want to do what’s best for Lainey. Her speech is improving, but MUCH slower than we anticipated. Maybe we were naive, thinking she’d just start talking our ears off after the surgery – we’d heard stories of cleft kids who did just that. Lainey’s sign vocabulary increases almost daily (her favorites right now being “now”, “I love you”, and “potty”). We get mixed opinions on that as well. Some frown and think we’re having her rely on her signs too much, others are happy to see her communicating AND vocalizing at the same time (which is always our emphasis – that she approximate the word WITH the sign). We have never regretted teaching her sign…can you imagine the hissy fits we’d be getting right now otherwise??

Okay, I’m done…thanks for hanging in there. It’s nice to have you to bounce all this off of ;)

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Little help? Hey, quit playing basketball and help me with this!

She SO wants this bag to be a backpack!

Time for lunch and playtime!

So, where is Lainey wearing mittens??

She had to watch while her siblings ice skated with our homeschool group…maybe next time, Lainey (when dad is here to help!)

She said/signed that she wanted “brown pudding”.

That time of year again…EJ’s 8th season since being in FL.

Any predictions, Lainey?

So, why the title “speed blogging”?? Like I’ve said, the posting on our blog isn’t working properly because we didn’t upload the upgrade to WordPress when we should have (at least that’s what we think the problem is), and this had made posting really difficult – all the pictures/text have to go in html code and they go in backwards. The first picture/text I put in actually shows up as the last items…makes putting things in order down right difficult! And, since I’m hopelessly hooked on blogging our little ‘ole lives here, it’s been maddening that I can’t do it like I want. Randy is working really hard on it, it’s just not cooperating as of yet. All that to say, I squeezed a lot of our current goings-on into one post. So there. I hope to be back in full form soon :)

Burnt waffles anyone?

Before leaving our house in NC 4 years ago, I brought a little bit of it with me. Randy and I loved that house, and always say that was “home” and we just “live” here. Some houses just feel more like home.

There was a section in the backyard, where clover grew wild, and I just loved it. I dug up a bit of it, potted it, and it’s been growing ever since. It ebbs and flows…sometimes it’s full of blooms and sometimes there’s barely a leaf, but it always comes back big and bright. I’ve been meaning to plant it somewhere in the yard, but haven’t managed to do that yet. Anyway, I thought I’d share it on this St. Patty’s Day :)