Coming Soon!!!

= March 8, 2012

How Are You Feeling Today?

Late Saturday Night

Saturday seemed blissful. Boy, were we wrong?

We started the day lazily at home. Enjoyed our beds and PJs. Zackery, however, was abnormally clingy. Wanting to be held the whole morning and cradled like a baby. Whiny. We decided to go meet the Drake's for play time at Amazing Jake's to help snap him out of it and also to give the kids a chance to go visit family.

We bustled through the crowds and even the allure of a train ride and video games didn't snap Zackery out of his mood. In that big mess of games, he still was asking to go home. At one point, he even laid down right next to a video game being played by me.

We let Layla enjoy her time there since we never go. By the time we got home, Zackery was very unhappy and running a fever. We bought him some medicine and adminstered the tylenol and put him to bed. After 2 hours, the fever still hadn't broke. He eventually went to sleep. He just moaned there in his sleep. We kept him hydrated with Gatorade. By the time, he woke up the fever was still high. He woke up and was still miserable. I spent most of the day also asking what hurts and he also said his stomach hurt and refused to eat and repeatedly needed to go the bathroom.

I thought, "Maybe a UTI?!" and that is what prompted me to take him Urgent Care. Luckily, the Drake's decided to stay with us that night and we left Layla in their care as we embarked on our adventure. I seriously thought we would be in and out of the Urgent Care and back in our beds. WRONG!

We got there and his temperature was at 102.9˚ and this was 4 hours after Tylenol. He still complained about his stomach and also started saying it hurt when he needed to go to the bathroom. A urine test was administered and NOPE. Our hope of a quick diagnosis went out the window and we were told to head to the ER. So there we went. Unfortunately, the ER was jam packed! We waited about 45 minutes in the waiting room. Thankfully we were given a room (ahead of some people who looked very annoyed)! We got a couple winks of sleep when the nurse finally started bugging us. The ER doctor asked lots of questions when he finally did see us and seemed almost reluctant when he decided to run blood tests to ensure that it was a normal fever. We waited awhile longer and got some blankets to crash.

The registration clerk finally came in around 2AM and took our ER fee. At 2:30AM, the nurse came in for labs and to our horror hurt Zackery more than helped with her failed attempts of putting an IV in. So another nurse had to come in. Right away we knew she'd be successful when we saw her prep for the IV. Sure enough, this nurse knew what she doing and got an IV in and Zack got some fluids as well as gave the blood needed for the labs. We got to sleep a little bit more. Around 4AM, a new ER doc came in (one we've had before and respect) gave us the great news that Zack's labs were normal and we could go home. 30 minutes later, we got our walking papers and driving home with a boy diagnosed with a sore throat.

No other boy, I think gets carried out the hospital with 3 pokes (2 that bruised) for simply a sore throat. :( He's such a champ! He kept asking to go home and when we told him we wanted the doctor to check first, he kept responding, "okay!" with such a heart wrenching frown. It's been awhile since we've made a visit to the ER and every time Derek and I become a different version of ourselves. It's really strange in the end, veterans never forget. Yet, as parents, it still pains us and hurts our hearts to see our boy sick. We are ever so thankful, however, that it was just a sore throat and we got to go home with him. :)

Friday Night/Fright Night

Friday evening, we rushed across the US60 to meet Grandpa Lloyd and Grandma Max for dinner. We also were able to see Trynaty/Sweets. The location of dinner continued to change as we drove across the city, but finally settled on Garcia's at Arizona Mills.

When we got there, we were already on a wait list and so the grand-parents were taking a beating from the Asian massage therapists, so we took the time to quickly browse the local stores. Derek went on his own as Zack and Mom were put in charge of waiting for our table to become available. Layla went with Trynaty. Zack and I mostly watched the waterfall at Rainforest Cafe and looked at the "animals." So when the phone call came for our reservation, we ran to entrance of Garcia's. We then had to go around the little corner to gather the troops. We quickly rounded the corner to say, "It's our time!" A split second later, the crowds gathered and Zack and I were separated. I looked down, and in horror couldn't find Zack. I started pacing around. Did he run back to the water? Did he go back to the camera booth? Did he go look for me? I walked calmly to the water area and No Zack! I began frantically going up and down the small strip looking for Zack and calling his name. I called Derek to come help me look for him. About 5 minutes, Zack was missing with Derek and I looking for him.

Finally, we regrouped in front of Garcia's and there he was, waiting for all of us. I grabbed him and said, "Where were you?" He answered, "Oh, I was watching basketball," and pointed to the bar area and their TVs were sure enough showing college basketball. I quickly hugged him and carried him to our table. I told him, "You scared me Zackery!" He just let me hug him. I was seriously relieved.

Tickle Monster

Baseball Fun

Nothing notable happened on Saturday....move quickly to Sunday. Of course, we slept in. Most definitely, we drove to our church and enjoyed another enlightening marriage class with Dr. Maureen Anderson. We enjoyed a big bountiful lunch and went home. Jaime came over for a bit to do homework and after being absolutely lazy the whole weekend, we decided to go to the park and enjoy some active play.

Highlights:
Layla getting the hang of batting.
Zackery getting the hang of batting.

Low Points:
Zackery getting hit in the face by a moving baseball. (Layla had a great hit, though.)
Layla getting hit in the hand by a moving baseball. (Dad tried to get her out as she rounded 2nd base, but she ended up in tears AND out.)

Flagstaff, AZ

We enjoyed an especially long weekend, by giving ourselves Friday off. We used Friday to drive north to Flagstaff, AZ. We enjoyed the change of scenerio to enjoy lunch at Olive Garden with 3 members of The Drako's and Duwayne & Shal.

Afterwards, we cheered our hardest at the NAU Sky Dome for the WRock Fighting Scouts. I should say, Mom and Dad cheered hard. Layla and Zack spent the whole game trading off playing the DS/Super Marios Bros. They simply didn't care what was going on around them. At one time, Zackery even told us, "Mom, Dad, you're too loud!" At the end of a frustrating game, we chatted up Grandpa Lloyd and Grandma Max. They even scored themselves some ice cream money for later.

We hung out outside the dome for a few minutes and Layla and Zackery took advantage by playing in the pile of snow. They climbed the mini mountain of snow. Making snowballs and throwing them at each other. After about 5 minutes, Zackery screamed in agony, "AHHHHHHHH!!! My hands! They're HOT!" His hands froze quickly from forming snowballs and couldn't quite articulate the freezing hands he had in front of him. That was our cue to leave....we said good-bye to everyone and immediately drove home.

We stopped shortly to enjoy the view and take in the fresh air....then onward we traveled back to the city.

Hello!

Greetings!

Kindergarten is Around the Corner

Zackery attended Kindergarten Round-Up with Daddy and Layla on Thursday, February 2nd. Can you believe it? He'll be going into grade K this upcoming school year.

To help him get ready we told Zackery he needs to practice writing his name. If you ask him, he can tell you the letters in his name sequentially. However, getting him to write it is another story. If you look closely, you can see ALL the laughters to his name faintly written in pencil. I modeled using a pen. We closed the activity by painting his handprint to put this in his time capsule to enjoy later.

He's such a great kid! We love him with all our hearts!