Let the FUN begin!

The Loaded RV picked Danny and I up in Milwaukee, we ate some dinner before we left, and then on the road Florida bound we went. The ride down there was uneventful but long....it's 27 hrs of driving time. So when we made it Universal Studios in the early afternoon on Saturday. I was ready to get out of the RV. The weather was amazing and the crowds in the park were even better. It was definitely NOT in season for the theme park as the parking lots were empty and the lines to the rides were short..if any. In areas it was like a ghost park :)

We went straight to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter once we got there. It looks AMAZING...just like in the movies. We toured the castle, rode the castle ride (graphic), bought some souvenirs, and drank some Butterbeer (YUMMY!). You can tell that The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is the drive right now to Universal Island. We saw more people in there then what we saw in the rest of the theme park :) But still the longest line for the castle ride was only about 40 minutes....and I don't think it really even took that long. We had a wonderful time!!

The singing frogs :) What a beautiful performance ~ lovely voices
As we were getting on the simulated ride they had the candles floating up in the ceiling :)
Dumbledore and other characters would show up through the castle. It looked like they were really there talking to us. ~ Tid Bit of information....the box in Dumbledore's office with the wand was the actual wand from the Movie ~
The pictures were actually "alive" and once you walked in they would talk to you. So COOL!
We headed to The Blue Man Group show after the park. Which we ALMOST didn't make it as I had the wrong time....and thankfully we saw the board right before it was to start so we busted butt and made it. OOPS! All I have to say about the show is ~ WOW!! We've already looked up when they are going to be performing in our area and YES we are going again :)

Avrianna was SO excited to see he left a blue hand print on her sweatshirt. This is now her favorite sweatshirt :)

My mini Blue "Men" ~ With a piece of the paper....oh the paper ~ LOL

Avrianna said Blue Man was the best part of our vacation.....even over Harry Potter (now that is something!)

After the show we were STARVING! Our plan for this day was to go to Emeril's, but with my mishap with timing we weren't able to go (homecoming was this evening and they were packed, busy) So went to an even better place, that fit us better Bubba Gump Shrimp! Woot Woot! My favorite movie is Forest Gump and to be able to go here was a treat for me. LOVED IT!! Food was great, drinks were better and of course I had passed the Forest Gump trivia that the waitress questioned us on. I've watched it 1000's of times. I definitely NEEDED to get some Bubba Gump souvenirs. Both kids got a T-shirt (Danny wore his to CHOW the other day and it got alot of attention .... Stupid Is AS Stupid Does) and then I got this license plate which I just HAD to HAVE!!

The next day we went to the Original Universal Studios Theme Park ~ Another great day for weather and lines....

Here are some fun pics through our park experience:

The Jaws Boat Ride

She really liked the Men in Black ride ~

"Mom who's Betty Boop?"

"Mom who's Lucy" ~ ok, seriously Am I that old? History lesson at Universal ~ LOL

Chillin out watch The Blue's Brothers perform.

Shrek in 4D ~ so cool!
Beetlejuice's Rock Concert ~ Dan didn't think he was going to have a good time, but to his amazement the music and show was good

YIKES!

Hold ON!!

Dorthy II from Twister :) ~ at the Twister simulated ride
It amazes me to think that in season this place is zig zagged with people. I don't do well with that, lol.Of course now that we've seen all this at Universal we have to watch the movies now. Avrianna never saw Twister so now she's seen that one. And she only saw one MIB movie so that's sitting on the end table to be watched soon. I am on a mission to find Beetlejuice so she can watch that one too :)

We tried to get on the ET ride on 2 different occasions for it to break down, thankfully not while we were on it. I chalked that up to someone telling me NOT to ride ET.....maybe next time.

From Universal we packed up in the RV and headed towards Kissimmee to Medieval Times for dinner and a show. How fun!

Our picture with the King

We ate our meal with NO utensils.....Everyone got the same thing Soup, garlic bread, potato, 1/2 chicken, ribs, and an apple turnover.....Oh the food was delicious.

We were cheering for the red knight :)

Avrianna was excited that she got the First Carnation thrown out into the crowd

Monday October 24th was Avrianan's 9th Birthday. She spent it poolside enjoying the wonderful weather.
She is very proud of her picture blanket I had made for herAnd we enjoyed GREAT Food ~ Our HAVE to STOP at restuarant when we are in FL now. Plus Aleana HAD to come to Pinchers before her flight the next day back to WI :)

The the seafood.......AMAZING!! What else is there to eat at a crab shack but CRAB!!

Sorry Gail, but it was FANTASTIC!! Maybe next time?

Avrianna isn't a seafood fan so we took he the next day to her FAVORITE.....for a Mac N Cheese pizza :)

This trip we made it to the Beach. We met up with one of our "special" families that actually live here in WI, but was on vacation down there at the same time. Here are some of our beach pics.

Amazing....right?!

My beach Babes

We were busy this trip that is for sure. Not only with our activities but with all the packing, unpacking, cleaning.......repeat.....repeat......and repeat. Dan and I decided it was just too much work to keep the condo. So while we where down there we managed to clean out the condo and put it up for sale. It is an end of an era for us :( We will definitely miss the place and the space, BUT it will be nice to be able to use the RV more. We'll be coming back to the same area because we just LOVE it there, but now we'll just be in the RV.

Hope you enjoyed seeing our vacation. It's always nice to get out and go some where warm, but it's even better coming home.

Tailspin Begins

I accidentally posted this in my other blog...... here was the start of our vacation. I will try and update about the actual vacation later today or tomorrow.

Ok who told Danny we were going to leave for vacation?? On Wednesday Danny woke up at 2:30 and just wasn't himself. By the time his nurse came into work he was spastic, high heart rate, fever, but he was all smiles. I think he just wanted to get out of getting his flu shot that aftenoon. Well it worked no shot for him, just Ms Avrianna got hers. I got mine last week so I'm good. By the afternoon Danny stared "dumping". So the theory is that his system just wasn't tolerating the supplemental protein we started giving him. Needless to say I stopped the protein until we come back from our vacation and then well address this issue. He doesn't need to be having multiple BM's a day while on vacation, NO ONE would appreciate that. Unfortuanelty Thursday morning wasn't any better and once again Danny was up by 2:20am. Can you say running on empty - Yes I was! But i neede to pack on. I was doing pretty good with getting the RV ready when Danny felt the need to throw me yet again another vacation curve ball. What is it with this kid ! I know Like I ALWAYS say .... It's all about Danny Osero. LOL. During his weekly routine trache change the day was thrown in an up roar. His old trache was pulled out, his site was cleaned, but the new trache wouldnt go back in. Seriously!!! Thankfully we had some of his older versions ( the uncuffed) traches around and that one went in. Now it's 10:30am the day we are to leave for FL at 3:30pm. So I had 5 hours, NO Pressure at all! I swear he is shaving years off my life. So now he has a teache in BUT not the one that works on Puff. Now what?!? I did the "good" thing and called Down to CHOW, after talking with Dr Kasper. They wanted me to bring him down so the ENT could check him out and get his trache in -- did I mention we were leaving at 3:30 for Florida?? I packed As much as I could and headed down south to CHOW which is 1.5 hours one way South of my house *sigh*. The ENT was able to get the trache in with minimal trauma - YAY- Dr Martin Rocks!! While we were there the dic suctioned out the goo in Danny's right eat too. Once i Realized knew we were still going on vacation (thank god, As I didn't want to have to tell Avrianna we weren't going to Harry Potter), I called Dan to come pick Danny n I up in Milwaukee. So Danny n I hung out until the RV with the car
Dolly came. I figured I would try to do a few other things while in CHOW seeing I had time to burn. Danny got sized and is sporting a new AMT Gtube button plus I was able To track down someone to give Danny a flu shot. Yahoo - what a tune
Up he got .... Without it being planned :). We were able to stop by and visit our good friend Ryan who is inpatient there. We hope he feels better and can go home soon
We are on the road and doing well with time. Thanks for checking on us. I will update later. It's my turn to drive :) sorry if there is alot of errors here -

I Know Different

This is beautiful! It was written by Tricia Proefrock & I wanted to share...

Dear mommy,

I have felt your tears, falling on my face.
Someone else might think they are tears of sadness, because of what I can't do.

I KNOW DIFFERENT.

I know those tears pour from your heart out of gratitude for me, because of what I CAN do : I can love everyone in the purest form possible. Unconditionally. I can be judged, but will never judge in return.
I know different because I feel, in your hugs and kisses, that I'm perfect just the way I am.

I have seen you hang your head down in shame, when we go out on adventures.
Someone else might think you are ashamed of having a child like me.

I KNOW DIFFERENT.

I know you are ashamed of the grown-ups who ignore me, yet talk happily to all the other children. The grown-ups who won't look you in the eye, but stare at me, when they think you don't see. I know different because I've seen the many, many more times you have raised your head up high, with pride, because I'm yours. : )

I have heard you whispering desperate prayers at night. Someone else might think you are asking God to make me a typical kid.

I KNOW DIFFERENT.

I know you are thanking Him that I got to be here, with you, for another day- exactly how I am. I know different because I have heard you ask me never to leave you. And I have heard you cheer for me, every single day of my life- you tell me I don't need to be typical to be amazing, I just need to be here.

I know you have a big job, taking care of me.
I know your body hurts, because I'm getting so big.
I know that more than anything, you want to hear me say your name.
And I know you worry that you aren't good enough, and that you will fail me.

BUT I KNOW DIFFERENT MOMMY.....
I know that even on your worst days, you will always be enough for me, and I will always love you more than you know.

The First Picture of my sweet Lil Man, Danny ~ from THAT moment I touched his hand for the first time I KNEW we were going to Different, and that we'd have a bond unlike no other. To my HERO ~ Mommy Loves that you "Know Different"

Thank You Tricia Proefrock for writing this ~ It's AMAZING!

Adjusting

We are getting back to a new normal and starting a routine around here. It hasn't been the easiest road we've been on, but we've also been on worse. Now that things have settled down, I can start to reflect on all the change and newness around here. I'm not going to lie the vent isn't an easy step to take, BUT it's also comforting to know that we have a way to make Danny more comfortable and hopefully less ill. We've needed to do some tweaking with the settings on the vent and Danny needed to change to a cuffed trache, but I think he's now in a good place (for the moment) with Puff. The alarms have lessened and his tolerance has improved. Lil Man's biggest hurdle is getting used to the new cuffed trache. It must "tickle" his trachea more as he is doing alot more coughing and the last trache change was not the best experience. I can only hope it gets easier on him as I hate to watch him struggle.

Here's Lil Man with all the tubing and baggage on. We had to "travel" with him....just into the hospital for a blood gas level one morning, but it was with all the "business' on. That was a hard to swallow trip.......everyone staring even more then ever. Wondering if people even saw Danny or just all the equipment he was hooked up to :(

Well I see him, all of him, those cheeks, his stunning blue eyes, that thick hair, and his AMAZING Sassy attitude ;0) ~ Boy do I LOVE this Lil Man!!

I'm going to have to put the wheelie bars back on with ALL this on there. He's getting alil heavy in the rear ~ LOL.

We've started to train a new nurse this week. I think she is going to be a good fit. She seems to be very educated, hands on, and caring. Time will tell if she's comfortable with my Sassy Lil Man :)