Hanging out with the girls while Steph gets her heart fixed

Steph had a heart ablation on Tuesday. She's been having PVC's and been on medication for months. This is the picture she wanted me to show the girls before she went into surgery. I thought she was coming out of surgery and was excited that it was so fast. I was wrong she was on her way in and it took 6 hours. She had a pretty traumatic experience and the cardiologist said it was a "really difficult case and she hoped she fixed the problem." Steph is still really sore and feels crappy but she hasn't felt any PVCs. I told Khloe in the morning that her mom was done and Khloe was happy "she doesn't have to be scared now." It was kind of nice because Khloe quit worrying early since I told her it was already done when it wasn't. Khloe just kept asking when she could go see her mom at the hospital.

The kids had a great day. They spent over an hour in the tub.

A thumbs up picture for their mom.

Tree's up

We put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving. We downsized our tree this year. I bought a new one after Christmas last year. It's about 3 feet shorter and 50 pounds lighter. It made getting decorations up much easier.

AJ and Steph are talking about moving to Florida or Texas after AJ graduates. If I think about it I can't breath! I would miss my little girls.

Jr Jazz and Parent Teacher Conferences

This has been a painful Jr Jazz season. One game to go and they are 0 to 9. I didn't sign him up for a second season. Nate has done a good job coaching the kid. The problem at grade 5 is the kids who are serious about basketball are all on the same team which leaves the kids who are just playing for fun at a disadvantage.

Sean's Native American doll among the Land of immigrants. Every time I see this picture I chuckle. Sean was so funny about this report. He did his on his Apache  heritage. He would come home and tell the stories his classmates would read. He'd say a classmate said "my great great grandfather was walking across a field and an Indian shot an arrow at him. It didn't kill him so the Indian hung him. What do you think of that?" He would repeat multiple stories about ancestors getting killed by Indians. We read a couple books about Apaches and one about Geronimo so Sean told them Geronimo could be his ancestor. We got his DNA results back and he is 32% Native American and it is Apache. It's what we expected. Jennie went to Texas a couple of years ago and met her relatives and they are Apache.

Thanksgiving

We had an early Thanksgiving dinner. Alex, Misty, David, Kendra, Carter, Alika and Garret all made it. 

Art and Char even came to town for Thanksgiving.

AJ and Steph went to St George so I brought Polly over for a couple of hours. David and Alika brought their dogs and it was a little doggy festival.

Thanksgiving was at 2 at 6 we had another family party, dodaddles and desert. Just in case we didn't eat enough at 2.

Sean is 11

Sean's birthday was a one week event. Kylie and Brie spent the weekend before his birthday with us. Sean wanted to go to Rodizio. Kylie asked "is this place fancy?" Brie, answered "fancier than Chuck A Rama."

Kylie paid Sean and Brie each $1 to eat a chicken heart.

Yep, he wanted a onesie sleeper.

We had a family party on his birthday with DQ ice cream cake and dinner.

The next Saturday Sean had a birthday party at a gaming center at the mall.

Khloe's Art

Khloe drew these awesome pictures.

Vally draws tiny little pictures and then cuts or tears them out. My two little artist.

Lovely, more rain and a night in Chicago

Sean in his School of Rock shirt.

Lovely had a little accident in the hotel that required an immediate wash. I guess technically Sean had the little accident. I was really nervous about sending his blanket to a strange hotel laundry and thought about it several times throughout the day. I expected Lovely to be in the room when we got back to the hotel but it was not. Sean and I ran downstairs and they had it in a room behind the front desk.

I love the Defective sticker. Yes, Sean chewed the corner of the blanket off.

If we thought Monday was rainy, Tuesday was absolutely pouring!

Our flight home was kind of a disaster.  I'll just re post my TripAdvisor review rather then rewrite the story.

Separation anxiety has no place on Southwest

I know Southwest has open seating and try to plan accordingly. If I’m not going to be near a phone or computer I pay extra buck for early check in. For our trip to NYC we had our A boarding and all was well. Our trip back from NYC did not go as planned. Twenty four hours before our trip we sat in a restaurant on Broadway with our alarms set our app open and our finger perched waiting for the exact minute to check in. BAM, we scored A seating. All was well!

Unfortunately our flight was delayed long enough that we would not make our connecting flight in Denver. In an attempt to get home Southwest moved us to a flight to Chicago with a later connection to SLC. BAM, our boarding went from A to C. We were the last to board a full flight. There were two seats left on the plane. I told my son to sit in a middle seat and made my way to the center of the plane. I got to the center and looked up to see my son going into full panic mode. I told the flight attendant “my son’s having a meltdown.” She say’s “there are no more seats.” Yeah, I get that.

I make my way back up to my wheezing, crying child. I give him a hug tell I'm sorry but I can't fix it. He cried harder. The man sitting at the window, God bless him gives me his seat so my son and I can sit together. Then the man who gave up his window seat for a crying child made his way to the only open seat which is was a middle seat next to a very large man. Really, God bless that man!

In response to my son’s meltdown my husband heard the flight attendant say “this is the problem with open boarding, but they should have boarded as a family.” My husband chimed in “my son is 10 and the family boarding is for six and under.” The flight attendant said “I thought since he was having a meltdown he was under six.” Really, there is an age limit for separation anxiety? Yes, my son is 10, outside the range of Southwest family boarding plan. The fact remains he has serious separation anxiety. Maybe it’s from being separated from his sisters when he was young, maybe it’s interaction with foster care, maybe it’s hospitalizations, maybe it’s from being adopted at 4, maybe it’s just who he is. But he was a scared, crying 10-year-old working himself into a full blown asthma attack because he was separated from his parents on a plane in the dark, in the sky, surrounded by strangers.

Ultimately the plane to Chicago was delayed on the runway eventually and we missed that connecting flight and spent the night in Chicago. We switched our A boarding passes for C and still missed the plane. I know there are small children who fly as unaccompanied minors, and that’s great. I’m impressed that they are brave enough to fly alone but by son is not one of those children.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g1-d8729156-r632262067-Southwest_Airlines-World.html#

Broadway

We walked downtown in the rain and didn't want to go back to the hotel and have to get back downtown before the show. We camped out at a restaurant for three hours! I had the largest pretzel I've ever seen.

The School of Rock rocked. One of my students new one of the actresses so we met her after the play and got to go on stage. 

Empire state building at night.

Broadway

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We sat on the third row. When the actor would sing and yell we could see his spit flying. That's close. It was an amazing play, I loved it.