Our holiday in America!

So as many of you know in Australia (or England...and probably other parts of the UK) if you do anything other than work everyone calls it your holiday. You don't got on a trip or take time off you go on HOLIDAY. So this post is about our recent holiday in America, otherwise known as home sweet home!

I could talk for about 2 hours just about the trip but all you need to know are the following bullet points followed by too many pictures!

• The flight from Australia to America is a little over 14 hours (that's just to California).
• Thomas and I got a row of 4 to ourselves and he slept the whole way!--can I say BINGO?
• From California we flew to SLC Utah where my Dad picked Thomas and I up where we stayed overnight at his house and then drove 8 hours up to Montana.
• When we got to Montana, I got about 4 hours of sleep and then ran a 5K with my siblings...my time was 30:11 which was great considering the altitude change and jet lag.
• The next day was my sisters graduation--last kid out of the house GO TENILLE
• The next day was my mom's wedding reception...classy country was the theme...isn't that an oxymoron? Here is the pix of the new bride and groom and their grand kids!
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• The following day/ Tuesday was my mom's wedding (in Idaho so we drove another 3 hours south).
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  My grandparents with my kids, this was their first time meeting Thomas!
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• Sarah Cabrera (one of my YW from Great falls, VA-bbsat my kids--cool hu!)
  
• After the wedding we drove down to Utah (5 more hours south) where we stopped by to visit our close friends the Toskovitches and then drove further south where we stayed with Stan's Aunt and Uncle --They hung out with us in Oxford England (which was the last time we saw them so it was great fun catching up...Sorry for keeping you up so late! :-)

• Thursday we found our good MBA friends and crashed for a morning. Mary was best friends with Millie while living in England and after we graduated their daughter came down with Leukemia. Honestly it broke my heart when I saw her!! On a positive note, she seems to be the only one without messy hair in this picture. Millie with Leukemia, Olivia who gave herself bangs, and Mary who never notices the fact that her hair is in her face!
• After seeing our friends we went over to my Sister in-laws house (the Towers) where Stan got to hang out with some family and the cousins were able to run wild through Thanksgiving Point!
  
  Colter, Bridger, Olivia, Thomas, Sadie, Jackson, Mary
  Olivia learning to ride a bike....there are some disadvantages to living in an apartment on the water. The only sidewalk is on the water so I am not too keen on having her ride on it, in case she goes off!

Thomas and Sadie (a few months apart and their first time together)!

Thoma's first time on a horse...he waved the whole way

Mary and I petting the goats

• Olivia and Mary were fighting over who gets to mary Jackson (their cousin) Jackson (being the peace maker) said he would mary both of them! Thanx Jax!
• After visiting the Towers we stopped by our Sydneysider/ ex-pat friends (the Bennions) who headed back state-side! I know, now we are alone now. They came over to the US the same time we did so we let them borrow some suitcases and had to pick them up. Mary played with William for the last time :-( They were so cute together!! And congrats Amy and Don on the new house, we will miss you in Sydney!
• From there Stan and I hit our Alma Mater (BYU) where we were lucky enough to grab a Jamba Juice and say hello to a few professors and then Stan went and played some golf while I took the kids to bridal veil falls!

Then we drove 6 hours South to Saint George to visit Stan's parents!

• The Grandparents threw the kids an early birthday party (because seriously, who wants to mail gifts to Australia), went shopping at the outlets, swimming, saw a musical (Tarzan), had Sunday dinner more extended family (Stans other Aunt & Uncle and cousin with her kids), and almost adjusted to the USA time zone. Thank you so much, what fun we had!
  
  Thomas LOVES sharks so this was a really cool shirt!
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Hiking in the rocks...I love the pictures




The Broadway musical Tarzan, was held in this outside arena against these red rocks, it was breathtaking!

Since Stan's parents are serving a mission for our Church in Utah we got the official tour...yes, that is Thomas climbing over the antique pews :-)

Stan sitting in his great great great great? granddad's rocking chair, you can see the resemblance when Stan has a frowny face!

• From there we drove 6 more hours through Las Vegas and down to Anehiem where we did Disney Land for three days, the kids had a blast!

Mary and Ariel

Belle and the girls

Thomas utterly terrified :-)

Aroura (sp?) told Mary she had the perfect combination of purple and pink, Mary was delighted!

watching the parade

Thomas still terrified....

Cinderella and the girls...yes we saw a lot of princesses!

And the go-karts!

After a full day of Disney we got straight on a plane that night and flew back to Sydney. Jet lag is an understatement--cry!

Overall we hit 6 states in two weeks. We spent over 46.5 hours just sitting either on a plane or car. We did it in a 5 seater car with the kids car seats side to side and we averaged less than 4 hours of sleep a night (one night I got two hours of sleep --from 6-8am). Was it worth it? YES, it was so fun to see everyone and get the cousins together and make fun of mom's country themed wedding and run a 5K and stay up late playing mafia and see old friends! There was not enough time to see everyone and we literally squeezed every second we could to be with friends/ family! Maybe again in a few years hu?

• Also: My little bro is staying with us for the summer (or our winter) while he interns with PwC...so far he has done the dishes every night and said he would bbs this weekend!!!!

• Who wants to live with me next?!

Olivia's Notes

So you know how you have the one kid in your family that is the "angel, peacemaker, affectionate, empathetic, sweet heart kid etc....well that is Olivia in our family. I hope it is not just a 6 year old phase!! She is always leaving me notes (see below) and drawing me pictures. She likes to do it so much she makes me cards at school after her work time so that she can give me more cards at the end of school. This one is a classic (totally unprompted might I add), we have it hanging on our fridge.

I don't know if it is just in movies but it also seems that the "perfect kid" is the one with the hardest life. They die early or are sick or have disabilities etc... I think this last hospital stint really affected Olivia. I woke up one morning to about 8 jars of pee and a note telling me she was "saving up" for the next time we went to the hospital. A few days later she really had to go to the bathroom. I said "GO" and she said... "I can't I don't have any more sample cups!" Somehow she had gotten so used to catching a sample that she didn't think she could go without getting a sample.

We just got back from the hospital again today...She had some ultrasounds and scans to see how she is recovering. I was happy to find out that her surgery was a success. Everything healed and connected (urethra to the bladder) like it was supposed to without any blockage. She is able to fully empty her bladder (which is partly why she had UTI's before) and her latest UTI is due to not wiping correctly vs. a problem with the operation (which is a HUGE relief since she was on Amoxicillin at the time). After doing more urine test and waiting 48 hours for the urine culture we can see what kind of bacteria is causing the infections. This is important because (1) you can figure out what medicine will fix the problem (what will kill this strand of bacteria) and (2) sometime you can figure out the cause of the bacteria and try to avoid things or change behaviors to prevent it from happening again. There are all different ones which means a different treatment each time. Most of the time they are really weird unusual ones.

Olivia getting her stents out

So the day after my birthday Olivia was due back at the hospital to get her stents out. She had to fast most of the day and once we got to the hospital we found out the surgeon was late by about 2 1/2 hours. Poor Olivia didn't go in until 3:00pm and after having been in the hospital so much (two UTI's post operation) we were all a bit exhausted. Here are some pix--she is so brave.

Olivia has been a little traumatized from all the hospital visits. Instead of being strong and brave she went for the fight the doctors technique. They had to hold her down to give her the gas and sneaked the drip in her arm while she was asleep. She had to wait an hour after waking up from the sleeping gas and then finally the nurse said she could take it off. This was just a day procedure. She pulled it out herself (it took forever because she didn't want it to hurt) and after eating and weeing and watching The never ending story we were able to go home.
On the way home Olivia informed us that this was the worst visit yet because she didn't get any presents, cards or friends to visit AND she didn't get to stay overnight and get the video game console etc...I thought she would be happy about getting to leave so soon.

We got home about 7:00pm, picked up our other kids from their bbsers and unpacked. My friend brought us dinner around 7:30 and Stan ran off to church meetings. Currently Olivia is on Amoxocilin for 6 weeks as she has not been responding to her preventative medication (to prevent UTI's post operation) and has not been healthy the whole 9 weeks of recovery.

Now that the stents are out she is a lot less pain. She told me her tummy doesn't hurt any more (the stents cause spasms) and that her wee is no longer bloody. She is back in school (she has missed a total of about 8 weeks so far) so we have had a lot of make-up work to do. Overall we are on the mend. Once Olivia finishes her meds (in 6 weeks) she will have some ultrasounds done to see what damage has been further caused to her kidneys and we also have follow up apts with her gastroentologist

She started to gain weight right after her operation but started to loose weight as soon as she got a UTI two weeks later. Overall she still isn't growing, we will see if there is anything else to be done! Keep you posted!

Happy Birthday

This year my birthday was extra special. My birthday was on Monday and Friday afternoon I got an email from Stan telling me to "pick an option" from the options below. Each option was a different adventures near Sydney AND each option was for an overnight/weekend out...Stan even got the babysitter. I was so excited I didn't know what to choose; here were some of the options: Rock climbing, horseback riding or hiking through the blue mountains just 45 minutes west of Sydney (it looks like Yellowstone national park) and the overnight option was either camping or a bed and breakfast. Another option was going two hours north to some of the more pristine beaches and swim, shop and kayak. Another option was to go down south two hours to Kangaroo Valley where there are mountain rainforest's and rivers and waterfalls and obviously Australia's natural wildlife (wallabies and wombats). The last option was a night in the city in a fancy hotel and dinner at a nice restaurant.

Since I had already been to the blue mountains (although we couldn't hike because we had the kids with us), and I had already been up north to some beautiful beaches (again with kids so kayaking couldn't happen) and I had already been around the city quite a bit both with and without kids I opted for Kangaroo Valley. In addition we were supposed to go down there with our USA friends the following weekend but had to cancel last minute since Olivia was due back in the hospital to get her stents out.

So our trip began. Stan still pulled out all the fancy stops along the way so it was more like a morphing of all the options. For instance he found a fancy gourmet restaurant that specializes in degustation about half way down to the valley. Stan's business partner offered to treat the dinner (especially because he knew we didn't drink) and the whole experience lasted over two hours. We drove the rest of the way down a windy mountain (I felt car sick) and then finally came to a valley that was completely covered in fog and reminded me a lot of England because it was so green. Apparently the valley is surrounded by mountains of rainforest (not the Amazonian jungle type) so it is really moist and not as dry as the rest of Australia. We stayed in a bed and breakfast and were the only guests that evening. The host was a fun and feisty old lady who was very prompt and detailed. She made the most amazing spread for breakfast and informed us it was all from the farm. We looked out the window and saw chickens, cows, rainbow lorikeets and a big lake. It reminded me a lot of Montana in a more temperate climate.

Once we checked out we headed off to the rainforest and waterfalls. The drives were beautiful. Big trees and forest everywhere. One part of the road intersected with the beginning of a waterfall and you got to drive through the water.

Just to the left you could see where the water fell off the ledge.

After seeing three waterfalls we headed back to the valley where Stan booked me a massage at this natural outdoor spa place.

It was really relaxing and while I relaxed for one hour Stan grabbed some picnic food and we headed over to the place where you rent boats. We rented a canoe and Stan paddled me for about two hours down a lazy river while I turned around and talked to him the whole time. There were some fish that would jump out of the water, it was obviously a great fishing spot but we had no gear. Here are some pictures of the boat ride.

It was mostly just peaceful and quite with nature all around, in addition we were completely secluded. The most the river offered were level 1 rapids which meant that our boat got stuck a few times on the rocks in slow current :-) Stan got out to push :-)

After canoeing we turned in our boat and headed back home. On our way back the fog came back into the valley (this was during sunset) we tried to take a picture with Stan's phone but it did not compare to how beautiful it really was.

Also, we were laughing because we never saw any Kangaroos in Kangaroo valley! Overall, it was a great weekend out and one of the few in our marriage (going on 8 years). Thanks Stan for a great birthday!