Fun with Grandy Randi

Well the insanity of the trip is done, the party is over and the house is quiet once again. Granny Randi (or Grandy Randi as Greta calls her) left Sunday and we all miss her. We had a nice time having her here last week, the kids thoroughly enjoyed having Granny here 24/7. She got used as a giant pillow a few times:

Her friend Connie asked her to gather a few bags of walnuts while she was here so out she went one evening into the grove and gather she did. I believe Connie wanted them for dying wool. I'm just glad someone is using them!

But my favorite picture of the week is brought to you by the Stomp Rocket that Aunt Stacy and Uncle Nate got Wesley for his birthday. It's a great toy that the whole family enjoyed (enjoys!). The harder you stomp on the air pad, the higher the rocket shoots. So we got fancy with the effort we put into jumping and stomping on the air pad. Randi perfected the "Run and Jump" method while Wesley stuck with the "One Foot really high in the Air" method. We aren't showing you my method because I'm the keeper of the blog and decide which incredibly bad photos are posted and which are silently deleted. Hehehe.

First off the "One Foot" method:

And lastly the "Run and Jump" method including my favorite Granny Randi picture ever.

Happy Birthday Wesley!

Happy birthday my little dude. You aren't so little anymore but you will always be my little man. Three days ago you turned six. Yesterday we had your birthday party and I must say, it was the best one yet! We bit the bullet and rented a bounce house. Not just any bounce house but a giant monster truck bounce house. I knew you kids would have fun in it but I didn't know just how much fun the adults would have in it. We had a ball! Made me feel like a kid again.

This year we invited friends from school. You listed off your favorite people and we invited them. In the end all but one showed up and it was a full house. We had Granny Randi and Papa Rich here, Noni and Papa, Aunt Betsy and Uncle Blake, Bennett and Emery, Aunt Jessica and Alex and Abby, Dru, Charity and their girls Serenity and Isa, and your friends from school: Andrew (your best friend), Kyler and Riley.

Granny Randi and I sculpted the bugs out of fondant, and had a blast doing it!

You kids had a great time bouncing in that monstrosity of a bounce house. It was a typical middle of July day with temperatures of 101 in the shade. Little faces were red but happy. Lots of drinks kept you all hydrated and many trips back into the air conditioning helped keep everyone happy.

One of the funniest parts was watching your grandparents jump (and get stuck). Papa somehow got himself stuck in the corner and needed help out.

I hope you had a great birthday Wesley! It will be hard to top this year, but I'm sure we can try.

Can't forget the hat picture every year.

Vacation Part 3

Here is the last part of the Colorado vacation. Here is Part 1 and Part 2. So after the scenic hike we headed back to the mine for the tour. I gotta say I wasn't expecting a whole lot. It was, after all, a giant hole drilled into the side of a mountain. Well I was wrong. It was a guided tour, our tour guide being a younger gal who's family owns the mine. She did a great job explaining how the mine was created, what they used back in 1901 to drill it and what it was used for. They even had some great displays along the way. For instance here is Wesley on a "honey pot," or mine toilet.

 And here is my father playing cards with some fellow miners of the time. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

We went back into town and indulged in some ice cream cones which has become sort of a tradition. Greta particularly loved her cone.

And then the vacation ended and we got a frightening wake up call.

We were awoken Friday morning at 5 am to Wesley gurgling and gasping for air. We flew out of bed and climbed up to the top of the bunk where he was sleeping. We tried to wake him and he was completely unresponsive. Still gasping we drug him down to our bed where he went limp. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or even alive for that matter. It was freakin scary. I went running from our room into the main lodge yelling for help. Nobody was awake at that early hour. I finally found the door to the upstairs apartment in which the owners lived. I just barged right in like I owned the place yelling for help. The sweet people ran  out of their bedroom and called 911. When I got back to the room Wesley was still unresponsive, completely out. We checked his pulse and decided he was alive so we put him on his side while we waited for the ambulance. They got there in no time, maybe less than 15 minutes? By that time he was twitching his fingers but not doing much of anything else. The EMT came in and checked him over and put him on the gurney. They said he had most likely had a seizure and was in a postictal state. This is considered to be the period shortly after a seizure where the brain is still recovering from the seizure. The poor little guy slowly began to wake up while they were strapping him in. They asked who wanted to ride with him and I volunteered (since the alternative was to drive behind in the van, to which I had no experience driving in the mountains).

Once in the ambulance they hooked all sorts of things up to Wesley. He got an oxygen tube under his nose and several diodes all over his head and body. They took him into Lake City and then made the decision to take him along into Gunnison. While stopped in Lake City in hopped a lady that I recognized. It was our tour guide from the mine. Turns out she's an EMT too.  It was nice to see a familiar face. She asked all sorts of questions and reassured me that his behavior was quite normal for someone that went through a seizure. They thought it could be high altitude related but pretty much dismissed it after I told them this was our fifth day in the mountains.

We headed out to Gunnison, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes away if traveled by a normal vehicle. This was anything but a normal trip to Gunnison. We were in an ambulance with the lights flashing going at least 80 mph around these tight mountain curves. I'm not sure if the trip was more frightening or the seizure. It's a toss up. I might add that I can get car sick when traveling in the back seat of most vehicles. Apparently so does poor Wesley who threw up twice. It was hard to tell if the poor guy was reacting to the intense drive or the stress his little body went through.

About half way there our tour guide looked up at me and declared that she'd like to put an IV line in. I thought she had to be kidding since we were all practically flying around the inside of the ambulance as the driver took these tight turns. She wanted to be prepared in case he had another seizure along the drive. That way they'd be able to administer medication directly. I gave my blessing and prepared Wesley. He didn't seem to care and was a trooper through this whole ordeal. So that awesome EMT yelled to the driver "Andy I'm putting in a line!" to which he (the driver) immediately slowed down to 112 mph 70 mph. She popped that IV line in with no problem, Wesley just shut his eyes and didn't even make a peep. Did I mention he as such a trooper?

Finally got to Gunnison Valley hospital and was so relieved to have made it there alive (and with shorts and shoes on! I'm so happy the lodge owner reminded me to throw on some shorts and shoes.....these are just things you don't think of when your baby is in trouble).  Now at this point Wesley is awake and pretty much back to his normal self. He was rather sleepy and once they got him a warm blanket he zonked back out. The doc came in and we talked a bit about what we did the day before, any head injuries and family history. Turns out there is a family history. It took Sean getting there to inform me that there is a family history of epilepsy. I think somewhere deep inside I knew that but certainly didn't remember when the EMT's were asking me that. They did some lab work and we discussed getting him and MRI or a CT scan but in the end we all decided (doctor included) that we needed to head home to a lower elevation and talk to our own pediatrician about further testing. We were released a few hours later and we went home.

So yesterday he had an appointment with his pediatrician and she did quite a few physical tests and set us up with an EEG for next week. He'll be sedated and they'll read what's going on in his noggin. We will go from there.

It was a great vacation up until Friday when it abruptly ended. We were going to head up to my parents cabin but obviously decided it was time to get home and get everything checked out. I sincerely hope this isn't altitude related, it would be sad to think we wouldn't be heading back there. I guess we'll just wait and see what happens. For now our little dude is back to his normal sister hitting, computer game playing, couch jumping, goofy self. And that's exactly how I want it to stay.

Vacation Part 2

So from Pueblo we drove to Gunnison Colorado with a pit stop on top of Monarch pass. It's a rather sleep climb and it was nice to pull over at the top to see the gift shop and stretch our legs. While there we saw what appeared to be a tram ride up the mountain. Since we were stopping to do fun things along the way I figured a tram ride would fit the bill. So into a little blue tram we hopped and up to Monarch crest we went. The top was 11,315 feet and cold and windy but fun! The kids enjoyed it and we got some nice pictures.

We headed to Gunnison for the night, staying in a pretty decent little Comfort Inn (with it's equally decent pool I might add). Once again the kids swam while their exhausted parents tried to stay awake. That's the thing with taking vacations with little kids, there is no down time. Usually at home we put them to bed by 8 pm and then have a little time to relax and watch a movie or something. None of that going on. It was lights out by 9 pm. We all hit the hay. 

We asked the front desk lady where was the place to eat in Gunnison, Colorado and she relied "The Gunnysack!" quite enthusiastically. So off to the Gunnysack we went where we ordered the most fantastic grilled salmon salad we'd each ever had. It was wonderful and we will remember to stop there next time we go wandering through that town. 

Wednesday morning we got up and headed for our destination. This year we booked two nights at a quaint little lodge on Lake San Cristobal outside of Lake City. It was a real treat to be in such a beautiful place and it brought back a lot of memories from my youth. 

 Thursday was the fourth of July so we got decked out in our red, white and blue clothes and headed for the parade in town. It's never a disappointing parade and this year was no different. The kids officially have parades figured out, they wave and look cute and they get showered with candy. We came away with a bag full of the sweet stuff. Like they need more sugar to drive their craziness. My parents met us there from their cabin to which they had just arrived the night before.

My parents had been told there was an interesting mine tour a little ways out of town towards Engineer pass. So off we went in search of this mine. We found it but it was closed, which was a total bummer. This is what we thought of that:

Then right about that time a man comes riding up on a ATV to open up the mine. Yippie! Mine tour was back on. He told us it takes about half an hour to get it all up and running so we decided to head over to a trailhead a couple hundred feet back and go for a hike in the mean time. That turned out to be super fun and it was so nice getting the kids out of the van and expelling some of their boundless energy. 

My dad investigating an old mine with all its pilings. Oh how Wesley wanted to follow. I was so steep!

  Next post I'll write about the mine tour which was really cool and then our frightening day after the 4th adventure.