Roller Coaster...the really fast one!!!

Well in anticipation that we will go to Disney at some point in the next few years....sooner if Hayden has her way.  We thought we would give Six Flags a whirl to test the waters.  There is a lot about an amusement park that would bring out the angst and anxieties of Hayden.  So Gladney(an adoption agency that is local) we participate in their family group.  They host a fundraiser each year and host everyone at six flags.  So we thought it would be perfect, park would be basically empty, it was for just 5 hours in the evening and better yet....Hayden's bff Ronan and her mom wanted to go too!! 

So off we went and YES Hayden was crying within seconds of walking thru the gates, but quickly pulled it together and we headed for the looney toons area.  Shockingly the things I thought she would be fine with.....wasn't and the things I thought "NO WAY in hell is she riding that" that is what she wanted to ride OVER, AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  Yep the roller coaster is what she and Ronan loved the most and I think we rode it at least 5 times.  They did ride other stuff and I have some pictures somewhere, but I think I need to get them off my camera.  These are from my phone, so sorry for the bad quality. 

We had a BLAST, Hayden is still talking about it!! and we think we will be making this a yearly girls night out for us!!! 

Ronan and her mommy in front of us on the roller coaster(maybe ride 2 or 3 not sure) Ronan's mommy is awesome and we have become such great friends.  We laugh that our girls(who will attend school together for the next 14 years) will still be great friends and we will laugh at all the stuff they did as friends in pre-school.

Hayden sweats so much, but just from her head.  It actually was not that hot!!  Sitting on the roller coaster for the 4th time I think!!

Ronan and Hayden waiting in a very short line for the 5th ride on the roller coaster. 

Making up for lost time......

Yep fooled you again.....you thought I meant I was making up for lost time and not updating the blog in a more timely manner...didn't you??  Nope I meant that my child who is NEVER sick and had gone 3 1/2 years without ever being on a prescription med, only 2 visits to the doctor outside of well visits, and well pretty much have skirted around the whole "sick kid" thing!!  After the last two weeks I would have to say we have "made up for lost time"  It started with a fever right before Easter(oh yeah we had Easter...we didn't get to enjoy Easter at our house) Anyway Easter Sunday we made a trip to Minute Clinic as I was certain that along with everyone we knew Hayden must have STREP!!!  quick swab from the nurse, a positive read and some really HORRIBLE tasting penicillion  we started our first "REAL" illness at our house.  Did I mention the medicine was HORRIBLE and it needed to be taken two times a day and for ten days???  HOLY SMOKES people, don't know how you all get meds in your kid's as often as it seems people have to take meds, but I was nearly having to sit on H to get i down her.  It was so bad that I finally called the pediatrician and asked if they could call in something that tasted better......you know the medicine is bad when your nurse says "what did they give you??  oh pencicillion....oh yeah you can't make that stuff tasted good"  They called in some delicious amoxocillion.  So away we went, went back to school and thought we were on the road to recover.  Then as we headed into day 8 of our antibiatiocs Hayden started running a fever(ummm 102.4) and also started complaining her throat was hurting.  Well please you have been on not one but 2 antibiotics for 8 days how can your throat hurt and how can you have such a high fever.  Calls were made to fellow moms and it was determined there was nothing GOOD about this and the stop would be the dr office.  We thankfully got in on Monday and by then the fever was down, but H's throat was ON FIRE.  Dr. looked and said was the good news is.....she doesn't have strep, she has HERPENGINIA(hand and foot of the throat) and we were her 9th case since Friday.  Oh and BTW it feels like swallowing shards of glass!!  Then she looked in her ears and I about fell off my chair when she then says "oh and she has double ear infections" well that is JUST AWESOME!! I guess H's throat was hurting so much she couldn't even feel the nasty double ear infections she had going on.  YAY so now they call in the 3 antibiotic.  About the time all of this was going down, it seems I was shot down with a HORRIBLE case of allergies and totally lost my voice(music to David's ears) but that was not the worse part, the worst part even as I type this over a week later.....the cough, OH THE COUGH.  I have NEVER had a cough like this before.  I feel like someone poured the mojave desert down my throat.  I can't STOP coughind ng and at nightime it is ten times worse so I have not slept in over a week.  Please let's not forget my husband had surgery just 3 weeks ago, is in an immobilized arm sling and is still having to sleep in a recliner and take pain meds.  WE ARE A HOT ATLANTA MESS!!!!! 

I am happy to report while Hayden is still on her antibiotic, she has made a GREAT recovery.  I think she is almost back to herself.  We traveled this weekend, and she did great for being down for 2 weeks and still in recovery mode. 

I hope illness is behind us and I hope my cough will disappear very soon!!!  I hope this is also a fluke and we don't EVER go thru this again.  I will point out that while I was in the midst of dealing with all of this illness and misery I kept reminding myself that while it was overwhelming, and certainly was zero fun.....that at least everyone was going to get better and we are SO LUCKY that we don't deal with any sort of chronic illness and actually deal with illness seldom.  It did make me wonder how on earth do people deal with this day in and day out and have multiple children?? 

 Hope everyone at your house is feeling well and are healthy!!!

Back to the doctor and she even has a smile on her face even though her throat was ON FIRE!!!

It only took 3 years!!

Re-adoption and recognition of forgein adoption is mostly a formality.  But we really needed to do it to also officially change Hayden's(Hazel is her daily preference at this point)name.  This secures us a Texas birth certificate and we need that to apply for her passport....which we will need soon. 

We were lucky in that there is a local mom who is a family law attorney that is also an adoptive mom who does these pro-bono, we just had to pay the filing fees.  She was awesome and if you live in my area and in need of this or a family attorney let me know and I will pass along the info to you!!
It was awesome, she was AWESOME!!!!

So we went this morning....not the best morning as David is still very much recovering from his surgery and Hayden was diagnosed with strep(first time ever taking antibiotics and had hoped to go a little longer with not taking them)  But her throat is on fire and she needed to be treated.  So getting up at the crack of dawn and getting to court was NO easy task.  I literally had to dress all 3 of us:)  But so glad we have it done and hopefully that birth certificate shows up quickly so we can get this passport application sent off.

We had a wonderful judge who was VERY cheerful and sweet to Hayden.  He sent Hayden with the court reporter to a room to pick a special treat....a big chest full of stuffed animals.  She picked the cutest bear with a rainbow sweater(yay another stuffed animal) Then he took pictures with us.  It was really awesome and feels good to have this behind us and glad we got to have a little ceremony and fanfare.  Everyone clapped when he announced Hayden's name.....which of course she LOVED!!!

Enjoy and note that I had no sleep, Hayden has strep and well my poor husband has been thru hell with his arm for the last 6 weeks!!! 

Our wonderful attorney Nora

my silly Hazel

Please notice that Hazel chose to wear her glass slippers to court today.  Only the best for a court appearence.  That is petsy the bear she chose.  Isn't that a cute bear??

I don't think we are in Kansas anymore......

Okay first of all.....WOW!!!!! what a day yesterday was for everyone in the DFW area, and it all started out so normal.  We are fine, we had NO damage(thankfully) but so many in our area were not so lucky.  We are all so fortunate that no one was killed due to the fact that there seemed to be about a 15 min warning for most areas. 

For those who don't live in tornado prone areas just know that yesterday was a total fluke and is NOT normal for any prone area.  We broke nearly EVERY record on the books yesterday.  We expected storms and were even expecting severe storms.  We get them a lot this time of the year, and we just deal with it.  I have lived in Texas for 21 years and have only prepared for a tornado twice.  Last spring and yesterday.  Growing up I think maybe a handful of times.  So again....this is totally NOT normal. 

Our day started with running Hayden to school, and then I proceeded to take my sweet husband to have surgery.  You see he tore his rotator cuff 5 weeks ago and has endured A LOT of pain in these past weeks leading up to surgery.  We have been waiting for his surgeon(high regarded) to return from vacation is the reason for delay.  We were fortunate that Taylor was home visiting and was able to help out with Hayden.  So she was scheduled to pick up H from school for me.  David was taken back a little past 1:00 and while it did appear that it was getting ready to storm it seemed pretty normal until my phone started going CRAZY.....I mean CRAZY!!!  I was getting texts from everyone from NY to California asking if we were okay?????  I thought everyone meant David's surgery.  Then the texts started explaining a BIG tornado had hit.  About that time they came and retrieved everyone waiting and moved us to an interior corridor in the surgical center.  Yes I started to panic and about then Taylor called and said she was at school and the sirens were going off and school was in lockdown.  I told her to stay there and not go home until the sirens stopped.  Which they were able to do and she knew to take her home, get her bike helmet on her and strap them together in the storm closet.  YES I was pretty stressed.....my husband is in surgery(literally) and I am in a hallway with a bunch of strangers and unable to see what is going on and my big girl is home with my little girl trying to be calm and keeping them safe.  Then we hear that a rotation has been spotted just about a mile from where we were at the surg center....so they moved us in further inside the building.  So texting and calls became TOUGH!!!  When we could sneak a peek at the TV is was SCARY as hell because it was PURE RED covering the whole metroplex!!!  and people are getting texts saying another rotation was spotted here, and there, and here, and there.  It was unbelievable.  Then as we started getting word of places that had been hit hard I was getting texts and sending texts to friends....our good friends were missed by less than a half mile, my other friends mom couldn't be located for a bit(yes she is fine) most of our friends kid's were in school and locked down in duck and cover mode for nearly 2 hours.  It was a VERY scary day for everyone.  Right now the total stands at 12 tornado touchdowns, nearly 1000 homes destroyed or damaged, 150 injuries and not one fatality!!!!  That is AMAZING!!!!
Hayden was so HAPPY to see us when we got home.  She said she was so nervous, but Taylor was not nervous at all....way to go Taylor for covering up your fear so well!!!

David came out of surgery and when he woke up.....he was totally confused(obviously) about everything going on and just wanted to know that Hayden and Taylor were fine and tied together and a bike helmet on:)  His surgery went great, but the tear was HUGE....they had to use 5 anchors and it was completely torn.....they couldn't believe he had endured 5 weeks of the pain of the tear he had:(  He has been in a tremendous amount of pain since surgery, but we seemed to have figured out what works finally and hoping tonight will be a better night tonight.  It seems it will be a few weeks before he is feeling much better, and 4-6 months for a full range of motion recovery.  But we will get there and we are just glad we were able to have such a great doctor and to have it fixed. 

So to everyone thank you for your worry and concern for sugery, storms etc....we are doing good and we didn't even have one tree limb down.  Shocking based on the fact that 150 airplanes at the airport just a mere 3 miles away were severly damaged by hail and high winds!! 

Our thoughts go out to everyone that was affected by the storms....there are a lot of people out of their houses right now and without power or with a lot of damage.  I consider us VERY LUCKY!!!!

Pretty FREAKING scary huh???

this was when I felt really FREAKED!!!