St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

On Monday Brad and I returned from our WONDERFUL vacation in St. Thomas. Before I get into the details of the trip, I have to start out by praising my wonderful husband for getting us there in the first place.

Every year Northwestern has a summer sale's contest which requires a lot of work in order to win the contest. So far Brad has won this every year. Two years ago we went to Puerto Rico. Last year he won the trip to Grand Cayman Island, but we weren't able to go because Eden was still in the NICU. This year when I found out he won I knew I needed to do everything possible to get us there. He deserved it after all his hard work, and missing two years in a row just wouldn't work. This is where my mom came in to save the day.

It required a ton of preparation up front, but with my mom and a small fleet of nurses, Brad and I were able to leave knowing Eden would be very well cared for while we were gone. We were able to go and completely relax and take a break from everything so it was so nice.

I missed Eden SO MUCH, but I didn't miss the schedule and all the appointments. My usual week with Eden consists of 3-5 appointments, but for the five days of the vacation, the only appointment I had to keep was my appointment at the spa - now that I could handle.

We were able to get amazing massages in a cabana right on the beach. It was definitely relaxing to hear the waves coming in as they are rubbing all the stress out of our bodies! Here's the view from our cabana.


St. Thomas is such a beautiful island. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton, which was also pretty darn beautiful. The first picture is a view from the balcony of our room. The others are just taken from a couple areas around the resort.






Down at the beach we had access to all kinds of fun water toys to keep us entertained. We spent quite a bit of time in the paddle boats, kayaks, and other various toys. Here we were trying out the standing paddle boards. It took a bit to get your balance, but then we paddled all over the bay.



Here's Brad and Ben (the Managing Partner) trying out a couple of the activities.



I took this picture right after this little guy walked right by my lounge chair on the beach. These things roam all over the property - kind of cool, kind of freaky all at the same time.


Most of our lunches were consumed at the hotel restaurant "The Sails" right on the beach.



We went to a few really delicious dinners with all the the reps who work with Brad. These were basically the only times we ever left the resort and our beach chairs.




One of the reps Brad works with had his two kids there with them. I was missing Eden so bad, but holding their baby helped just a tiny bit. :)


The only excursion event we went on was a kayaking tour. I didn't take my camera with me just in case our kayak had trouble staying upright, so I don't have any pictures, but it was a really fun time. Brad and I had a pretty good paddling rhythm down and were flying all over the bay. We kayaked out to a private island and did a little hike and I've never seen so many crabs in my entire life! Standing still you could just watch the ground move and hear the scratching sound of them moving along the sand. It was pretty creepy. I decided at that point I would never be able to make it on the TV show "Survivor". :) I was basically done with the island and the crabs pretty quickly. It was tons of fun though.

On the last night, everyone who was there with Northwestern (from five or six different states) had a buffet style dinner right down on the beach. The food was delicious and it was followed by a dance right out there in the sand. Brad and I did quite a bit of dancing before hitting the pool for one last swim.


Overall, it was such an amazing vacation and so nice to get a break from all the medical stuff that fills our lives. We were truly able to relax and rejuvinate. Thanks Brad for all your hard work. Thanks mom for taking care of Eden for us. I know that was so much work for you.

Coming up next.... we will be heading back out to Denver next week for Eden to attend the new aerodigestive clinic. Hopefully the progress will continue!

See you next year Summer Sales Contest!!

The comfy way to sleep...

Every time we put Eden in her crib for bedtime or naptime, she always has to run around and play for a little while before finally falling asleep. This means, without a doubt, I have to go and untangle her from her cords and tubing once she finally falls asleep. I just can't imagine this is a comfortable way to sleep:



This girl continuously keeps us laughing with all her silly antics!

Family Birthday Party

There are 6 birthdays in my family all within a few weeks of each other so it was decided that we would have one big family party to celebrate, complete with a big jumper! We had tons of fun! Happy birthday to Dallen, Michael, Jade, Jaxon, Lincoln, and Kadence - we love you all!!







These boys are so silly - they didn't want any cake, just the gigantic balloons made of frosting that were decorations on the cake. Nasty...



Here are all the birthday peeps, except Lincoln - he was probably climbing something somewhere or tackling someone. Happy birthday guys!

Balloon Fiesta!!

I absolutely LOVE the balloon fiesta! It is such an awesome event and definitely something everyone needs to experience. Unfortunately, this year we weren't able to make it out to a mass ascension in the morning, but Friday night we did get to see the balloon glow. The evening activities aren't as cool as a morning ascension, but it was still so much fun and I'm glad we were able to go.

We were able to eat dinner there with all my family and watch the balloons go up. Eden was a little sick so she wasn't quite feeling herself, but it was fun to watch her take it all in. We obviously couldn't ever get her to look at the camera because she was entirely too distracted, but here are a few fun pictures anyway.





This morning was the last mass ascension and I'm sad because I really enjoyed going out on our balcony each morning and watching the balloons. We are very fortunate to have an awesome view, so even though we never got to go down to the field, I was able to see hundreds of the ballons filling the sky each morning. It was a great way to start the day. There's just something about balloons that make us all feel happy.... right? :) I'm already looking forward to next year. We will happily house any visitors who would like to come out and see it! I highly recommend it! :)

16 months old! 19 lbs 4 oz!!

Today Eden is 16 months old - wow! As each day passes I'm losing my baby and gaining a toddler. When I looked at these pictures I was so blown away at how grown up she looked. Where is the time going?



As I'm now the mother of a toddler, I'm also starting to experience some serious attitude! My sweet, content, happy baby is now throwing full on temper tantrums sometimes and I just don't know what to do except laugh! She used to sit still, smile and pose so perfectly for her pictures, but now I get the camera out and she quickly scoots to where I am and demands that she play with it. No more easy photo shoots. Here's what happened while trying to take the photos above:

I was lucky to get the two good pictures that I did. This one and the other 12+ pictures are all of her fighting me for the camera. :)

She is also extremely mobile these days and is beginning to get into a lot of trouble. Putting her into her crib for naptime and bedtime has become quite entertaining. We have the video baby monitors so from the screen in the other room we watch her stand and run all around her crib, falling several times and getting herself all twisted up in her multiple cords. We now have to go in and untangle her about 3 times before she finally settles down and falls asleep.

A couple days ago we were watching her on the monitor being crazy and circling around and around her bed. We laughed as she was slowing down until she finally sat down and held her blanky and sucked her thumb. We knew she was giving in, but she wasn't laying herself down. After just a few minutes of this she just completely collapsed in half in complete slumber. Brad went in and layed her in a more comfortable position, but we laughed a lot about our sweet little girl. She's tons of fun - tantrums and all!

Happy 16 months Eden! Here's to figuring out how to have a toddler!

PH probe

Finally, the PH probe, phew. I've been diligently trying to schedule this ever since we came back from Denver in August! After over a month of what started off as normal, but became quite harassing phone calls, they finally got Eden in to complete the PH probe.

As I'm sure everyone can imagine, getting the tube down into her stomach was not a pleasant experience. Our poor girl has been through so much and it's just getting harder now that she is getting older and more aware of what's going on. It took three people just to hold her down in order to get it in and it's so heartbreaking. Hopefully we will get some good information from this though and it will all be worth it.

So we went in yesterday morning and they placed the probe and hooked it up to a recorder machine. For the following 24 hours we had to keep track of eating, laying down, coughing, sneezing, throwing up, and anything else that may have to do with reflux by pushing designated buttons on the recorder. It was a pain, but more than anything I was just so stressed that she was going to pull it out and we would have to start all over! Needless to say, I watched her like a hawk to make sure she left it alone.

Here she is with her new "accessories"


So we went back this morning and they took the probe out (hallelujah!). It was a long 24 hours for sure, but we made it through. Now the doctor will review the report and get back to me so I'm hoping to hear back sometime early next week. Updates to come!

Fall is Here!

Welcome to the Justice pumpkin patch.... :)