Family Vacation

Last weekend, we took the kids down to Adventureland and the Des Moines Zoo. They had a blast!! They were non -stop while at Adventureland and went from ride to ride.

This was the girls favorite ride, The Froggie Hopper, it went up and down and they would have rode it all day if possible!
Tad was a good sport and rode most of the rides with them. I had forgotten to get any Dramamine to prevent me from getting sick. I did finally go on the balloons with them towards the end of the day, not such a great idea. At one point, Cael did zonk off to sleep for about 45 minutes, which was much needed for him. And of course, had to end the day with some very yummy ice cream!!

The only thing we didn't get done there was getting an Old Fashioned Picture taken. I love those. Maybe next year. That night at the hotel, they still had enough in them to go swimming for a short time. But finally, they drifted off at about 10:30, but that wasn't before a lot of drama, a call to the pediatrician, and an almost trip to the ER.

Let me explain. As I was putting Skylar's arm floaties on so she could get in the pool, they were a little small and snug. I was pulling on her arm a bit to get them up and she kept on pulling it back and giggling. It turned into a little pulling game between us. Didn't think anything of it. While in the pool, she complained a little that her arm hurt, but wasn't crying or anything yet. About 20 minutes later when Tad brought her up to the room, the poor little girl was in tears and saying her arm hurt. We looked at it. She wouldn't move it, she would just cry and cry. I felt so bad for the poor little thing.

As some of you might remember, when she was about 1 1/2, this happened. Her elbow popped out of place and I had to take her to the doctors to have it popped back in (that was after the fact that I thought it was broken). Anyways, the doctor explained to me then, it is something they called nurse-made elbow (maybe nurse-mate, not quite sure). Anyways, it happens very easily for instance when you are walking with a young child and holding their hand and then they pick up their feet. That puts a lot of weight pulling down on the arm, and some little kids elbows have a tendency to pop out. When this happens, it becomes disjointed a bit and a nerve ends up getting pinched. The doctor told me then that the pain is very bad and kids just simply won't move their arm.

So, after remembering all of this and remembering our little tug-of-war game before the pool, I was suspecting it happened again. So, I called the pediatrician on call (as it was 10:30 at night) to see what to do. She stated we could try and pop it back in ourselves, or we were looking at an ER visit. UGH!! What to do what to do?!

So, after explaining all of this to Tad, we are both stressed out and all the kids are still up and very tired. So, we decided to try it. I explained to Tad what he had to do (align the bones, then bend the arm up towards the shoulder), so I tried to distract Skylar by showing her the pictures of her on all the rides from that day while Tad was playing Dr. Dad. He did it and she let out a little scream and started to cry. A few minutes later? Good as new!! Tears were gone and she was back to her old self. Thank God!!

Off to bed everybody went, EXHAUSTED!!

Then next morning, we got up, ate some breakfast, and headed for the Blank Park Zoo (the kids slept until about 8, not bad for all 5 of us in 1 small hotel room). Again, the kids loved it and loved looking at all the different animals.

Their favorites were the flamingos, tigers, giraffes,

zebras, lions, sea lions, penguins, and the aquarium that had all the fish from Finding Nemo. Of course, my favorite was the giant turtles!! How cool are they?!

They did not like the huge boa constrictor, even though they didn't see it, they just saw me accidentally see it and I screamed, so then they were afraid. I am afraid I have past my phobia of snakes onto these girls!

This was Skylar's favorite mode of transportation around the zoo, she is such a Daddy's Girl.

And, a picture of all of us to end the trip. Lots of fun, I am sure we will be making this an annual thing!!