Pink shirt day.

Fei's surgery.

Fei was amazing.  She remained calm and was a nice polite patient.  We did get a numbing pad, it worked, she didn't feel the needle for the I.V.  Only 45 mins.  8 teeth out!  They had to shave bone to get the wisdom teeth out.  Oy.  Which has caused some major swelling.  Poor kid.  She's isn't complaining.  Taking her meds and eating soft foods.  She'll be home a few days.  She was out.  Doesn't remember a thing.  Pretty funny watching her face timing with Hanna with a full mouth of gauze and holding ice packs on.

Picture for Luk.

Updated home.

Luk had an ultrasound, looking to see if he had impacted fecal matter.  Of course they didn't tell Eric if he does.  Children's is hoping he does and that if cleared he could potty train.  We think wishful thinking.  Funny part, ultra sound technition finds fluid in his belly, yup he has a shunt.  Then his bladder is empty and she questions if he drank his water, yup, he's neurogenic and his bladder is the size of a newborn's.  Sigh. Eric reported that Luk talked the entire time. Haha.

We met with Kai's community/ministry social worker.  Who feels that the challenges we still face and especially at school could be dealt with by a service dog.  Which at first we totally rejected.  However.  Everything she mentioned sounded pretty great.  So worth considering.  We meet again in a few weeks.

Jia is on a mission to get a little sister.  Oh how I would love another little girl.  Jia is picturing 7 - 9 and I'm picturing 2 - 3.  Haha.  This is NOT in the works.

Lili and Fei are both struggling with how much homework they have.  The holiday came with a price.

Fei has dental surgery on Monday.  8 teeth coming out.  We are NOT looking forward to this.

We're all wishing we were still on holiday.  Home is hard and busy.

Mrs Carpenter

So...I have no idea what Mrs. Carpenter was thinking.  Instead of sharing our pictures from our family blog with Jia's classmates, during school.  It has come to my attention that she instead sent the address home with the kids to share with their families.  Such a wildly inappropriate thing to do.  A bunch of families must be at home wondering why on earth we would send it out.  Obviously a huge mistake. There is nothing private on the blog.  It is public domain.  I wouldn't have chosen to send it to a bunch of families we don't know.  Mostly I'm embarrassed that this happened.  Especially embarrassing that we have bathing suit pictures on there.  That all said.  Welcome to our lives...enjoy...have a laugh...we are.

Ava doing the funny face.

Jia doing the funny face.

Timed better with lovely faces please. 

Dolphin pictures.

Home

Missing the dining room on the ship this morning.  Back to cooking and dishes. Not excited about the snow still here either.  Jia and Luk were though.  They went out this morning at 9:30 and have just come in now.  3 hours straight.  Jia is making hot chocolate now.  The cruise ship has a hot chocolate machine going 24 hours a day.  Haha.  So not ready for real life again.

The whole family is ready for me to book another cruise.

We did a great packing job.  Had everything we needed. Rare.  Used almost everything.

We were told often and repeatedly that we have great kids.  By staff and fellow passengers.  The dining room staff were fawning over the boys. The boys had fans.  People were talking to them all over the ship.  Luk was keeping lots of people entertained.

Kids club was great for the littles.  We were told by staff that it's unusual to have such nice and well behaved kids.  So either we've done a decent job of parenting or we're super strict.  At the end of our last night the camp manager gifted all three with one of their build a bear animals with individual letters of praise.  They named their calico cats Callie, Calvin and Hobbs.  Jia made friends on both ships.  So fun.

Lili and Fei met other teens on our first cruise and had lots of fun as a group.  On the second boat there weren't as many kids or teens and their club was mostly shut down.  The club leader told Lili and Fei the other girls she met were snobby and she didn't think they'd like them.  Which of course made them want to meet the 'snobby' girls even more.  They never met.  So they watched a lot of movies.  Spent time with us.  Got some sleep.  Went to a few shows.  We did comedy shows together while the littles were in their camp. We got to have nice meals together in the dining room almost every night while the littles ate kids food in their camp.

Kai did a great job traveling!!  We were all impressed with his improvements.  No fear.  Stuck with us.  We did have to stop him from cuddling with strangers a few times.  He did get to watch tv at the hotel in Miami.  He didn't really ask for much over all. We brought Lego and that was a very good thing.  He was happy with everything happening.  That said...he hasn't left his tv today ;)

Luk was our weak travel link.  Tired.  We used the chair as much as possible and it still wasn't enough.  He was confused, babbling, clueless.  In the mornings he was up alert and on the ball.  By afternoon he would be losing it and by bedtime we had to help him with everything.  He doesn't do well in the heat. He doesn't like air conditioning, too cold.  He was leary.  Terrified of the cold water with the dolphins.  Wouldn't touch Ginger the baby alligator.  Scared of his bunk bed (couldn't put Kai up because he still falls out of bed routinely). Unhappy about showers (no tub in our rooms).  And just when you think he had no idea what we just did he sums up on the way home "I'm 7, we're 7 and we went to 7 countries".

Jia was gung ho for everything. She slept in her own bed in the girls room.  Once she discovered 24 hour pizza we had a hard time getting her to eat other things.  She was brave enough to go get her own.  She split her time between us, kids camp and hanging with the big sisters. Now that we're home she is on and on about missing Max.

I think I finally knew where everything was on our last couple days.

Lacie was so excited to see me she wiggled more than ever.  I had a hard time hanging onto her.  Esmei was stand offish.  She came to bed this morning so hopefully we can go back to normal.  Our house sitter was great.  All the critters are great.  She sent photos.  Oliver in his first snow.  Esmei and Walter cuddling in the shower.  Isabel sharing food with Lewis.  Nice to be able to get away without worries.

Everglades

We had a nice enough day.  Found it all unimpressive.  Not much wild life.  Very man made.  It was pretty.  We did see lots of birds.  The boat ride was uncomfortable and super LOUD.  Luk covered his ears and Kai scooted to me and held my hand.  The alligator show was interesting.  Fellow doing the show had a show on tv.  He was quite funny.  We all want to see his old shows.  Holding the baby alligator Ginger was fun.

The tour was on route to the Miami airport.  We got there and had a leisurely lunch.  Checked our one big suitcase.  Went through security and then walked for one full hour to get to our gate!  What the?!  How big is that airport?  Shocking.

I had three different notices about time changes.  Also had a stop added.  In the end it left half hour earlier than originally planned and was still one flight.