Disneyland, 2014

After spending half of our Hawaii trip in the hospital or stressed out, we thought it would be fun to do a make-up trip with the kids. Where else to go but the happiest place on earth? We tried to find the week that would be the least crowded (after Spring Breaks, but before school let out) and off we went.

We had a great time. Although it started of with a little glitch. We had decided that it would be worth the money to get a room with a kitchen in it so that we could have more control over Ella's food. We ordered groceries online, had them delivered to the hotel, and were ready to go. Until we got to our room and realized it was a two bedroom suite, but the suite part only had a sitting room, no kitchen. When we talked to the manager we found that there had been some miscommunication and not only had we not booked a kitchen, but there were none to be had. After some discussion, Disney really showed their commitment to making things right (or to not getting sued by the parents of a Diabetic child...still not sure of their motives) by giving us our room at a discounted rate and covering all of our food during the trip! As much as I wanted to avoid the breakfast buffet, you can't argue with free, and the girls LOVED being able to eat with the characters. So score 1 for Disney. 

Ella's favorite ride was still Splash Mountain. Anna liked the tea cups. Being pregnant made it easy to decide who was going to go with Ella and who would stay with Anna on any of the exciting rides. Ryan and Janet were the thrill seekers and Anna and I scoped out the characters. We were disappointed in how busy it was. I think that even though it was an "off" week, the fact that some big rides (Pirates, Small World, Indiana Jones, Grizzly Rapids) were closed made the other attractions more crowded. But we did have amazing weather. We had debated going the second to last week in May, but settled on the last week. Good choice. The week before we came the temps hit high 90s every day. We had high 60s to low 80s. Thank you California. 

Disney really is a racket, but you can't help but being enthralled when you are there with a 3 and a 5-year old. Even not really being Disney people, we were this close to buying a season pass. Thanks Janet for joining in on the fun, and thanks Disney for bringing the magic. 

Hawaii, 2014 (part 3)

We got back from the hospital late Wednesday afternoon. We were all still a little shell-shocked, but Ella wanted to go to the beach, so to the beach we went. As she ran around laughing and splashing, I was amazed that already I could see a difference in her. The sparkle in her eyes was back. I hadn't noticed it was gone, but as we thought back we realized she had been difficult lately. Ryan had described her as a moody teenager, and one day she said to me, "Mom, Sometimes I try to have day where I don't whine, cry or fuss AT ALL. And then I cry and think, 'Maybe tomorrow's the day." Broke my heart when I realized that many of the times she was whiney or fussy she was just high or low. And the first night when she conked out after eating a cheeseburger, mac and cheese and fries...? It wasn't jet lag, it was a meal filled with carbs! Seeing her so, so happy made the whole diabetes pill a little easier to swallow. I felt badly for the my mom and dad who were 3,000 miles away, and didn't have Ella's newfound smile to comfort them.

While being in Hawaii when Ella was diagnosed had its perks (a shorter hospital stay, lots of distractions for her, grandparents right there) eating all of our meals at restaurants without nutritional information was challenging to say the least. Trying to guess how many carbs she was eating was really tough. Especially at the breakfast buffet. The first day we let her have whatever she wanted (if we're being honest she pretty much got whatever she wanted from the moment of her diagnosis until we went home) and her plate had something like 2 strawberries, 3 blueberries, 2 pieces of pineapple,1 small pancake, a mini yogurt, 1 piece of bacon, half a box of cereal, 1 pastry and a glass of juice. Ryan and I broke out our iPhones with various carb counting apps and tried to piece it all together. The next day I did insist that she could only choose 3 items.

This is how we looked during most meals

Ryan, Doug and I had planned on going on a helicopter tour on Thursday, but I didn't feel like I could leave Ella so Ryan and Doug went and Ella and I had a girls' day. We went to the spa and got pedicures. Ella picked out 10 different colors for her toes. Pretty cute. We had a good day hanging out at the beach and pool. Ella played, made new friends and hardly put up a fuss when she needed any diabetic cares. In fact, she started checking her own sugar and getting the insulin ready. We were all amazed at how well she handled it. She really was a rock-star.

By Thursday night we weren't quite as overwhelmed as we had been, and we were starting to enjoy Hawaii. We seriously considered extending our vacation. Ryan talked to Delta, and they couldn't have been nicer or more accommodating. But we had a hard time finding a great place to stay, and we were still not sure if it was a good idea for me to manage her diabetes without input from an endocrinologist. It was a close call, but in the end we decided to leave Friday as planned.

Ella brought a camera on this trip, and took most of our pictures. Here are a few...

Ryan brought his new helicopter, and it was a welcome distraction. He and the girls had fun flying it all over. Inevitably, multiple people would come up and want to know what it was all about. 

Many of Doug's colleague's at the conference brought Ella gifts. The Hawaiian paper dolls were a favorite.

On Friday we spent some time at the beach, and then packed up. We had some time between dropping Doug and Janet off at the airport and when our flight left, so we ate dinner and visited the Kona temple. One of the temple workers came out to greet us. He looked like a native Hawaiian, so we were surprised to find out that he was from Pleasant Grove, Utah (about 10 miles from us) and was returning home the next week. Small world.

The flight home went relatively well. We took the red-eye, and Ella slept through all of her glucose checks and insulin injections. I was fairly nervous about it all, but we made it without a hitch.

supplies

girls trying to sleep at LAX

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Paul were dying to see Ella with their own eyes and make sure she was okay. They were at our house waiting for us with groceries when we got home. I had told my mom that she was going to be shocked at how happy and spunky Ella was. I didn't take into account the toll that traveling all night would have on her, and she acted like a tired, somewhat cranky 5-year-old, leaving my mom a little doubtful that Ella was doing as well as I had said. But by Sunday she was doing great, and my mom came back down so she could see it and believe it.


All in all I felt incredibly blessed and taken care of during this week. On Wednesday night, after being back in our hotel room, I jotted down a few of the things I was grateful for so I wouldn't forget them. Here's the list I made:

Tender mercies

I am not having a baby right now* 
It was raining, so we had down time to get the labs drawn. Also, since we weren't doing anything I took a nap, which was helpful when I didn't sleep much in the hospital
Dr. Garvey was able to direct us to the lab, and change the order to stat 
Dr. Lee trained at PCMC and we knew the same people, giving me instant credibility
Not flying to Honolulu
Nurses named Penny and Sue
Pokey the flamingo who was able to help Ella cope
The kind night nurses
When Ella's sugar dropped from high 200s to 196 so we didn't have to poke her at 3 am. I prayed specifically that it would be below 200, even though the trend would suggest she had one more above 200.
Going home today
Finding string cheese sticks that she could eat without a poke
The sun coming out so we could go to the beach.
Doug and Janet being here and loving her.
Ella coping so incredibly well with the shots.
My peace and comfort.

*we had been trying to get pregnant for about a year, and if things had happened as I had hoped I would have been very very pregnant or taking care of a newborn during this time

It's funny how kids have a different perspective. Now when we talk about our trip, most of what the girls talk about are scenes like this one...playing on the beach, picking shells, swimming at the pool.  Mahalo, Hawaii, for being amazing enough to overshadow our little rough patch! We'll be back :)

Thanksgiving, 2013

This year we shook things up a little. Instead of having everyone over for a big Thanksgiving dinner, Ryan and I skipped off to New York and my mom and dad stayed at our house, and had everyone over for a big Thanksgiving dinner. I felt a little guilty leaving Ella and Anna, but they had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa and cousins and aunts and uncles, and Ryan and I had a great time with Jamie and Taylor.

We started off our trip with another save from Grandma Sue. Bad weather in New York combined with day-before-Thanksgiving crowds made us a little nervous about our mid-day flight. So like it was nothing, my mom drove to our house at 9:00 pm, and spent the night so we could catch the 8:00 am flight. And of course, no flights were cancelled, but better safe than sorry.

We started off by eating at Ipudo, the sister restaurant to the one we loved in Tokyo.  It wasn't as good as the original, but still tasty.

This was a cucumber sesame dish. It was better than it looks in this picture

Part of the draw of Thanksgiving in NYC (besides seeing Jamie and Taylor) was that Duke was playing in the pre-season NIT tournament at Madison Square Garden. When we first thought of going, I used Ryan's fancy American Express Concierge service to see if they could get us better seats for the game. They didn't have anything great, but were very nice. Then the day before we left I got a call from a random number. I almost didn't pick up. Glad I did. "Mrs. Packer? This is so and so from American Express Concierge service. We are sorry that we couldn't help you with seats for the final game of the NIT conference. But if you would like, we have complimentary seats in our box for the semi-finals tomorrow night. Would you be interested? How many would you like?" Jaw. dropped. Even better because we didn't have a seat for Jamie, and now we had a free one. So we put our tickets on stub hub, sold them, and went to the game for free, in their floor level box. I have to say, I could get used to this. The seats were fantastic, and the attached box had food and drinks and even Magnolia cupcakes. This picture isn't great, but it's what I snuck as I was walking down the stairs from the short hallway connecting our seats to the box.

View from our seats. It wasn't a great game, but it was really really fun. (Despite the completely obnoxious New Yorker who sat behind us. I suppose he made the experience more authentic.)

The next day was Thanksgiving, and instead of slaving all day in Jamie's little kitchen we let the people at Whole Foods do the dirty work. All we had to do was heat and serve. I have to say, it tasted really really good, and only took us an hour start to finish. Whole Foods doesn't do cranberry fluff, though. That we had to do on our own.

We kept tradition and made M&M turkeys. Thank you Duane Reed loofah. 

Thursday night we drove up to Connecticut and spent the night with Chris and Thayer. It was great to see them and catch up. Thayer and I went on a gorgeous run Friday morning, and Chris graciously let Ryan use his trainer and bike so he could get a ride in.

We left CT and drove back to NY. We ate lunch at Eataly. We had some time to kill before that night's Duke game, so we went in search of a cronut. We knew we were too late in the day to get the original, but we thought an imitation would at least give us an idea of what we were missing. After hitting three stores we decided it wasn't meant to be. But I did have a chocolate carmel cake that was delicious. Really really good.

The second game wasn't quite as fun as the first. Our seats were good, but they were no floor-level suite. The game before ours was really close. I felt bad for the players, because everyone just wanted to move on to the Championship game, so when they made the bucket to tie and go to triple overtime there was a collective groan from the crowd. In the Championship game Arizona came up with the win. It's always fun to watch Duke play, but less fun when they lose. 

On Saturday we went with Jamie to look at the Christmas windows. It's so fun (for me--Ryan may not agree) to see what magic they've come up with. We liked the Bergdorf's the best.

yum.

Ryan and I finished off our adventure with dinner and a play. We saw Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays. It is his autobiographical one man show. It was really really good. We laughed. We cried. We loved it. 

We got dinner after the play and headed back to Jamie and Taylor's. We got up at 5 the next morning and headed home. Such a fun trip--thanks Grandma Sue and Grandpa Paul for watching the girls, and Jamie and Taylor for being such great hosts. 

San Antonio, 2013

My Dad has a golf tournament in San Antonio that he's been doing for the past few years, and usually Ella and my mom join him. But this year my mom was in NYC with Jamie, so Anna and I got to tag along.

Grandpa and Ella on the plane. I am including this picture to show off how my camera's autofocus. It didn't work for a few years and I have an awful lot of photos with Ella's face blurry but her top button sharp sharp.  I finally got it fixed, and it now magically knows what to focus on  (most of the time, at least)

We started off the trip visiting my college roommate and her cute little girl. It was really fun to catch up right where we left off...only now with husbands and kids. She showed us all the cool places. Like the Japanese Tea Gardens. Exactly what you picture when you think of Texas, right?

Then we rode a train to a cool kiddie park with old school rides. I promise Ella had more fun than it looks in this picture. But it's in focus, as opposed to this one:

I guess good camera can't make up for bad photographer.

We spent most of our time with these guys:

We love you, Lauren. Good job Greg. 

We spent most of our time at the Lazy River at our hotel. I've heard an awful lot about this lazy river, and let me tell you, it lived up to the hype. So much fun that we didn't take a single picture.  But the good folks at the Marriott did. Just imagine how much fun 5 Packer cousins had here.

There were also s'mores.

A little story about my powerful mind. I ordered the Granola for breakfast. Local yogurt, local honey.  

It was incredible. The yogurt was light and airy and tasted like a whipped, sweet Greek, vanilla mousse. When I asked the waitress what kind of yogurt it was she replied, "Dannon." What? No way. So I ordered it the next day, and asked the waitress (a different one) what kind of yogurt it was. "Yoplait." And even though I still think they were both wrong and it came from a small, organic dairy farm in San Antonio...it didn't taste nearly as good the second day. 

We rounded out the trip with Sea World. Sea World is always a good idea, but when you get a text like this a few hours before you are heading out it makes it extra special.

Even though she was a little hot and sweaty, Ella thought it was pretty darn great.

Kate and Ella third whale back, hands in the air. Brave, brave girls.

The young ones haven't yet realized that if you smile there is a chance you will get a treat. 

Thanks, Grandpa, for a great great trip! 

*Lauren reminded me of a funny story. There is a long standing debate between my parents whether my dad's ability to chat it up with anyone is creepy or friendly. He obviously thinks it's friendly...my mom's not sure sure. Near the end of the day at Sea World the kids wanted to go on a ride with a long wait, so Grandpa Paul told them that if they would go on a different ride he would get them a treat on the way out. When we got to the treat stand it was closing time, and with 5 indecisive kids we were not the ideal customers. As usual, my dad was making friends with the kid running the joint. When we went to pay our total dropped from $35 to $25. We wanted to make sure there wasn't a mistake and asked about it.  He quietly gave us his employee discount. Lauren summed it up nicely:

"Creepy doesn't get you the employee discount!" 

Score one for Dad.

Hayward, WI 2013 (Brad's pics)

Thankfully, we had Brad with us to take some non-iPhoto pictures.

I'm didn't even realize I was blocking Alisha. That's what happens when everyone is always taller than you ;)

Check out the cool shirts that Ella and Grandma Janet made. Ella was especially excited about the peace sign. "I have always wanted a shirt with one of those on it."