first week seaside!

Brenden is turning 7 tomorrow - I can hardly believe it! We have been at the beach for almost a week, enjoying the new place so much! The internet down here is not reliable at all - so who knows how much posting will be happening to Avery's blog. The kids are loving the beach - it took Avery a couple days to find her feet in the sand, but she is getting more and more comfortable and even going into the water by herself - yikes! Brenden is surfing like a rockstar - one of these days I will take the camera to the beach to capture some beach fun. It's a lot of stuff to take when Im by myself :)

So a very happy birthday to my first born son, Brenden - you are an amazing kid and Im so proud of you! I can honestly thank him for saving me - truly saving me when Conner was sick - not sure I couldve survived without him. He is witty, and funny and just a joy!

Avery is 23 mos and the condo is a l m o s t done!

Avery's all better, almost certain that it was Roseola. She is not enjoying her new glasses, she wears them for about 10.2 seconds before ripping them off. Taking her to our regular optho tomorrow to see what to do. I suspect we might have to do eye drops to get her to wear them, hopefully she can confirm the prescription and help us!

2 more days of school left!!!! The condo is almost finished. A last few things need to be done, but it is officially livable!

Avery's sick :(

Uhg! We have had about 36 hrs now with very high fevers! At her highest this morning of 104.4. I hate high fevers. Tonight I am waking her up every 4 hours to alternate tylenol and motrin. Poor baby! Her nose is running, but thats about the only symptom. May be taking Avery to the doctors tomorrow!

Brenden's baseball team is heading to the championships on Wednesday night - a win then and they go to the world series - wow! Even if they dont make it, it's a huge accomplishment for them to have made it this far! They are the talk of the league! Started off as the bad news bears and now in the finals!

Some more California pictures

Santa Monica Pier

Zuma Beach

California adventures....

Venice Beach

Santa Monica Pier

Zuma Beach

Santa Monica Pier

Oh were to start... really not so sure! Last Thursday morning we boarded a plane to come to Los Angeles to meet a specialist in Duanes (the eye condition that Avery has). UCLA has the most experience in the world with surgical procedures to treat Duanes. We were coming out here for one specific surgery called VRT surgery.

We woke up super early on Friday and headed off to UCLA for our pre-operative consult and Avery's exam. Here's where things got crazy! The doctor was incredible and did an extremely thorough exam and found that in addition to the Duanes, Avery is moderately farsighted. She had surgery done at 12 mos old and the surgery alone was successful - she has the ability to get her eyes in primary gaze (meaning that her eyes are both centered in the socket when looking straight ahead) but, because she is farsighted - she has developed an accommodative eye crossing. This is the same condition that many kids get when they develop "crossed eyes" and need glasses.

He suspected on friday - that if we corrected the farisghtedness with glasses, that her eyes would be in proper alignment. We were to put her in glasses for the weekend and see him again Monday morning to re-evaluate and see if the surgery was needed. We also learned that VRT surgery was not an option for Avery because of the first surgery done last August, but that there were two other surgical options available.

So we headed to the mall to put our peanut in glasses. After being at the doctors office for 4 hours (yes 4 hours) this was no easy task. But we got it done.

We have toured California , the Hollwood sign, Sunset strip, Malibu, Zuma Beach, Venice, and Santa Monica. And yesterday spent the day in Disneyland. Lots of comments about the "baby in glasses" Kind strange - I mean loads of people wear glasses...really? I have a feeling that in another year and when she finally gets some more hair people wont even notice. She just still looks like a "baby" with her tiny figure and little amount of hair.

Brenden was lucky enough to be in the pacific and have a sea lion whim up right next to him, I mean so close that Brenden couldve touched him. Very very neat! And even better - is I happened to be holding a camera when the whole thing happened. The locals said that had never seen one come in so close. He was literally almost hitting the sand on shore.

So this morning after about 60 hours after getting glasses we headed back to UCLA to see Dr.Velez. He said that with her glasses on - her eyes are near perfect. We realistically dont expect perfect, just trying to correct her head turn. He saw a great improvement in eye alignment with the glasses on and determined that no surgery was needed at this time. We are to keep her in glasses (and no more patching! YEAH) and have her re-checked in 3-4 mos at Hopkins. She may need further muscle surgery in the future, but not now. We have to wait and see if she will grow out of the farsightedness (which he does expect to happen)

She has been tolerating the glasses pretty well, tearing them off from time to time, but it's going much smoother than I thought was even possible :)

Avery 22 months and Brenden nearing 7

Took Brenden to the movies, so in return he agreed to do a small session with me :) Got some great shots - so all are happy! We are scheduled to fly to UCLA this week for Avery's surgery. She has a slight runny nose - so please keep dry nose and no cough thoughts in mind for our Avery! Surgery is next Monday afternoon - so thats like evening here - remember there is a 3 hour time difference. I am not packing until the night before we leave so I dont jinx the trip. My stomach is in knots! I want her to have this surgery sooooo bad, and we have waited sooooo long for this appointment! Im trying to keep myself busy w/o staring at her nose and counting the minutes as they pass... UGH!