Disney World!

So I never finished this post that I started on our way home from Orlando...so here it is. Pretty detailed, but Nathan was sick and slept on the flight home, so I wrote about our trip to occupy my time! :) 

For our anniversary, Nathan surprised me with a trip to Orlando! On the agenda: Disney World, Discovery Cove where we will get to swim with the dolphins, and Sea World! I was so excited but also had a hard time leaving Kelsie! This is the first time I have left her overnight since she was born! I knew we needed this getaway but also knew it would be hard being away from my sweet girl that long and it definitely was. Every time I saw another little girl around her age, I couldn't help but well up with tears, thinking how much I missed her and wished she were there with us! Of course, Disney World is a kid's dream so everything we saw, we talked about what Kelsie would/wouldn't like, could/couldn't do etc. I can't count how many times we said "Kelsie would love this!" and then guessed what her facial expression would be. I just can't wait to finally be home and see her and give her all the souvenirs we brought home for her! (We are actually on the plane right now!)

But as hard as it was to leave Kelsie, the trip was wonderful! It wasn't exactly relaxing but thats because it was so packed full of fun! We went to Disney World on Saturday. This was such a fun and magical day but also long and exhausting! We wanted to hit a few of our chosen highlights from each of the 4 parks but we had a few logistical issues with our transportation plan, so we ended up wasting 2 hours which meant we had to drop something off our list! So for this trip, we decided to skip Epcot. We started out at Animal Kingdom where we rode an awesome roller coaster, Expedition Everest, and went on a really cool safari ride where we saw alot if animals right outside our vehicle. We then journeyed over to Hollywood Studios where we were planning to ride Tower of Tower and Rockin Roller Coaster. Well Rockin Roller Coaster was closed and our Fast Pass for Tower of Terror wasn't for 3 more hours. Plus we realized we hadn't thought about how we were going to get back to Animal Kingdom to get our car at the end of the day. We were (mistakenly) told that the buses to AK would stop running once that park closed (8 pm) which was the earliest of all the parks. We knew we wanted to end at Magic Kingdom which stayed open the latest, so we decided to go ahead and ride the bus BACK to Animal Kingdom, get our car and drive to Magic Kingdom, spend some time there and then go BACK to Hollywood, and then BACK to Magic Kingdom for the nighttime fireworks show at the castle (which I am glad we did because it was absolutely amazing!!) A lot of back tracking I know! So needless to say, we spent a lot of our time on transportation! But...you live and learn! Next time we will know! Bus rides, tram rides, monorail rides into Magic Kingdom, a little bit if driving and ALOT of walking! Which reminds me, I am so thankful God decided to let me keep my legs after my accident because I really need them for trips like that! So anyway... all our little blips in transportation just gave us some experience on what to do and what not to do for trips in the future! We ended up seeing Animal Kingdom once, Hollywood Studios twice, and Magic Kingdom twice. And we pretty much did mostly everything we had on our list plus some! A couple of really nice employees saw us wearing our "Happy Anniversary" buttons (that they gave us when we got to Disney) and approached us after we entered Hollywood Studios asking if we wanted to ride Toy Story Mania, a super fun and popular ride! We said of course, and they gave us 2 fast passes giving us entry anytime within the next hour. We were stoked because the wait time for this ride was over an hour and we wouldn't have been able (nor would we have wanted to) wait that long! I think God was helping us out on that one, making up for the time we lost moving our car! We were also able to ride tower of terror and Rockin roller coaster, take the Backlot tour and eat at a very neat restaurant, the Sci-fi Dine in theatre where had our dinner while sitting in pretend cars watching old movie reels. It was pretty cool. We then made it back to Magic Kingdom (after what became a at least a 30 min trip via bus and then monorail) in time for the nighttime show and Wishes fireworks display, which I must say was truly one of the most beautiful and spectacular things I have ever seen!!!

Sunday we went to Discovery Cove and wow, it was just such an awesome experience!!! We had our "dolphin encounter" first thing at 9:30.

We Went to the saltwater pool and went snorkeling where we saw lots of very cool fish and stingray! It took me a while to get up the nerve to pet a stingray but eventually I had no choice because they were literally swimming all around us!

There was also several very nice freshwater pools where we could float through the lazy river, through the aviary, swim up to the otter exhibit and just relax amongst the beautiful scenery. The aviary was cool too, birds would just land on you and eat out of your hand! It was such a fun day!! The place closed at 5pm so we went straight from there over to SeaWorld, had dinner at the Shark Underwater Grill, saw 2 whale shows, and road a crazy rollercoaster!

We went back to Sea World for our last day (the Discovery Cove passes included entry to SeaWorld so we thought we should get the most out of money and try to see what we could of SeaWorld too). We did a few fun things here as well - Turtle Trek which was a nice 3D 360 degree show about sea turtles journey from the shore to the ocean and back again. We ate lunch, rode a couple more rides, and then made our way back to the airport. Exhausted by that point and ready to get home but also full of memories from our adventure packed getaway. So thankful for my hubby and for the chance to have this little 2nd honeymoon. It was so much fun and something we will never forget!

(I had to stop adding pictures because the blog has been distorting the colors when I load them on here  - but I will try to add more later!)

My dear kelsie

My dearest Kelsie,

I am holding you here in my arms thinking how amazing you are. God made you this perfect little person and He made you for me and your daddy. God could not have blessed me with anything greater! I feel bad every night that I have to get you out of bed to do chest pt. And then after that's over, I have to put on your hip brace. I sometimes think, this is only just the beginning of what you are going to have to go through in life. I know there are going to be challenges ahead, there will be limitations and pain, sunshine and rain. But as you re getting older, I am seeing more and more of your personality come out and I am feeling even more confident that you will be just fine. You are already very strong willed and determined to do what you have set your mind to do! You are so tough and when you fall, you just get right back up, brush it off off and keep going. You don't let obstacles stand in your way, you just figure out how to get around them! You independently seek out new challenges and figure out problems on your own. You already have great sense of humor and it's obvious you purposefully try to make us laugh! You are very outgoing and make friends with strangers everywhere we go. And you give the sweetest affection that just melts my heart every time. I love you more than anything and will spend the rest of my life trying to be the best mother to you that I can possibly be.

Mmmmmm corn!!!

Kelsie LOVES corn on the cob! We have to hide it until she has eaten her other food first, otherwise that's all she'll eat!

I think I've had too much. I'm gonna be sick.

What is she trying to say?

Kelsie has so much to say lately! I just wish we knew what she was talking about half the time! These sounds really makes us laugh..."a good good good good"

I'M BACK!

I can't believe its been 3 weeks since I've written! Dad actually called me today asking me to post so it was good motivation to update. I'm just glad he misses it. :)

So Kelsie is 16 months old this week and still changing so fast. Biggest milestone this week is climbing! She has been doing a little bit of climbing for a while but she's doing a lot more of it over the past couple of days. Twice today, she got quiet and I found her in a chair. Once in the rocking chair in the bonus room, and once in big chair in her room. Just found her sitting there reading a book. I had to laugh. She is also crazy about being outside. She will go find her shoes, carry them to the door and start begging (fussing) to go outside. She will even bring my shoes to me when she is ready to go outside haha. She repeats a lot of what we say and is always learning to say new words. I just bought her some big blocks (like Legos) and it is the first toy that has held her attention for more than 2 minutes! She will actually sit there for a significant amount of time trying to put them together! Finally, an activity to hold her attention! : )

In terms of her CF, we have had some GI issues lately so that's been a little challenging. She had a stomach virus a month ago, she vomited a few times over the course of 24 hours, and had a fever but then seemed fine until a week later when she started having really large fatty loose stools. Her doctor was concerned and suggested we change to a different batch of enzymes (in case the ones we had were defective) and when that didn't work, she had us increase her reflux medicine (because the antacids help the enzymes work better). That seemed to do the trick because her stools returned to normal the next day. However, the following week, she had another random very large loose stool, then vomited a huge amount the next day. At that point, her doctor asked that we bring her in for xrays to rule out constipation or DIOS (distal intestinal obstruction syndrome) which is a serious complication of constipation that predominantly affects people with CF. And the xrays did in fact show that Kelsie was pretty significantly constipated. This was surprising to me because she had about 2-3 soft formed stools everyday so I never really questioned her being backed up. But she was, so we had to do a massive clean out! Poor thing has pooped so much the past week! 35 times to be exact! haha. She had to take high doses of Miralax (4 capfuls the first 2 days which is a huge amount - normal for her age would be like 1/2 cap!). So needless to say, its been a messy week. And now my challenge is how to figure out how to manage and monitor this so it doesn't happen again. The doctor feels we will probably need to keep her at maintenance dosing of 1/2-1 cap every day or every other day depending on how often she is going. People with CF have a harder time with constipation. This was our doctors explanation on why "Once we are treating their pancreatic insufficiency, so not giving them a reason to have loose stools, then the chloride channel defect can mean less water going into the stool, the same way there's less water going into the lung secretions.  And that can lead to intermittent constipation.  Some kids seem to have major problems, some have none.  It's hard to know." She said that we will just have to monitor stooling, appetite, and vomiting. As with everything else, I will just have to stay attuned to any subtle changes. Otherwise, from a respiratory standpoint, she is doing great! So we are very thankful for that!

We have had a busy 3 weeks and I have a lot of cute pictures and videos that I want to share. :) (Facebook has been getting all my updates lately, simply because its easier to post there directly from my phone).  So i'll start adding them on little by little.

Kelsie's 1st time fishing on grandpa's boat, Father's Day!

Going down the slide at the park. She is still a little scared about going down by herself. :)

Eating right out of the chip bag, because she has CF and can eat all the fat and calories she wants!

She LOVES dogs and thinks this manikin at Old Navy is so cool!
  

Kelsie and Cousin Will - for one its the paci, for the other, the thumb!

Kelsie's new favorite activity.

Blowing me a kiss as I leave for work. Its still hard to leave her!

Drawing on her face with sidewalk chalk (and eating it!). But at least its Carolina blue. I guess she's just starting earlier putting on her Tarheel game face! ;)

She LOVES corn on the cob! Here is a video of her eating corn from dad's garden.

At our cousin Zack's Wedding, 6/23/2012 : She was looking pretty adorable running around the dance floor and hugging on boys (her cousin Cole).

Then we took her on her the lake and on Papaw's boat for the first time this year! 

Playing in the pool with cousin Will.

 And tickling baby Ava's toes. :) She likes to do this now, she will just come up to our feet and try to say "tickle tickle tickle". She makes her voice high like we do and it so cute!

She ate watermelon 

And when daddy tried to take it away, she showed him who was boss!

I said.....DON'T TAKE MY WATERMELON!

Kelsie and her cousin's Will and Ava, (Nathan's sister's children)

My sweet girl, enjoying a relaxing boat ride!