Quick brain unload

 We were on a month long road trip June 18th to July 14th ish. We went to MO to see my family then to OH to see Mike's then up to Cleveland where we were able to speak with a Doctor who had recently done research on children with PDCD and how the ketogenic diet affect them. The diet has had nothing but positive effects on these children according to the study. The Dr. spent an hour and a half answering our questions, it was so helpful!! We also learned some good news.
1. Aggie looks very well for a female with the disease. That she has any form of mobility at all is remarkable. We are so thankful, and hopeful that she may someday walk.
2. If a female with the disease lives to be 4 years of age she will likely live into adulthood.  Since Aggie is 3 and well, things are looking good for a longer life. Good news to us.

Mike is out of the Marine Corp, he has applied to the Navy Reserves and once he is in; he is hoping to apply for a full time job with in the reserves. He is currently unemployed and the paper work for this transition can take 1-6 months.  He's getting a lot done around the house now that we are home.

We went to a parent practicum for classical conversations, our home-school group, for 3 days in July.  I did the tutor training, as I'm going to be a "tutor" (aka teacher) in one of our children's classrooms when we all meet on Tuesdays.

We started Aggie on the Ketogenic Diet 4 days ago. She is officially in ketosis, which is the goal.  It is suppose to supply a more useable form of energy for her.  She won't eat much(which is not the goal), but is drinking her new formula well.  Her temperament is relatively the same, which has large fluctuations on a normal day, so it's really hard to tell how she's feeling.

Salem is starting to roll all over the floor to get to what she wants. She is nearly 7 months old. It's nice to see her progressing. She's pretty cute and sweet. We love her!

North Carolina

We had a lovely trip to NC to visit old friends. My only regret is that I forgot to bring my camera. We are so thankful to the Steel family for their hospitality to us. We had the pleasure to attending our old church's family retreat, it was a pleasure to see all their beautiful faces and hug their necks.  What a special time.  I especially enjoyed seeing Shiloh and Hosea befriend little ones that they use to toddle along side before our move.  They were thrilled to share a chair with them during the services and share coloring objects, sweetness.  Hosea was so comfy at one of the meetings with his little buddy along side that he dozed off. We played hard. The 15 hour van trip was split in to two days of travel and the children did very well, better on the way home than on the way out, which is unusual.

The excess travel stirred 2 comments in the children that we never thought we would hear come out of their mouths.

Shiloh said, as we were eating french toast for breakfast the last morning prior to our departure, "that the syrup was TOO SWEET".  For Shiloh to declare anything too sweet is amazing. Sugar is her achilles heal.

Hosea reported, as we were passing through Alabama, "that I need a break from movies".  Movies are his vice and he is constantly asking for them.

I suppose they both had an unintentional lesson in excess, and how unsatisfying it is.  Christ is our only true satisfaction.

Camping

A couple weeks ago we too a long awaited camping trip. We've postponed for two years now.  We try not to camp with babies or crawlers, but alas we've had one of those for 2.5 years, and aren't seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with Salem coming along, so we seized the moment.  We dove over to Blue Angle Park in Pensacola, a navy recreation area, set up the tent and had ourselves and adventure.  Shiloh and Hosea loved it, Aggie liked it as long as I let her eat sand and leaves and dirt.  Which i didn't , at least not on purpose. 

 Here is Aggie in her princess sand-gaurd, she has out witted the system and is still able to shovel large handfuls of sand into her mouth.  I do think it may have reduced the percentage of the incidence?

 Hosea looking for minnow, crabs, and anything else living he might be able to catch.

 The victims of Schloss family ninja skills, about 15 minnows and a crab. 

 Torture session of the little critters.  They were playing with them on this tent platform, and occasionally one would fall though the crack of the board, so Hosea would go "rescue" it. What a good Samaritan.  We did release the survivors eventually.  There were survivors, if you can imagine that?

 Campfire.

 S'mores, a must have.

 Fishing.

 Aggie, Salem and I.

The kids during a disk golf/walk though the woods. Mike plays golf and we all walk though the woods with him.

We only stayed one night, about a 24 hour camping trip, and honestly that was just about right. Long enough to say we did it and short enough to keep from getting to exhausted from managing a little one out of doors.

June Missouri Trip

The children and I had a lot of fun visiting my family in Missouri last month.  We did many of the same things I did growing up.

 We looked at cows.

 We caught a snake.

 We played at the pool.

 She did too.

 We caught lots of fish.

 We played with all the cousins.

 I got my toes painted.  Then at the lake I was eating a nutritious breakfast (my Aunt Bobby's chocolate chip and pecan cookies, my favorite, with coffee)  and noticed my toes matched my coffee mug.  MUST TAKE A PICTURE! 

 We fead fish.

We had a boat ride.

All in a weeks time.

Missouri

The kids and I spent the last week in Missouri, we arrived home yesterday. I have lots of great pictures and hope to do one more post on CO soon, but we shall see.

Jeep Adventure

This will be my last Colorado post, I promise.  But it is probably the best story of the trip.  Mike and I had hoped to find the time to tell it together, but alas....... I can wait no more.

So you know how we miraculously ended up with a jeep for a rental car.  The man in Mike felt the need to capitalize upon it's capabilities at least once.  So he persuaded me to "take a really quick, short road, to do some 'off roading'."  I'll be honest the pictures do not do it justice, as far as the rough terrain goes............  So we took a road out that wasn't so bad, but Mike decided it would be fun to take another route back to town.  I'm not sure that this was included in the "really quick, short route" previously mentioned.  Don't get me wrong, i 'm a pretty adventurous woman, but 4 x 4 and early pregnancy are not friends.  To make this very long......... story short we ended up on this rocky road for about 4.5 hours, we found civilization well past dinner time and on the border of sunset.  There were many times that we both were uncertain of the outcome of certain terrain, I did lots of breath holding and eye closing and praying.  Once we were on the trail there was not really an opportunity to turn around, and it was mentioned by "the man" that if we found ourselves in an inescapable location we would in fact be calling the forest service to bail us out.  When we first started this adventure we would get out and hold branches trying not to damage the brand new jeep we were driving, by the end, we were more thinking about getting out alive and care of the jeep was a much lower priority. 

This was one of the early narrow passages ways in a valley.  We didn't capture any of the later ones as I insisted that Mike stop taking pictures. I was "all funned out". 

This was a tight turn on the side of a cliff, and to our surprise just around this corner was a large bolder that our left tire had to go over, very uncomfortable.  Hold breath, close eyes, and pray. Thank God for gravity. 

More Rocky Road

At one point I was certain we were lost, and stated that we appeared to be on more of a hiking trial and less of the road.  Then to my delight there was a sign, but it was for the people going the other direction.  So naturally grasping for some direction we pulled past it and looked back to see this. "open to hiking, horse, and bikes.  Closed to motorcycles, ATV's and motor-vehicles." My heart sank...... then I realized that we had probably just come through the worse of it.

This was early in the trip, Mike really enjoying himself.

We did see some nice views in our near death experience.  After this little adventure Mike and I both desired to stay at the cabin the rest of our time in Colorado.

The Cabin

The Cabin was an "off grid" home.  It originally served as an old miners cabin, but the couple who bought it renovated and added on.  They made it into a "straw-bale home" which is a very intersing concept.  Any way it was powered by solar panels and used gas for all the appliances.  It was like fancy camping.  The only modern convience we were with out was AC, but no need with the temperate weather.  There was a wood stove if we had needed, but we did not. 

This was my favorite reading spot, the view out this window was lovely of the mountains. 

This was the cozy kitchen.  One of our favorite rooms in the cabin.  The details built in to this home are beautiful.

An exterior shot.

A view of the cabin from the top of one of the peaks near by.  They also had a few barns on the property.  We didn't see any other civilization while we were there. 

My favorite exterior wall.

The bathroom was one of our other favorite rooms.

Thankfully there were no other people around..........they could have peeked on us in the shower.

No Roof- Day 2

This was the first amandment made to the trip in honor of the jeep.  Naturally Mike felt driving into the mountains with the roof off would be the best way to capatilze on the lovely view. 

 It was a little chilly.

 I think I'm yaning here.......... but you can see the layers of warmth.  I had on 2 pair of pants, 2 shirts, 2 jackets and hoods and my visor and shades for sun-protection. We also had the heater cranked up, and then we were quite comfortable. 

 And as a result we didn't miss out on any of the view. ;) HE he!

Denver-Day 1

Our Trip started in Denver. We flew in and got a rental vehicle. We reserved a Ford Escape, for just under $200 for the week.  Upon our arrival they told us we reserved a Kia Sportage and that we could upgrade for $6 a day for a brand new fully loaded....... some midsize SUV.  We decided to stick with what we had reserved, went out to the spot "B-2" and look what awaited us!  Mike was in car dreamland all week.  A brand new 4x4, 2012 Jeep Wrangler Sport.  To intentionally rent this vehilce it woudl have been $850 for the week.  This little suprise changed some details of the trip plan, but I'll say more about that later.

I requested a nice dinner at least one night while we were away and Mike thought it best that we knock that out from the get go.  He picked a yummy place!

 This was my meal.  Prim Rib, galic mashpotatoes, veggies with crab on top. So lovely!

After wards we went to "little man ice cream", which is the #2 rated restaurant in Denver on trip advisor. So naturally we had to see what all the hype was about.  It was pretty tasty.  We had 2 scoops of 2 recommended flavors...... honey....and  kaula chocolate.  The honey so satisifying that on our way back through town, just yesterday we were compelled to stop back by.  But they were out of honey was we tried two other flavors and they we also strangely staisfying.

Birmingham...Doctors, playing and such.

The 3rd weekend of the month we went to Birmingham, AL. The previous Thursday Aggie had an appointment with a new neurologist and needed to get some labs drawn. We liked the new neurologist. He was patient and helpful in explaining in more detail Aggie's situation. We also left better equipped in our knowledge of seizures, since Aggie is at high risk for having them. Very helpful! We didn't acquire any new knowledge about Aggie, but walked away with a clearer understanding of what we already knew and felt much more comfortable with the care they could provide for her if needed.

Since Aggie had her MRI scheduled for Saturday, we had all day Friday to play. So we decided to go to the McWane Science Center. It was a good decision. We all (except Aggie) had a blast and spent the whole of the day there enjoying 4 levels of fun. The children were the perfect ages to enjoy most of the exhibits, though it would be very good for older children as well. There was so much we enjoyed and many photos to mirror our sentiments, but these are some of the better pictures.

Here we are out front.

The distortion room.

Also distorted.

Big Bubbles

Shadow Garden

This was neat. If you stood still the butterflies that were projected on a large video screen would come land on your shadow.

The Pin Wall

This is a family portrait. We pushed all our faces into the pins and look at the masterpiece.

Top left is me, top right is Mike, below Mike is Hosea, lower middle Aggie (note the pacifier), bottom left Shiloh. We were especially amused by Aggie's pacifier and Hosea's expression.

We had fun. Among some of the other things we got to see or do where; check out a dinosaur exhibit, watch a dinosaur IMAX, view and aquarium (the octopus was my favorite), pet sharks, play in water, play at a play ground, make a ball levitate on both air and water, play with lots of random science things really...... The list could go on and on, very fun! If you are ever in Birmingham you should totally go.

February so far....

This pretty much summarizes our month. We haven't gone long or far, but we've been gone often. Hopefully more details are coming soon.

Trip up North

Just some fun Pictures from our trip earlier in the month.

The Aquarium

The children's request

It was so nice to see beautiful Fall colors.

Grandma took Shiloh to the American Girl Doll store in Chicago and Shiloh picked out her Christmas gift. She picked a lovely Hawaiian girl with beautiful long hair.

We also played in some leaves at the grandparents house.