Well Hello!

Long time no talk blogger buddies. Life is chaos around the holidays. Sorry to leave you all hanging. In the past few weeks I've had adventure after adventure and have finally been led back here.

We spent a glorious 3 days in Kansas City at the Great Wolf Lodge a few weeks ago. I wish we were still there. For those who don't know, this is the family-friendliest mini vacation ever. GWL is an indoor water theme park and hotel. Only hotel guests are allowed to visit the water park (there is an outdoor park in the summer as well which would double the fun) so it's not crazy long lines and huge clusters of people. In addition to the water park there is a children's center with activities, a spa for the adults to indulge, a restaurant to eat at, a gift shop, an arcade. It's all-in-one fun. One of my fave features are the toddler/baby pool area. My tiny Zella (weighing in at a whopping 20 pounds at 20 months) had a BLAST and I didn't have to stalk her all over a tiny wading pool. The area for littles was really great. My 6 and 4.5 non-swimmers were able to go down water slides alone, "swim" in a pool that was about a foot or so deep, etc... . My other favorite feature was the in-room microwave and fridge. This is a must-have for families with young children. I took the crock pot and had dinner cooking all day. We ate when we got back from the water park (mere steps from our room, and all indoors!) without the necessity of de-suiting, re-clothing, blah, blah, blah 3 tired children (and a few tired adults!). This may seem small but wow, did that make a difference. We ate beef stew in front of the television peacefully and actually enjoyed ourselves instead of wishing it was bed time. What a concept. The cost varies depending on the type of room. We were in the most basic room without the frills of "kid kabins" for the kids to sleep in. Next time we may splurge but wanted to check the place out first. For $150/night we got the hotel and water park. Beyond that we had gas money to get there and back and that's about it, other than a couple of sodas during one stop on the way home. We brought our own food, our own snacks, our own sodas and drinks. I even made key-lime pie the first night for dessert. Yummy! Truly an enjoyable adventure. I came home actually refreshed and even dh was smiling. He's normally so stressed out and stoic. It was nice to see him giggling after a particularly large splash at the bottom of a water slide. Check it out for your next mini-getaway. Oh, and if you don't have children, it will still be enjoyable. There was plenty for the adults to do. KC isn't far so if you feel like venturing forth, there's stuff to do. It would be a nice getaway!

After returning home we got our van back. We managed to skirt the $500 deductible, sort of. We had one part of the work order left undone. It's a few dents in the side panel of the van, not anything worth stressing over. If and when we ever recover our deductible we'll consider repairing it with paintless dent removal. Otherwise, we'll just leave it. We're also out about $300 from the rental van which we will have to recover on our own if we can. Judge Judy here we come! I'm hoping that recovering the deductible will soften them a bit and open the door to an easy recovery of that out-of-pocket. We shall see. At least we have our van back.

Christmas Eve was spent with family and friends at Aunt Mary's house. Great food, great company, and great fun! Zella began puking at about midnight (not long after getting home from the party) and so I was up much of the night with her on the futon in the living room. She seemed ok Christmas day, which we spent at Grandma and Grandpa's house and didn't puke once there. She did require diaper changes about every 15 minutes. Sorry landfill, not much I could do to spare you those disposables. I just didn't have the cloth dipes to support that many changes! The following day Neall came down with something similar and spent much of his day in the bathroom. Zella slept the entire day, waking to get a drink of water and go right back to sleep. Neall followed suit the following day and was really sleepy and lethargic. Must have been part of the bug. Nobody else came down with it. Even days later we're still noticing that Zella is sleeping more than normal, and Neall is plum exhausted, though he's gone to work and such anyway. Life goes on, I guess.

At some point in there I had a back spasm that put me down for several days. Being pregnant meant that nobody really wanted to touch me and attempt to fix this problem. I heard several comments from insurance and docs along the lines of "sorry, nothing we can do for you" which really meant "we can't give you magic pills so you'll just have to suffer 'cause we don't know how else to practice medicine". Luckily my family doctor got me in, took one feel of the back spasm and had me in physical therapy at 8:30 the next morning. It seems that there is indeed something they can do for me huh? I am at least walking again and the pain is manageable. I am on a lifting and driving restriction but hopefully I'll get some normalcy back over the next week or so. It's likely a pinched nerve/herniating disc in my low back. My left leg is most affected and doesn't seem to work properly. Once the spasms have gone away we'll know more about what's really going on. This is so definately my last pregnancy!

Oh, we also discovered the gender of the baby! IT'S A BOY! We're thrilled, dh is a little nervous to have another boy. Finn is a delightful handfull. This baby is in a Frank Breech position but I'm told this doesn't matter much as far as long term positioning. It has me a little worried. Anyone who is interested in natural birth knows that positioning of the baby affects mom, and things like pinched nerves and back problems and poor posture can affect baby's position. I can't help but be concerned that if I'm going to have a successful VBAC I need to start considering my options and making plans now. There is a fine line between educating yourself and over-worrying for no reason. I'm trying not to cross it. The profile pics from the ultrasound are so cool though. In one profile face shot you can see hands, feet, and face. His little hands are near his face, and his feet are over his head. He's folded in half in a pike position. Weird! The stereotypical "fetal position" is what you'd expect, but isn't what we got. Otherwise all seems well. He's an active little guy. It's reassurance to me that all is well when I get hammered from the inside!

Well, that's about all my back can handle. It's time to ice and exercise anyway ;o). Look for updates!