Convention: Day 1

After our fun at Cocoa we went to Orlando to take part in the International Convention for Families of SMA (FSMA). The Da Costa's, Eric, and the Eichelberger women came with us to a really awesome restaurant called T-Rex. This restaurant has robotic dinosaurs throughout the entire place. Every 20 minutes there is a meteor shower that affects each room differently. There is a deep sea room, a fire room, an ice-age room, and we sat in the forest. Evan was in love, Landon and Christian were terrified at the beginning and apprehensive by the end.

this child was in awe the entire time!

Christian during a meteor shower ... tooo funny!!!

Landon just held on as tight as he could to Justin's neck.

Our waiter introduced us to this dino, which promptly became Evan's best friend.

I love Disney!

by the end of the week our little guys became friends.

this scene from Sleeping Beauty is entirely made out of lego!

Families of SMA

The SMA community is a relatively small one. 1 in every 6,000 babies are born with SMA. When we heard that the international convention was in Florida we jumped at the opportunity to go. We got into our room and headed down to the main reception. It was already so fun just being in a space where there are so many families in our situation. There were so many people in wheelchairs. We felt right at home. When we ran into our fellow Canadian friends we were having such a great time, and then ...............

Evan's chair stopped working.

I started to cry. I started to freak out just a little. Here we are at a convention for Evan and his chair is broken!

Thank heavens Susi and Bruce was there. I really do think that God was really aware of my placement when the chair broke again. I would have turned pretty hysterical, pretty quickly. What happened instead was that Susi and Bruce talked me through it, told me that the vendors would be there in the morning and they would be more than happy to fix it. So we put Evan's chair into manual mode and I took over the job of pushing his 300lb. chair around the opening circus activities.

We did have a good time, and thankfully the magic of the evening overpowered my anger towards continental.

The best part of the evening was when the boys got to meet the characters. Evan was over the moon excited and Landon was not really a fan. Each character signed an autograph book for our boys and we took a picture with each one. It was a magical night!

And the best of all ........

Mickey Mouse!!!!

check out Evan's face! He was so excited that Mickey wanted to hold his hand. Evan Landon managed to give Micky an apprehensive, and very reluctant, high five.

Cocoa Beach

We spent 3 days at the beach with our friends. It was AMAZING, and we couldn't have asked for better weather or company. Between the friends, the weather, the food, and the games it was a perfect vacation.

A lesson we learned: Landon burns! The first day out we lathered him with SPF 70+ on the hour and he got FRIED!!!! From then on he wore the sunscreen underneath a shirt that had a protection of SPF 50. Of course Evan and I just tanned.

(have I ever mentioned that this man is an incredible father??)

how many men does it take to set up a tent?

(I often have such a hard time describing Landon in words. With this picture I don't have to use any words because it is the PERFECT explanation)

(check out these eyes!!!!)

where there is a fish tank ... you will find children

yummy gator tail with Semra

Irene and John posing in the back ground make me laugh!

Evan and Sahara

this was the COOLEST eel ever!!!

Games, Games, and more Games

every night. I never laugh as much as I do when I am around these people.

Natasha ... I still can't believe I actually got her in a photo!

this is what Landon did the whole 3 days. He just ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. He was as happy as a clam and slept like a baby all three days.

Evan helped build some of the coolest sand castles. He even had strangers ask to take pictures of them.

do you want to know what I think heaven looks like???

this picture is pretty close.

yes that sleeping child is Landon. I bet you never thought that would happen! He just climbed up on our laps and fell asleep. He wore himself out!!!

Many more miles

Previous mileage: 3,046 miles (4,902 kilometers)

add my trips to .....

San Diego: 2,554 miles (4,112 kilometers)

Calgary-Orlando, Gainesville, and Cocoa Beach: 5,020 miles (8,079 kilometers)

Grand Total thus far:

8,066 miles

12, 981 kilometers

----------------------------------------------------

So what does going to bed at 1:00AM, waking up at 4:00AM, and taking anti-anxiety medication on a flight that your spouse is on (aka: he can watch the kids) look like?

(don't know why this is blue ... oh well) When we arrived in Houston I was holding Evan in the gateway, waiting for his wheelchair to arrive. Well it was about then that I heard a crashing. I then got to watch the ramp techs try to haul Evan's 300lb chair up the metal stairs, let it literally crash and fall on every stair up. Sure enough Evans chair arrived and it was destroyed. The cover to the battery wasn't there, and the battery was hanging out. The cover wouldn't fit back on properly. We managed to get the cover on well enough with string so we didn't completely lose it on the next flight. What made me the most angry was that the Houston people kept saying that they hadn't done anything wrong because the elevator was just too inconvenient for them.

By the time we arrived in Orlando the chair didn't work at all. What had happened was that they kept dropping it they managed to completely ripped off the breaker. I will skip the tears and hysteria that took place and say that Continental ended up having a mobility company come in the middle of the night, bypass the breaker (not a permanent fix), and then deliver the wheelchair up to Gainesville. We were about 3 hours late to Gainesville and VERY tired!!!

(this is us eating our dinner, while we wait for our luggage to come out and the wheelchair to arrive)

After another short sleep we took a trip down the Itchetucknee river. This has got to be one of my all time favorite things to do. I LOVE it!!!! I am so glad that some of our besties like to come with us.
I finally got to meet their new little man, who is pretty much as charming as he looks.
look how gorgeous this river is!

We didn't have very much time in Gainesville so we had to squeeze in what very little time we had to see as many people as we could. Unfortunately we just didn't have time to do it all. So if we didn't see you ... I promise we will see you next year.

One of the people that I did see was my soul sister, teacher, and friend. Dr. O. is amazing! While I was there she also helped me to purchase my very own English Horn. (more on that later)

I had to include this picture, just because I love it.

Evan woke up really sick on Sunday and it was at the point that it could go either way. We went to church and met up with Evan's tummy mommy. I was worried a little bit about how he would react because he really wasn't feeling well. He had a bit of a hard time, but we were able to distract him enough that I think everyone had a good time. We feel so grateful that we are able to see Evan's tummy mommy when we come to Florida. We love her more than anything. She is one of THE most important people in our life and we hope that she knows how much we love her.

After church we went to the kings house to celebrate our men for the amazing fathers that they are. Natasha is so creative and even set up a full on ice cream bar. I don't have any pictures of this, but will hopefully get some from Natasha (wink wink) :-)

By the end of this day Evan was not doing well at all and I wasn't sure whether we would be in the E.R. by the morning.

We hopped in the cars and our caravan of friends drove to Cocoa Beach.

Happily MIA

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I guess when I'm home I am spending that time doing my laundry, taking care of sick kids, and re-packing. Another part is that I never got to revamp my blog and I so badly want to.

The brief update in our life?

I've been with my sweetie 24/7 since last Friday.
My family is significantly darker than we were a week ago.
I'm warm and loving it.
And finally .............

We met a very famous mouse tonight!

Miss you ... Talk to you soon!

more interesting

I am in desperate need to make my blog "more interesting, appealing, beautiful". Choose whichever word suits you most but I am in desperate need for a big change. Unfortunately for me, I really don't do the computer thing very well. Don't get me wrong ... I want to be good at it, I'm just not. Thankfully my gorgeous sister is VERY good at this whole blogging thing. She has a gazillion followers and I just think she has it down. She has promised to help me organize all of this. Hopefully by next week I will have a shiny new blog to show off to the world :-)

what I've been waiting for

So it is no secret that I don't like the winter. I never preferred the winter when I lived in paradise, and I am no fan now that I am an Eskimo. The one thought that got me through this winter is knowing what I got to do in June. Well June is here and I am a very happy girl.

I've already gotten to go camping with my Daddy (although that was an interesting and cold experience with 2 hours of sleep between 6-8AM). I got to see my sister graduate from Seminary with 4 years of perfect attendance. I have gotten to spend time with my family. I have gotten to spend some time in my beautiful city. And I got feathers in my hair!!!

Now all I have to do is get a hold of some of my girl friends (Mandy call me back ;-) and make a date with them.

All I can say is we have been having fun!!!!

now that they are a little older it is so fun to see Evan and Sydney play so well together. They have little conversations and are learning to share with each other.

Dad took Landon up in the tree house. At first he was a little nervous, but ended up thinking it was pretty cool.

Daddy daughter camp out (that my sons came on)

me and my Daddy
(I look pretty good for having no sleep the night before)

Evan refused to be in the picture, he is hiding behind Dad

Daddy and some of his girls

sisters

Evan is such a flirt!!!

Does a child get any cuter?