Porta Waterpark Trip 2016

Our sixth annual Porta Waterpark Adventure has sadly come to an end. My boys and I cherish this time together every year. Each one of us looks forward to this trip and we all feel sadness as we leave our hotel room for the last time. This year the boys asked repeatedly if we would ever get THIS VERY same room again. They were so upset when I answered, "Probably not."

Here are the boys getting their first glimpse into the waterpark! Kinda hard with the frosted glass.

Here we are, doing our customary JUMPING ON THE BED when we arrived! The boys think this is hilarious. This year Sammy played out "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed," along with actual falling on the floor motions and hitting of his head. :)

My cuties are getting SO big! We always have to climb up to the top bunk and get a picture. This was the first year that Sammy was interested in sleeping on the top bunk, so each boy got a night up there.

This year's hits for snacks: veggie straws and cheese balls. BOTH bags were totally demolished within 24 hours.

The first night we arrived we spent a bit of time in the waterpark. It was nice to have time there when it wasn't crazy crowded. I have to mention that both boys left the waterpark without tears or complaining every single time we departed. This is HUGE, especially for our waterpark-lover Elijah. Yay for maturing!

Look at these cute boys! Both of them were so brave in the water this year. Sammy willingly went into the wave pool AND the lazy river! I was so proud of him. And Elijah went on the BIG waterslide with me, which was really huge for him. On the walk up the 10 flights of stairs I could tell he was getting anxious. He asked me repeatedly if everything was going to be ok. Are we going to be safe? Are we going to go under water? Are you going to protect me? Once we were in the giant tube, all was well. We had a blast! It was one of the highlights of the entire trip.

Even though the boys are too old to be bathing together, we made an exception for this trip just for the sake of tradition. Sadly, it may be the last.

Just like at home, the boys asked to constantly listen to worship music every time we were in the hotel room. Here is Sammy jamming out to one of his favorite songs. I LOVE that cheesy hand in the air.

More worship music time with some snacks and apple juice.

My sweet oldest boy still likes to snuggle.

Sammy kept asking me to take random pictures of him so I could send them to his teacher. :) He took VERY good care of our room key, making sure to keep it in its protective sleeve so we wouldn't forget our room number. Mr. Organized!

Cutie.

A snapshot I keep in my mind every year is of the boys running down the hallway toward our room. They still love to run run run!

And we spent our last night in the arcade, as we always do. We had tons of fun! I reminded Sammy about just a few years ago when he would run and hide behind the arcade machines because he wanted nothing to do with being there. Every year Sammy gets more comfortable and enjoys more parts of this trip. I was so happy to see him truly enjoying the arcade this year!

We earned a ton of points and both boys were super excited to get prizes.

The boys with their loot!

We are super thankful for another adventure together! I love our traditions and that we all cherish them so much.

Elijah has a cardiology appointment right away in the morning. Prayers are appreciated and I will write an update as soon as we get home!

Waterpark Adventure 2015

I'm feeling a need to get this post done tonight because tomorrow I will be writing about a certain 8-year-old's birthday!

Our fifth annual waterpark trip was a smashing success. Dan and I both agreed that we managed our time better than ever before and we ALL enjoyed ourselves, even more than in past years. This was the first year that Sammy truly enjoyed himself. It was fun to see.

Here is the photo I take every year upon first entering the hotel/waterpark. The boys love to run to the windows to peek into the waterpark and get a glimpse of the "big bucket" and all of the action. This year we found that the windows had been frosted, so the boys had to peek through the cracks.

The first few minutes in our room are always SO EXCITING!!!!

Annual photo with Mama and boys in the top bunk!

Followed by....JUMPING ON THE BED! This year we talked Dan into joining us.

We spent an hour at the waterpark our first night. Both boys had a blast! Sammy willingly got into the water for the first time EVER!

I'm so proud of him. He stuck to a very specific area, but he went down the same slide about 100 times over the course of the weekend. Progress! A few times I tried to get him to extend his territory, but he resisted. I'll take it.

I always get photos of the post-waterpark bathers. It'll be so sad when they don't take baths together anymore! 

 I LOVE this cutie! Yikes, look at his tired mama..

Posing with the waterpark guys.

On our second day, Elijah literally RAN around the waterpark at full speed for hours on end. Dan and I could do nothing to get him to slow down, short of making him leave the place. Literally...he ran from the slides in the kiddie area to the big tube slide to the wave pool to the lazy river (with one of us following close behind)....repeat repeat repeat...without taking a breath. Toward the end of the day, Dan handed Elijah off to me and said, "Watch him!" I took one look at E and knew what he meant. He had worn himself out. He was totally exhausted and even felt sick to his stomach. He literally could hardly stand. I hadn't gotten many photos of him yet (and I always snap a few!), so I asked him to smile and pose since I knew these were our last moments there. After a dozen attempts, I got a smile..

Then he sat down in another area on the way out and after another dozen photos, I got another smile..

Then I realized I was being selfish and had Dan scoop him up and take him back to the hotel room. He was draped over Dan's shoulder like an exhausted baby! Poor guy. I got a partial smile..

We had dinner in our hotel room (a second-night tradition) and by that time Elijah was feeling much better. We headed down to the arcade for a bit of gaming fun! Both boys had a blast. Sammy keeps telling me that the 30 minutes we spent in that arcade were his favorite moments of the entire trip.

Elijah threw a ball into the teeny-tiny 1,000-point bucket in the tossing game (impossible feat), hence the celebrating..

Look! It's Sammy! Participating in games and not hiding behind a Pac-Man machine (yes, he really did that)!

We won BIG at Deal or No Deal! Hundreds of tickets, which earned us.. toy handcuffs (you can imagine how much we've loved THIS) and ring pops (which Sammy calls "Rain Pops").

A few more notable things about our adventure..

It was so much fun to watch Sammy (Elijah wasn't so interested in this) RUNNING through the hallways to get to the elevator, push the button and accomplish absolutely everything before his brother could.

I loved our family nap on our second day. It was a revitalizing intermission when Sammy watched a movie by himself while the rest of us slept like we were dead.

Trips to the ice machine! Who knew this could be sooo exciting?!

Elijah and I made a few trips down the "blue-tube-slide" together and WOW was it fast! I cannot believe how much that boy loves speed. It was a ton of fun, and each sliding experience was followed by a trip around the lazy river and then a jaunt in the wave pool.

Sammy insisted on wearing his goggles in his own Sammy way (of course). The straps folded his ears in half and hung at the bottom-back of his head. He swiped our hands away any time we tried to fix them and refused to take them off, even when they were completely fogged over.

As always, I LOVED our first hour in our hotel room. It was pure happiness and excitement for all of us. Elijah kept asking me, "Is this a dream?!" We all cherish this trip so much every year. On our way home, both boys whimpered constantly.. "I MISS OUR TRIP!" Me too, boys.. can't wait till next year!

Fluoxe-DONE

We got home from our yearly family waterpark adventure today. WE ARE TIRED. Despite the tiredness, we had probably the most enjoyable/fruitful time ever. This is our fifth year in a row taking this trip.

I'll report MUCH more on this in the next few days! I have photos to edit and memories to sort through..

In the meantime, Dan is cooking me a belated Valentine's dinner that smells delicious! I thought I'd write a quick update regarding medication. Per Dr. M's suggestion, we gave E a super low dose of fluoxetine for three consecutive days last week. His sleep didn't seem to be affected much, but he woke up looking EXHAUSTED. The purple eyelids and droopy/constantly-blinking eyes returned. I had a bad feeling in my gut about it just a few hours in.

Almost immediately after the first dose, I noticed that E had three new tics - super intense eye-blinking, an upward chin jerk and a head jerk to the left followed by eyes shooting straight up (I have never seen any of these tics before starting meds). As the days went on, the tics became more frequent and behavior went downhill. Dan and I quickly made the decision to stop the medication. Dr. M is out of town until Thursday of this week, so at that point we will discuss other options.

He took the smallest dose possible (0.5 mL/day) for only three days and was adversely affected. I am hesitant to try anything else! We feel like we're in a tough spot right now with his anxiety. I'm also looking into finding him an excellent cognitive behavioral therapist. We are continuing with the essential oils, although I am still skeptical. It isn't hurting, so we will press on..

I have so much to share about our fifth annual waterpark adventure! I love my three men so much! Thanks for checking in..

4th annual waterpark adventure

Elijah in his "factory!"

Dan and I wrestled about whether or not to take our annual waterpark adventure this year since finances are super-tight, but we decided to just do it. We began this tradition before Sammy turned one, so this was our fourth year! We did a lot of reminiscing about previous years and how much we all enjoy this tradition.

I love capturing this photo every year. The boys peeking in, anticipating the fun as we check in..

The first thing we do every year is...JUMP ON THE BED! The little boys and I jump our hearts out and Dan pretends to be mad. "Daddy, LOOK! We're JUMPING ON THE BED!" "NOO! No jumping on the bed!" This continues until our leg muscles are weak. I love how happy this makes our boys. 

Another "tradition" is climbing up to the top bunk (this year it was Elijah's bed...his first time sleeping on the top bunk!) and taking a photo.

Our "first supper" with poses.

Sammy continued the jumping by JUMPING ON THE COUCH!

And posing, multi-socked, with feet on table!

"Sammy, give your brother a kiss!"

Waiting to get into the waterpark.

Elijah has always loved water and waterparks (minus being splashed in the face). He gets super excited about coming here every year. He anticipates it and loves it more than any other kid on the planet, I promise. Every time we drive by this waterpark (which is often), he excitedly says, "MY FACTORY! There's my factory! When oh when oh WHEN can we go back to my factory?!" 

Once we get inside, he runs around in a systematic pattern. As I mentioned, he does not like being splashed in the face and he becomes very anxious about it. He calculates when the big bucket is going to drop water over the splash area and plans his fun around that. The math that must take place inside his head!

Gradually over the years he has become braver, which has been so fun to see. The first year, he waded in the 4-inch pool. The second year, he went down the baby slide. The third year, he went down the little orange slide. And this year? He went down the twisty blue slide all by himself! AND he went down one of the "big" tube slides with either Dan or me, which he LOVED! He was literally all over the place, wanting to go down the big slide and go around the lazy river and swim in the wave pool and play in the kid area. He was never still.

Sammy? Wanted to do NOTHING. This photo captured one of the only moments when he left his chair.

We think it mostly has to do with his independence and not wanting anyone to tell him what to do. I know he would have fun...he HAS had fun doing these very things. The first day, Dan and I worked so hard to get even a single toe of his into the water. The only thing he would do without screaming was snuggle his swim towel.

The second day, we decided not to say a single thing about getting into the water but it did no good. He loved wearing his goggles on his head, but refused to get close to the pool.

Last night after our waterparking, we headed over to the MOA to ride a few rides and have dinner. The ferris wheel is one of the rides Sammy will tolerate (only if he sits with Mama), so we rode that before dinner.

At the boys' request, we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. The boys enjoyed the monkeys and butterflies and the rainstorm.

The boys took a calming, warm, silly bath before bed.

And enjoyed a bit of a movie.

Snuggle time with my boys!

We had two hours to spend at the waterpark this morning before checking out. As expected, Elijah ran around the place like crazy. Sammy sat in his chair and munched on an apple.

We had an amazing adventure! We went out for our typical IHOP breakfast afterward and also experienced our typical super-tiredness after that. We got home and literally went promptly to bed and slept for 2+ hours. All of us.

We are thankful for this experience! We love our boys so much and we cannot wait for next year's waterpark adventure.