Camping on the Olympic Peninsula

I think this picture sums up how much fun we had. Ian was so excited for "campin", which is really his word for a tent. He was a very excited little boy and we were glad to be outside so that he could run a little wild. We camped at a great campground right on the beach and we could hear the ocean while we slept! We spent Saturday at our campsite and playing on the beach and enjoyed a rare sunny day on the Peninsula.

Ian rummaging through the cooler looking for a juice box and William attempting to eat an entire grilled cheese sandwich at once. Apparently there are no rules when you're camping!

Ian and Papa in the tent (aka "campin"). Ian was so excited he just wanted to stay inside the whole time.

Our campsite at Kalaloch. The little tent is Will's play yard (or "baby campin"). Mike and I actually had both kids asleep by 7:30 and got to enjoy some grown-up time around the campfire. It was a very relaxing evening.

Ian playing at the beach during the day. The dump trucks were loaded down and just having them on the beach made his day.

Mama and a very unhappy William. He just wanted to get down and play in the sand with his big brother. He's becoming a toddler in spirit even if he's not walking yet.

Mike and Ian hanging out on the

driftwood.

Views of the driftwood along the beach. Our campsite was right up this hill behind the trees.

A tidal pool in front of Kalaloch Lodge.

Ian exploring the beach.

After a great Saturday playing at the beach and sitting around the campfire we were woken up at 5:30 the next morning to Ian whining about wet socks. We soon discovered that our sleeping bags were also a bit wet! So we packed up camp in the rain and headed out to see a few more sights on our way home. Somehow the 4 hour drive home took us 13 hours! It was a VERY long day of waiting in traffic, waiting for ferries and stopping to change diapers but we did eventually get home in one piece. This last picture was taken on our rainy trip while visiting the Hoh Rainforest. This is from the road inside the rainforest looking out across the Hoh River. This experience alone was worth the trip! Breathtaking!

Will's day with the doctors.

We had a very long day yesterday, but all in all a positive one. At Children's Hospital of Seattle they attempt to schedule all your appointments in one day which means that we had four apointments starting at 10:30am and the last one at 3:00pm. Needless to say, William and I were both exhausted by the end of it. BUT, we had mostly positive news which is always welcome. Add to that the fact that William started pulling up this week (very unsteady, but he's doing it) and we are feeling good about our little guy. On to the details...

We started the day with two neuromuscular specialists. I have never seen anyone examine William like these doctors. We were there for an hour and a half! At the end of the visit they didn't have much new information, but did order some blood work. As far as I know we are looking at William's thyroid and for a couple of disorders that cause muscle degeneration. I don't think that anyone feels like these are likely problems, just more of the "ruling it out" tests.

From there we saw an occupational therapist who watched Will eat his lunch. She felt great about Will's eating. He is doing a really good job of feeding himself and isn't showing any food aversions (which originally they were a bit concerned about). She does not need to see Will again.

Then to the nutritionist. Will gained a lot of weight! He still isn't on the chart, but the trajectory of his weight gain shows catch-up weight gain which is what we want to see. If he continues at this pace we will be on the chart very soon. This was by far the best news of the day. The nutritionist also said she didn't need to see Will again.

Our last appointment was with the developmental PA. She mostly just followed up with all of our other appointments. She was also pleased with William's progress and thought that his pulling up was quite an accomplishment. We finished with a blood draw (harder on me than William) and that finished out a very long day.

William will be visiting the geneticist in September and we are also scheduled to have a swallow study done (he is choking/gagging more than normal when he eats) and an appointment with the audiologist to check his hearing. We've been having some ear infection issues since about March which is common with kids that have hypotonia. We just want to make sure that it isn't affecting his hearing.

So, that was Will's very long day. This is how he coped...

Boys at play (in a messy house)

Just some pictures of the boys playing. Thankfully the house is a bit more picked up than it was when these were taken. Adam Lazarow (Mike's childhood friend) came for the weekend which was nice encouragement to finally finish unpacking. I think we're finally starting to feel at home!



For anyone who is keeping count, I TRY to take pictures of Ian, but he usually insists on trying to see the picture before I've finished taking the picture. As a result I mostly have blurry shots of him running for the camera -- these digital age kids! :)






I thought that Will was ready to transition to one nap a day, but apparently not. He fell asleep in the exersaucer while I was fixing his lunch. We're back to two naps...

Will and his milkshake -- it was hard to get it back!

So, this is a bit harder to keep up with than I had imagined. I will write soon with more updates on William's progress and pictures from our upcoming camping trip. Olympic Mountains here we come!

Tacoma Tall Ships Festival

We've been making an effort to get out as a family. This was a few Saturdays ago when we went to the Tacoma Tall Ships Festival. Here is Mike wearing a happy Will. He loves riding in the sling.
















Ian and I also built a boat with glue and and felt and a paper sail. It was pretty popular all the way home and now the surviving pieces are residing in our garage. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.













Of course the best part was the fair food. You have to love anything that comes on a stick. I think this might have marked when William decided that he did like food. Perhaps it was the chocolate crepe? We had a pretty good day seeing Tacoma and the ships. The highlight for Ian was the trains accross the street from the festival. In fact, as we crossed over the bridge an Amtrak train went right under us and the engineer waved at Ian. That pretty much made everyone's day.

Brotherly Love

I just love this picture. During the chaos of moving it was as if the boys were saying "hey, we got each other at least." Now we're back to an SUV where they can't reach each other which most days is a good thing. Yesterday the most meaningful interaction between the two of them was Ian hitting William in the head with a toy vacuum. I'm sure it was an accident...I think.

Our current news on William. He has learned to sit up by himself! This is a big, big step that I'm sorry our therapist back in Wayne missed. And, as we speak he is getting on his hands and knees...hopefully we'll see some four point crawling soon. Despite his delays, he is getting all over the house in an army crawl and is a busy, busy little guy. We are finally getting him enrolled in the Kindering Center here where he will get his therapy. He did great during his evaluation and it seems that all of his delays are still just gross motor. The special educator and speech therapist said he was still in the normal range for everything else. We are so happy with this news since we have spent lots of time worrying that perhaps he might have other delays as well. Now we're just trying to get him to EAT and hopefully walk and maybe someday we'll put all this behind us. After so much testing and worrying, I'm starting to feel like perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Ian is doing well. He keeps us on our toes, but seems to be settling into his new house. I think before the furniture arrived he thought this was some sort of weird vacation. He kept asking to go home! I guess now that his toys and bed are here he has it figured out. Now if we can just get the hang of this potty training thing...

Fun at the Oregon Coast...

Fort Stevens with both dogs, two kids, huge sand dunes and CRAZY wind...we only lasted on this beach for about two minutes.
Climbing sand dunes at Fort Stevens.
Mama and William wading at Seaside. Gorgeous day, freezing water!
Haystack Rock.

A few pictures of our first West Coast vacation. We had a ton of fun exploring the coast. We based in Astoria and stopped by Fort Stevens state park, then took a day to visit Cannon Beach and Seaside. We used the boys naptime to take a quick jaunt down to Tillamook to buy some cheese and then enjoyed some Haystack bread, cheese and pepperoni for a picnic on the beach.

We thought the views were spectacular and we had beautiful weather, unfortunately Ian proclaimed the beach "too sandy" and insisted on being carried if we came anywhere near the sand. As always, William cheerfully went along for the ride with very little complaint.

Here we go...

Okay, I'm giving in. I'm BLOGGING. Is that a word? I will try not to bore anyone with my thoughts on life, politics and religion and instead keep you all up to date on Ian and William (whose current thoughts on life are MUCH more interesting).

We hope that now our friends and family will have an easy way to keep up with us now that we've ventured to the other coast. We'll try to keep this current with pictures of the boys and updates on what we're all up to. Enjoy...