Well Kirra woke up this morning and had a toaster strudel for breakfast along with some pecan sandies. Jason called and asked what to dress her in, so she came down in a onsie turtle neck, some leggings, a sweatshirt, hoodie, and tights. She got to see the mascots which she was a bit scared of when they got up close to her. It was rather cute. She would hug on to us very tight. We went in the Family Activity Tent and warmed up before her race where I was able to take her hood down, and I saw that Jason had done her hair into a Mohawk with gel and everything! It was really kind of cute actually! I’m actually surprised he didn’t dye it with me gone for the weekend! Pam and Phil came out, and Nana Theo. And Nana Susue, and my dad, all came out and watched too! Missy, Brian, Ally & Gabby all came out and the girls all raced! They had an Up and Up changing station which was really nice, and were handing out free up and up stuff, along with coupons too!

So why am I up at 3:40am? Because my room is hotter than Iraq! My thermostat is turned all the way down to 55 to try and blow cold air in there, but it just keeps pumping the heat! If after a little while typing I go back up and its still as hot as Iraq, i’m going to tell the front desk to try and have someone fix it. I should have just went home and stayed there. I miss my bed. I miss my Jason and Kirra.
They have these sleep number beds, and honestly I don’t understand why people like them so much. Its either way to hard, or when you do make it softer then the edges of the bed are hard as a rock (the frame I presume).
So at the RiverCentre they have a little Java Cafe, and we got these travel mugs and coupon ticket, and if we show our mug/ticket, we can have free hot drinks, and free smoothies all day! I’m going to be needing to take full advantage of the free mochas.
Tomorrow is the VIP reception. I have a few tasks I need to do on top of my customer service tomorrow. I need to print table tents for the press confrences, and nametags for the VIP reception, which I am very very excited for.
Well hopefully if I go back up its cooled down now that I set it to 55. It was at 68 or 65 but apparently that’s too hot. Another thing I found kind of weird in my room… i’m on the 17th floor, and they have these huge windows, where the bottom opens up with no screen. I mean you couldn’t fall out in this crack, but I just find it odd. I’m sure you can’t break it and fall thru, but it made me kind of nervous….
Hopefully I can get more sleep. I didn’t go to bed until 11pm.

Well I thought the blog needed a little face lift. So I updated the html again, but also changed the title to fit a bit better. Well in addition to the plants that we got at Pam & Phil’s we also got a bunch of plants at Lowes this past weekend. Everything in their Lawn & Garden dept was 75% off! Can you believe that? So we got about $300-$400 worth of plants, trees and shrubs for about $75. It was very cool.

Well since we’ve been back, I’ve helped put on Square Lake Traithlon’s, and we’ve gotten a ton of plants from Pam and Phil. Our front yard is really coming along. I’ll have to take a picture sometime soon. This weekend I’ve got a 5K to help put on, and packet stuffing for TCM. Should be fun. Sunday is my sissy & Gran’s birthday. I think she is going to be 94. That is just amazing. Not much else is going on which is pretty nice!

Well we just got back from camping and MAN did we have a great time! Thursday Jason didn’t get off until much later so we left around 8pm, and didn’t get up to camp until around 10pm. I’m so glad that we practiced setting up our tent beforehand so that we knew how to set it up. Everyone showed up with flashlights, and helped us set up!

Friday we just hung around camp, and took a trip into Sauk Center for some supplies. We later went down to the beach to go swimming. Kirra loved swimming in the water, and tossing rocks and watching them go ker-plunk. For dinner we had an easy one with Lloyds pulled beef sammies.

Saturday Kirra and I went swimming yet again, and later on I went fishing with Jason and Cash. It was fun. Jason caught a 14″ walleye, and I caught a ridiculously small perch. We had to have Kirra nap really early because it was so hot by mid-day in our tent. Jason cooked us up some hamburgers on the grill.

Sunday was the day of hiking! I went hiking with Dawn, Pam, Chloe, Tyler and Kirra on a really nice loop. Well once we got back we were going to go on another trek, but Pam and Dawn wanted to take a break, so I took Kirra and Tyler with me, and Amy, Logan, and Kaylee joined us on the second trek. Well we got a little lost, and it was some serious hiking up some serious hills. I definitely got my workout in! We got back and Jason, Frank, Cash and I went fishing again. We were out walleye fishing again, and Frank caught two small sunnies in 25′ of water, and I caught a clam? It was very odd….. No Walleye. While we were out fishing, Theo fed Kirra, and they had lots of fun playing around. When we got back to camp we didn’t even eat ‘real’ dinner, but I did end up plating up some cold tuna salad. We went on a midnight hike with everyone down the road and that was tons of fun also. Immediately after we got back I went to the tent with Tyler and crashed!

Today we got up and had breakfast, and broke down camp, and headed back home. It was a great trip, but I’m glad to have my own bed back! Back to work tomorrow!

Well as you all know Kirra has been coughing since last October. And after seeing several pediatricians, specialists, and WAITING….. we’ve found answers. We’ve recently switched our main pediatrician and she ordered a swallow study to determine if Kirra has been aspirating (swallows food/drink into lungs), in addition to her reflux.

Well on Friday we did the swallow study at Children’s St. Paul, and they determined that she does show indications of aspirating! So, this would explain why she also coughs more during teething, because likely she is aspirating on her saliva. So…. what do we do? The tests indicated that she’s only potentially aspirating on thinner liquids, so we’re to thicken up her liquids by adding rice cereal, or this packet called simply thick (although very pricey). This will suposedly help her to re-learn to swallow properly. We also need to stay on the inhaler so that she can build up her lungs, and obviously stay on the prevacid for her heartburn.

I just bought some rice cereal and its pretty cheap. She mostly drinks milk anyways, so it will be nice to use this as much as possible. We have to use a special sippy cup because its so thick now it won’t go out of the holes. So we use the Nuby ones. The hospital gave us one, and I’ve been too cheap so far to buy anymore. We have sippy cups coming out of our ears. Maybe if I ‘dump’ the rest and just get a few more sippys we won’t be so apt to loose them etc.

Thanks for all the prayers that we would find answers. Its been a really long road, several doctors, specialists etc, and finally nearly a year later and a different hospital we’ve found ANSWERS! I knew that it wasn’t just “kids just cough” I KNEW that it wasn’t just re-occuring virus’, or “something in the environment”. What I’ve learned is Mom’s know best….. and you can’t stop until you find answers! Even if it means you’ll be on your 3rd pediatrician! (whom by the way we love a lot!) Its a bit of a drive for us (Vadnais Heights) but its SO worth it. You can get same day appointments and even in the evening and weekends!!

This is a big week for us, we’re going up to Birch Lakes for camping on Thursday. Its somewhere in between St. Cloud and Alexandria so hopefully we don’t get lost. We’re going to bring a kayak, and bike/burley. We both took Friday off, so we’re planning to leave right after work on Thursday evening. Hopefully the traffic up 94 isn’t too horendous! I’m excited to get out in the wilderness and enjoy the solitude that only camping can bring!

Jason has been busily getting our front yard landscaped and it looks BEAUTIFUL! Kirra is on the road to recovery with her cough from the Croup, although her voice is shot! Poor thing! She’ll be better to go back to daycare tomorrow though.

So last night Kirra woke up bawling her eyes out around 1:00am. And she had a very noticeable deep cough that sounded like a seal barking, like Sparkie the sea lion was resurrected! Poor thing. She was just miserable. We thought about calling the nurse line or taking her to Children’s but we thought google in the middle of the night was a better option.
We were like…. what is that cough called…. ding…. croup. So I googled croup and it did’nt say RUSH your child to the ER, so I figured we’d call the doctor in the morning. IN the morning she was just miserable. Coughing, super tired… just exahusted looking….. The on-call nurse suggested we make an appointment with the pediatrician today, so that’s what we did, and she confirmed it was croup. I stayed home and worked today, and Kirra slept and rested all day. She gave her prednisone to decrease the swelling in her throat. I knew she had a sore throat when she didn’t even want to eat a banana today, her absolute favorite!
Tomorrow is the swallow study at Children’s to see if Kirra has been aspirating. I’ll give you the low down tomorrow on how the appointment is going. My car is starting to go downhill. It wouldn’t turn over again today, but then miraculously it did…. although it blew the radio out, so now I have NOOOOOo radio, nothing. Dead pan silence…. not real exciting…. I think Jason is going to let me drive the truck for a while. Its good to drive a reliable vehicle when you’re toting around precious cargo!
Hopefully Kirra sleeps better tonight. She’s got some prednisone in her, and a humidifier going on in her room! I hear her coughing though 😦 Prayers!

So I busted out the ocr3 and finally got my bike computer installed at Penn Cycle. I took it out for a test spin last night too, and gosh what an absolute GORGEOUS night for cycling! I went about 10 miles, and on my way back I drove off onto this little road that lead to the Ham Lake Baptist Bible Camp to see where it would take me, and what that was all about. So I biked down this road which was lined with trees, and eventually the trees and cover became thicker and thicker. It honestly looked like something out of the movie Twilight. Very gorgeous. The road winded around and around, and eventually a tiny little neighborhood sprung up out of nowhere. The houses were cutsey little houses and some were big, some were small but nothing was too gynormous. Just a super cute neighborhood that was on Ham Lake. The bible camp was just a little challet at the end of the road. I stopped and watched the beginning of the sun setting over the lake, and just gave thanks for such a beautiful day! It was a quiet revere from a busy summer.

Well we got a new tent for camping, and set it up yesterday to let it air out before the big Labor Day camping trip. This sucker is HUGE! We’re going to be the envy of everyone else at camping….I’m really excited to go. I’ve been working a lot lately, and am just looking forward to 5 days up in the wilderness!

Today Kirra and I and some friends went to the Children’s Museum in St. Paul. It was a blast. I was a little worried that Kirra would get trampled by the big kids, but she held her own and the big kids were very respectful.