Cold Season Again (and other odds and sods)

Yes, its that time of year.  Cold season!!

Our respirologist at BCCH recommended that we start Payton back on her inhalers again in October.  We've been cold symptom free since May so I've been holding off.  A week ago when I started not feeling 100% I should have known to start the inhaler then.  I was hoping with lots of hand washing the girls would escape it and it was a fairly mild cold.    Last night though, I could hear both girls struggling to breath clearly (aka they were breathing fine just signs that a cold was settling in).

So we started Payton on her inhaler today and am crossing my fingers that it will be sufficient to keep this cold from developing to anything more than a cold.

I also sneaked in my flu shot yesterday (tip for flu shot recipients.  When you get home do minor arm work outs.  It moves the fluid through your muscle and minimizes the residual pain caused from pumping a bunch of fluid into your muscle).  1 down in our house and 4 to go :)

Our little one (Payton of course) is growing like a weed and as we near our Nov 7th measuring day I've been lining her up against the wall to see how she measures compared to Livy at that age.  She is a little bit shorter (about 3/4 of an inch) but not too shabby.

In recent months I have noticed on thing about Payton that I want to discuss with the BCCH doctors (our yearly appointment is generally around October but I believe they are pushing us out a bit this year since she's doing so well) and that's the fact that she has diastasis recti.  I'm not sure if its congenital with her or if its a result of the surgeries she's had.  I'm curious though and want to ensure that whatever the cause, its not going to be a huge concern for her growing up (other than maybe the aesthetics).  I came upon this because I myself have notable diastasis recti due to pregnancy which I may/may not get surgically fixed when they fix my umbilical hernia (waiting on getting that fixed when Livy stops digging in my belly button or when it becomes too big and is a health concern).  As I was researching the diastasis recti I came across infant photos and had no idea it was seen in infants and when I saw it I thought "hey, Payton has that bulge".

Suffice to say she has an extremely strong core so for now its not negatively impacting her.

Olivia is officially in the "why" stage.  For the record, I LOVE the why stage.  Admittedly I have never lived with a child in the why stage so I may change my mind in the next few weeks/months but for now its been fun and I tend to out last Livy with information overload in reference to her why's.

And, its not the tormenting with too much info that I love, but rather the curiosity of the mind is alive in children in this age and I believe if we address it with equal curiosity and wonder, we have a really good chance of creating something wonderful, even if its just wonderful memories.  Some of my favourite memories of being younger with my dad were endless conversations about science.  Often the info was above my head but I remember LOVING that feeling of being worthy of such an engaging conversation with my dad.  He made me feel smart and important. I just wish I had "more" of those movements and I'm assuming that my own life 'obligations' in addition to his were the cause of limiting this.  

I want my children to experience that feeling and I want to ensure that life obligations don't limit that feeling.


Otherwise Dwayne and I are well.  Life is busy, life is not ideal but still, somehow perfect.  Its how we like it.

Here's some pictures of what's keeping us busy and of course a reflection of how horrible we are as parents.  This is Livy and Payton last week, Payton's 1st ever time on skates.  As you can see she loves it!!

Livy on the other hand has no excuse for the tears. This is her third season on skates.

 

 

Here's the pictures of both girls when they were very excited about the prospect of getting on the ice.  From an early age we're obviously teaching them that reality often is much different that the expectation.

On another note, since our last blog its worth sharing that Livy and Payton have a new baby cousin.  A girl for them to play with/dress up/boss around etc.  She's adorable and I'm loving the tiny baby cuddles (didn't seem to really get that with either of my girls since they were both big babies when they finally came home and both gained 1 lb a week for the first month-month and a half).

Leaving off with a picture Wilma sent.  The girls carved our pumpkin yesterday. 

Happy Birthday Olivia

On this day not so many years ago, a little angel whispered in my ear: 
"i'm not telling you its going to be easy, i'm telling you its going to be worth it"

 

Its been so much more than that. 

 

Happy Birthday Olivia!!

 

 

This weekend also marks a very special time in our family...the end of summer madness.  Here is a link to the race Dwayne puts on each summer.

http://testofmetal.com/pages/jabr.php

 

 And here is an idea of some of the events we're working hard at to add to the fun and "give back" to the community.

 

Year 2 Update: Happy Birthday Payton

Yes, its officially here.  The terrible twos!!!

This is a year I hate to love.  I love, love it so much because this  is the year Payton will become more and more an independent person.  As her speech continues to improve we see glimpses of how she will tackle challenges in life, how she will express her love, laughter and gratitude.  How she will interact with her sister (which is proving to be hilarious I may add) and other things.  Essentially we’ll begin seeing how the world will see her and how she sees the world.  For this, I LOVE this age.

Age 2, so many wonderful things, but, this is where I start realizing that my little baby girl is beginning to grow up.  Beginning to spread her wings and learning that I am NOT the centre of her universe.  I will become less needed in her life and less her everything.  Such an absolute blessing to know that my child is growing up. Such a heartbreaker to know one day she will leave.  Yes, at age two I start to fear this.  I was the same way with Livy.

In saying that, I would not trade it for anything else?  My beautiful girls are healthy, happy and if we continue with being as lucky as we are, they will grow up.

Payton’s birthday yesterday was a small family affair.  Livy’s will be the same and around mid-August we’ll have a combined birthday party for both girls. 

 

Here are some pictures of our family time:

 

Payton continues to do well.  She’s growing like a weed and is so cute some days I feel like I want to steal her from the world and keep her all to myself.  She’s talking a mile a minute and as is always so fun, watching how a little 2 year olds mind works is simply fascinating.  We got her 24-month development status in the mail and I need to go through it to see how she’s stacking up.  Honestly I can’t imagine having any development concerns with this one. 

Health wise she’s doing great other than another bout of pneumonia back in May.  So that’s 4 in total for her.  This winter we’re going to be diligent with the asthma inhaler and hope that it minimizes any chest colds/flus.  Its seemed to help this past year and only when we took her off it did she develop pneumonia.

Her reflux continues and she continues to respond well with the medication.  We try every once in a while to wean her off but within a night or so she’s up in the middle of the night with reflux.  So for now we continue. 

Olivia is growing so much. She’s outgrown her terrible’er threes and is now so easy to have around.  She’s not quite weaned from her naps and its obvious if she’s lacking in sleep.  Usually she can do 2 nap-less days in a row before the Lucile Ball personality comes shining through.

We started her ‘racing’ her bike on the BMX track.  Its only ~4 little hills that they ride down/over but she loves it and she’s doing it on her pedal bike, a big feat from the point we started to where she is now. She even ‘won’ one last time she raced.  Usually she waits till all the riders leave the start point then starts.  That generally equates to mid pack or last finishes though she did squeak out a ‘win’. Still, we haven’t told her yet what “winning” is simply because we want her focused on the ‘right’ parts of the event which is riding your bike with rules and riding with others.  We figure she’ll learn the ‘win’ part soon enough with or without any effort on our part.

 

One thing we are doing with Livy health wise is getting her assessed for sleep apnea.  I often hear her at night stop breathing and she’s a decently loud snorer so there’s the chance that its affecting her sleep (which may explain why she’s still so dependent on napping).  We’re still waiting to hear about timing but it’s in the works at a minimum.

Dwayne and I are doing well despite feeling the pinch that has had a strangle hold on the exploration and mining industry over the last 2 years.  We’re both still working though we continue to be on watch that things may be coming to an end (job wise not the pinch on the industry).  It’s hard to believe that I would start to focus on work outside the resource industry but the reality is that this industry works on cycles and when I started back in 1999, a number of geologists were doing other work to ‘get by’ until the next resource swing.  Time will tell.  For now we both still enjoy the companies we’re with and hope that we can stay put.  If life causes us to adjust, then we’ll do just that.

We’ve had an awesome summer weather wise and we’ve both spent some good quality time on our bikes.

 

 

 

It has come to this before.

That shiny waistband that Payton is sporting is Duct-Tape! She keeps ripping her diapers off and we have had enough of that for today!!!!

She'll get over it. I hope. 

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the TELUS network.

We are NOT defined by CDH

This post is a different sort of post.  Its a post more geared towards parents of, or people with congenital diaphragmatic hernias ("CDH") who seek out our site or check in on us, those who want to read other's experiences, maybe to see what their future holds, to find similar experiences, to find new/different experiences.   What ever the reason is that anyone touched by CDH seeks out our blog, this is directed at you.

But first a pre-empt. Recently I was 'kicked off' a Facebook site for 'challenging' a comment made by the moderator.  From my perspective*, I cautioned against a statement I believed was too close to being phrases as medical opinion.  I thought I did it with diplomacy (ie: "we should be careful with comments like xyz as it comes close to reading like its medical advice and it could be interpreted as such", it also went against medical advice which I also noted).

In addition to that I was trying to make another point. One that I find VERY important as a parent to a child with a defect that brings a variety of issues through out life.  The point being "do NOT let the defect dictate your child and your parenting goals (whether they be emotional, medical or physical) 100% of the time".   Yes, they will dictate it some of the time, it needs to, but not all of the time.

Which reason I was 'booted off' for, I'm not 100% sure (the moderator made no effort to contact me directly, instead she removed me and my comments quickly and quietly).  So, I come to the only place I do have control.  My blog :).

Going back to why I felt it important to share my views (and I'll be more detailed in my description, I brought these issues up because I feel they are important).

1. As a survivour or a parent of a survivour with a defect that comes with many different facets, information is KEY.  Seek out as much information as possible.  No one person has all the answers, find different opinions, listen to why each person has differing opinions, then with the guidence of your medical professional (one who I hope you trust) find an answer that works for you!!  It may take one or two tries or tweaks to find that answer, but ultimately, the more infomation you have, the more equipt you are to make the right decisions.  A right decision for you may not be the right decision for others.

2. Be cautious of anyone who outright contradicts your medical team. While most people have good intentions, you (and your medical team) know your child best.  That's not to say you shouldn't take that advice/information and 'question your medical team' (as in ask them questions not question their ability...if you question their ability you may need another team, one you can trust above the advice of a non professional stranger).  All too often I hear advice that contradicts a medical opinion.  There is nothing wrong with questioning medical opinions or seeking a second medical opinion (even medical personel don't have all the answers) but there is something wrong when a non-medical person, who has never met your child or knows your child, states that a doctor is doing something wrong or worse, instills fear in a parent by saying the medical professional may be endanger that child.  

For what its worth I have commented on CDH related questions where I have said "it doesn't sound right what your medical doctor is saying and these are the questions I'd recommend asking to clarify".  Often the person generating the question has interpreted it incorrectly.

3. Carry over from #2, learn to sort out the difference between opinions/others' experiences and careless-all-encompassing-statements that are not scientifically or medically founded (or are the result of an emotional perception. As parents we generally mix a lot of emotion in our advise, its natural and we're all guilty of it...learn to differentiate when emotion is driving a person's opinion vs experience).

A good example of this pneumonia.  Our CDH'r is prone to pneumonia.  Emotion is often what had me down at the ER in the middle of the night waiting on a chest x-ray.  A scared emotion.  If I were to post my past experience it may read "I take my child down to the ER for an x-ray any time she has a fever".  A decision I know that was driven by my emotions.  Half the time I was correct in my concerns, half I was not...I've learned to educate myself so its becoming more about knowing my child's symptoms (ie fever 1st followed by a cough is more indicative than a cough followed by a fever, ie one signaling bacterial pneumonia the other viral) and less about my emotion that drives my decisions.    Now, if asked I would outline what are Payton's triggers but caution and say every child may have different triggers.

4. Question your medical team.  When you build on point #1 you empower yourself with the ability to question your medical team.  This doesn't have to include accusational questioning, but rather, when a decision is made, if they haven't provided you with the reasoning behind that decision, ASK.  When we were expecting our twin pregnancy I accepted all the medical advice at face value.  I never questioned.  When disaster struck 'that' was my guilt factor.  With our CDH'r I was so much more prepared.  Anytime something major was decided I was educated about the options and I made the team explain the why's behind their reasoning.  At times things were tweaked...at times we went with the recommendation...and I was almost always comfortable with the decision.   There were still mistakes (we are afterall still human), but I'm sure that many mistakes were avoided and often the best decisions were made because of the communication that was had.  Being out of the NICU I still do that and as a result we have found doctors that we trust.

5. Do not let CDH define your child.  I often read about so many parents who question every little thing about their CDH baby (and they should) but the responses I see often make me cringe. 

I'm going to insert an aside here to say "Yes, in some cases, at times in many cases, CDH is the culprit, but it shouldn't ALWAYS be the only culprit we consider and we shouldn't be so ready to blame CDH as the reason our children aren't 'perfect'".

What triggered this thought was the question on Facebook, that resulted in my being booted, was in relation to weight gain and feeding.  The doctor wanted the baby to gain more weight, the mom was afraid of pushing too hard.  The majority of responses leaned towards "CDH babies always have trouble gaining weight".  There was a subtle/not so subtle implication that the mom was right to not expect her baby to gain more weight and the doctor shouldn't have such high expectations.

My responses to the weight gain issue included: #1. weight gain (for me) was important (it was essential for bringing our baby home and I believed it was important for our baby's healthy growth and development and healthy growth and development benefits was a primary reason we opted for the surgery to tube feed our baby).  2. I cautioned against relying too much on the thought that "CDH babies are notorously underweight thus its not you, its the defect aka; don't stress about this and don't let your doctor push the issue" Note: the original poster never suggested any feeding issues just that the doctor wanted to see baby put on more weight.

First things first.  YES, CDH babies CAN have issues with weight.  Does that mean we should just ignore it???  Goodness, no!!!  There are many mothers/fathers out there who every single day fight for each and every calorie they put into their babies.  Its constant and its never ending...and yes, sometimes these children have weight gaining issues, sometimes they require additional medical proceedures to nurish their children.  BUT these parents don't quit.  They do not say "eh, its CDH, my child is going to have issues no matter how I handle it".  No, they fight...sometimes its enough, sometimes its not quite and other steps are needed.

But, when you're just starting this road, you are NOT allowed to give up and accept it as "its just CDH and I don't have to try".  AND, funny enough, it may not be...it may be just lazy baby feeding issues (because normal babies have feeding issues too and its very common that parents have to 'work with baby' to get past it).  Of course its likely CDH issues but even if it is or isn't, it could be that 'trying' may be enough to overcome the problem. We, with our doctor's guidence, need to avoid the thinking "I need to accept it because its part of the defect". 

This goes both ways...sometimes these issues are not surmountable .  It may be that your child DOES need a feeding tube (just because one mom made the decision to not have a feeding tube, worked hard and the end result being the child did fine or the child ended up functioning underweight) doesn't necessarily make it right or 'ok' for your child.  This is where working with your medical team is crucial.  You, and your medical team know your child best, not other parents.  CDH babies are so very different even if the lables we give their issues sound the same.

Its also important to add that another surgery for a child IS a very difficult decision but making that decision does not equate to being a failure.  That one surgery doesn't define your child or you as a parent...and for many its the difference between a life struggling to 'catch up' or being a healthy, happy well nourished baby that is fed a little differently (note: I know its not quite as black and white as I'm making it, what I'm trying to say is there are many different experiences AND different opinions over what is important and what is right.  One person's right doesn't make it right for everyone).

This goes for anything with CDH - please don't let it define your child. 

I hear many parents express concerns over feedings, sleep, behavioural issues, sensory issues, developmental issues, speech, walking, learning in school, the list of concern goes on, all heavily questioned (and often accepted) whether its because of CDH.

Yes, these may be indirectly linked to CDH, but you know what, so many of these issues are seen in many children.  Not walking by 15 months??? Guess what, my neighbours daughter is 15 months and isn't crawling yet (she does NOT have CDH).  Not all developmental delays in a baby with CDH are because they are a baby with CDH .

Don't be so quick to blame issues as CDH and write it off as a side effect and thus "nothing I can do, its a result of the defect".  Even more, heaven forbid we 'ignore the issue' thinking its due to CDH and that issue gets worse.   Fight to give them more than the limitations that label often brings with it. 

We're may not win all the battles that face our children affected by CDH, but we need to try.  Both for our sake as parents, so we can make decisions that are the best interest of our children (and not others) and for our children's sake so they can grow into healthy adults without labels to block their way.



*Please note that the reasons given for my 'removal' from the group are my perceived reasons ONLY.  I have no idea of the why's of my removal.  I believed I was commenting with 'best intentions' and was diplomatic in my comment suggesting the moderator 're-phrase' her comment (and or my topic was a sound, different perspective worth a mention).  As is often the case, its possible the moderator took my comments as they were not intended (ie as a direct attack against her rather than the intent to caution against going against medical advice or suggesting a doctor is endangering your child).  I very much encourage anyone who feels anything I've written here is incorrect or needs clarification (ie maybe I didn't clarify something and its taken the wrong way) or if I've simply offended anyone to please reach out.  I don't mean to offend and if I do, then likely its because I've overlooked something or I worded it wrong.

Knees and Toes

Its been a while since I've provided an update.  Usually that means things are good, life is busy and there's been no 'issues' for us as a family.

For those who check in on our CDH baby Payton, she's doing well, growing like a weed.  She's recently overcome her 4th round of Pneumonia but like all the times, she's handled it like a champ.  This time it only took 1 well timed visit to the ER for them to run an x-ray and send her home with a prescription.  A second visit was in our future but only to deal with asthma that seems to now be in the cards for her when she's dealing with respiratory colds/flus.

Developmentally and physically Payton continues to progress much like we would expect any 'healthy' child.  She continues to be slightly tall for her age (though shorter than Olivia) and while she wouldn't be called chubby, she's just right for a running, active toddler though I'm so used to how chubby Livy was it does worry me slightly that I can see Payton's ribs.  Still, she's tipping the scale at 13 kilos (29 lbs) so I know she's doing just fine in the weight category.

Her reflux continues though easily handled with medication we add to her milk.  She knows what it looks like and will often complain if she sees me pouring it into her cup/bottle.  She's a hoot with her words right now and I have to say, Wilma has done an amazing job with her manners.  Even in the middle of the night if she asks for her bottle she'll say "Thank you Mommy" so clear, and will promptly fall back to sleep.

She can count up to 13 (only skipping the number 8) and can pretty much do her ABC's now (she skips anywhere from 2-3 letters.  I'm thinking that's not bad).  One of her favourite songs is "Head, shoulders, knees and toes...".  Often though I only hear "Knees and toes, knees and toes" repeated over and over until she gets my attention.  Sometimes she breaks into song because she wants her socks removed and she's tugging at her toes.

While in Hawaii at the beginning of April Payton officially started stringing 2 words together (rather than repeating common word combos like "ready, set, go" or "thank you mommy").  This last weekend she spoke a full sentence...it only dawned on me a few minutes later that she had strung a bunch of words together.

Olivia has been growing in leaps and bounds and she's starting to get easier on so many levels but like many 3, almost 4 year old's, her knowledge and maturity bring with it a whole slew of other issues.  One thing I've started to talk to her about is bullying.  That she needs to talk nice to people and if someone doesn't talk nice to her its ok if she doesn't want to play with them but that is goes both ways.  While she doesn't always heed my advice, she sure is on the ball when I say something in a not so nice way.  Suffice to say Dwayne and I have been doing a lot of apologizing to one another for how we talk because Livy does NOT let us get a way with it.  A good reminder for us all.

Dwayne and I are doing well.  Dwayne just finished his first bike race of the season last weekend and we were there in full force to cheer him on (ok, we were at 2/3rds capacity as Payton was at home napping) but Livy and I were there for support.  We're all pretty happy he had a great race and Livy and I got to have our own little fun with the mini pump track they had on site.

Speaking of bikes.  Technically Livy can ride a pedal bike.  Officially she's not quite there yet.  With me as support she has ridden and stopped without support.  With Dwayne she's started and ridden without support.  She has not started, ridden and stopped yet all in one ride on her own but we're down the last final few efforts before she's there.  She's dealing with some fears at this point so its a gentle push to ride from us with her gently resisting...hopefully she'll find that last little bit of confidence and it won't be much longer.

As for me, I'm gearing up for my 1st Half Marathon in less than 2 weeks.  I've made it challenging for myself in that I signed up for a trail run half marathon.  I realized on an 18 km run (15 km on trails) that 21 km road run would be a relatively easy walk in the park compared to a 21 km trail run.  I'm not 100% sure I'll even be able to finish it, not because I don't have the energy but rather because my calves start to seize up around 15 km on the trails (something that's never happened even after 18 kms on the road).

So, time will tell.  Our household is healing from this last round of chest colds (Payton, Olivia and I are on the mend but Dwayne just started it yesterday) and hopefully this won't hinder me too much (I've taken 2 weeks off running).

I'll sign off with a few fun photos of our Hawaii trip last month.  A much needed trip away that Dwayne and I put in over time over the winter to squeeze in.  As our industry faces cutbacks we're still wondering if it was a good idea but we're very thankful for the wonderful memories we did get out of it.

Winter 2013 Update

Ok, I’ve had a number of comments about how out of date our blog is.  Yes, it is.  I agree.

So I’m making an effort to provide an update on where we are in our lives.

As a family, we’re doing great!!  This winter has been long but fast.  I can’t believe I’m eyeing up the seeds for spring planting but at the same time, spring can’t get here fast enough.  That said, I recognize that every single day that goes by, my girls grow up.  It doesn’t matter how many times you savour the moment, stop to smell the roses…time goes by and it goes by too quickly.

Payton continues, health wise, to be doing great.  While she did have a bout of pneumonia this winter, a little bit of asthma and reflux that started in early December, she’s holding her own and these are health issues that are very manageable and I’m very thankful that her current issues are so minor.  We did see a respiratologist (or however you spell it) at Children’s hospital and he’s placed her on an inhaler for the remainder of the winter to minimize potential pneumonia (the inhaler hopefully will keep her lungs ‘open’ so she can clear them when sick and prevent the build-up of fluid, aka pneumonia).  She was also placed on anti reflux medication.  Her reflux only presents at night (around 2 am) when she starts coughing.  Prior to her medication I could often smell that bile smell, knowing that likely she was dealing with reflux.  The medication hasn’t completely prevented incidents but I no longer smell the bile and her incidents are less severe/often.  We are lucky because even without meds the only time it occurs is at night.  We’re hopefull she’ll grow out of it fairly soon.

Developmentally she’s doing very well.  She had her 1.5 y check-up/follow-up with the NICU in mid February and they were very pleased with her development.  They even had to go and ‘pull out the more advanced toys” for her.   We notice this advanced development at home too but in different ways.  Now that she’s able to balance on the back of the couch (NOT encouraged by any means) and do random summersaults (very well I may add, sometimes even launching herself off the couch/bed doing so…again, not encouraged) and crawling up onto chairs, tables etc.  All this, aside from the couch surfing, Livy did not do so we’re in new territory with this one.

Her vocabulary is growing heaps and each day we get a new word.  She’s learning her ABC’s and for every letter of the alphabet she will repeat a word starting with that letter.  E is for… “elephant”, M is for…”monkey”, etc.

Livy is…well, Livy.  She is growing so fast.  Having a little sister brings out the worst and the best in her…in the same motion she will go from kissing Payton to bonking her on the head.  She’s almost swimming independently and I wish we could/would be able to take her to the pool more often.  I’ve tried to enrol her in lessons but when I look, they are ALWAYS full and though I place us on the waiting lists, we don’t seem to advance into a time slot EVER!!  So we go sporadically and THANK GOODNESS she has a good memory.

Skating this winter didn’t take off much (though we tried).  The time slot for family skate is right around when Livy starts to get grumpy and thus its been a bit tiresome arguing with a 3 year old who is frustrated when she can’t do something.  This has been something I’ve begun to notice with Livy.  If she can’t do something ‘well’  then she doesn’t want to do it.  We’re seeing it with her learning to ride her pedal bike (sans training wheels).  She would much rather rip around on her runner bike than brave the pedal bike (even though she has successfully ridden the pedal bike).  She likes her comfort zone play.  So I’m trying to buck the trend and push her to try new, hard things and not let her resort back to the ‘easy way’ all the time.  

Dwayne and I are doing well.  We’re both busy trying to stay active, training for some events once the nice weather rolls around.  We’re both signed up for a 21km cross country run and the Test of Metal thus far.  Dwayne will likely start to add copious biking events to his schedule while I will debate the local triathlon and likely commit (or not) around April.    Training for the 21 km run should make the Tri easy…and since running is my weak part (not that I’m a fast swimmer etc its just easy compared to the run) it may be that large amounts of running I’m currently doing will make it all seem easy  (ha ha, at least that’s the dream).

March is a busy month for us (as it always is) and Dwayne and I head to Toronto this weekend for our annual work conference.  This year we have both Grandma Val and Grandma Helen in Squamish to help us out.  It should be interesting… The good news is each year it gets easier with the girls so by next year we should only need 1 Grandma to watch them :).

At the end of March we’ll be taking a “hopefully” warm holiday. It will be our first trip to Hawaii and Dwayne and I are hoping to use it as our biking season kick start.   My parents are coming with us and while I only need 1.5-2 hrs max each day on the bike (if that) having my parents there will allow Dwayne a few long days in the saddle, something I know he’s looking forward to.

I have a ton of pics sitting on the camera and I will try to get them on the blog.   At a minimum I’ll try to include some of the photos we took on the boys’ birthday (Nov 7^th) the last day I posted an update.