Bored hot gorilla

We watched the gorillas for nearly an hour. The baby gorilla was so bored and her mom had no energy to play with her. I could totally relate. The young gorilla finally discovered that the kids on the other side of the glass could be very entertaining. Dahlia would hold up her hand against the glass and the gorilla would imitate her. I wish I had better pictures but I found myself simply just enjoying the interactions between the two of them.

zoo during the heat wave

The zoo was very empty when Dahlia and I went. It was in the 90's but
in the shade it was fine.

trying to find a cool spot to hang out

Monti attended a choir camp in Seattle during the hottest week of the
summer. I had planned to stay in Seattle between 9 and 3 with Dahlia
instead of making the round trip twice each day. We tried roller
blading and bike riding on some paths in the city but it was just too darn hot.

Playgrounds were empty and Seattle has only 2 public pools so we found a

couple places to cool off at including the Green Lake wading pool.

Torture

This series of pictures just breaks my heart. The girls really wanted their ears pierced. After deciding to do it they had to wait a couple of hours so that Claire's would have 2 employees able to pierce at the same time. I know Monti was just stressed waiting all that time. She decided to go first. She did a really good job being the brave big sister. She simply looked stunned afterwards and said "that really did hurt." Dahlia had a tougher time keeping the tears in but both said they would do it again if they could go back in time.

Hoh Rain Forest

We hiked through the Hoh rain forest in the Olympic National Park.
This area of Washington gets about 12-14 feet of rain. Overall I
thought the rain forest in Mt Rainier's national park was more
impressive than this one.

on the coast

We made it to Washington's Pacific coast for the afternoon. On our way
home Monti collected the remains of a variety of sea creatures while
Dahlia enjoyed writing her name.

Modeling

The girls did a little modeling for me when we went to the temperate rain forest.

Deal with the face painter

The farmer's market had lots of other vendors. One of them is the face
painter lady. Monti drifted on over there and started talking to the
lady. I was determined to not give her money for any face painting. I
wanted her to stay focused on her goal of selling baked goods. After 5
minutes of conversation the lady started painting her face for free.
Monti came back beaming telling me she had made a deal with the lady
to help promote her face painting in exchange for free face painting.
Monti did live up to her end of the bargain.

Dahlia and Alec

This is Dahlia and her friend Alec.

the Froghopper

I took the girls to the Family Fun Center. They couldn't get enough of
the froghopper ride.

A little more sunshine please

I love the fact that Dahlia's quilt square picture has two suns. It
may be a subconscious message from her body demanding more vitamin D.

Dentist checkup

Both girls have very small mouths for all their teeth. After looking
at an xray of Monti's front teeth the dentist is pretty sure that
Monti's front teeth won't come in for a long time. The two lateral
teeth are blocking the way for her 2 adult front teeth to come in. She
is recommending that we extract the next two baby teeth so that the
adult teeth will have a clear path. If her jaw doesn't start catching
up with her teeth we will have to do more work to expand her jaw. This
can be done using retainers.

Mr. Mistoffelees comes to Talus

Hukilau

Hula Practice

HSM3 tryouts

The play they are doing at school this time is High School Musical 3 . At the tryouts the drama teacher encouraged everyone to try out for every role. He was able to get a better idea of what role he would give each of the kids. Dahlia finally decided she would try doing one of the plays. Monti, for some reason, decided to act like she was terrified to talk in front of people. Seeing Monti act this way completely worked against Dahlia getting up there. After a little threatening conversation from mom, Monti went up and started saying some lines.  I literally had to walk Dahlia up to the stage and stand next to her while she did her audition. Dahlia was thrilled to find out she was cast as one of the Wild Cat cheerleaders. Monti congratulated her with ,"I'm happy for you that you got a better part than I did." Oh... the drama of having 2 girls so close in age.

Last minute egg coloring

We were so busy spring break going from one play date to another that we never had time to color eggs. Saturday evening 20 minutes before bedtime we quickly colored a dozen eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide. 

Gilman Village egg hunt?

In the downtown shopping area of Issaquah they hold an Easter egg hunt for kids and adults. For the adults they add coupons and free samples to their eggs. This year we decided to go. I believe calling it an egg hunt is mislabeling the event. Kids stood in line at store doors to collect their eggs. It was more like trick-or-treating for Easter eggs but the kids had fun loading up their baskets.

Obsessed with the planets

Monti has been obsessed with learning about space. She drew pictures of all the planets and taped them to the patio door. We went to the library so she could check out a book of every planet. At the park she had one of her friends play the sun while Dahlia was Saturn and she
was Uranus. Dahlia was thrilled because she got a chance to demonstrate her ability to walk (orbit) around while hula hooping. Monti explained that she would spin her hula hoop on her arm because Uranus is tilted so it's rings look different than Saturn's which is convenient because Monti still can't hula around her waist.

finally a nice day

Walk-a-thon t-shirt model

I needed a picture of a kid in their walk-a-thon t-shirt for my slide show. Dahlia is always there to be my model.

Dahlia's game

Instead of playing any of the many games they had at the coffee shop Dahlia created some game where chess pieces moved across the table on dominoes after you rolled dice. I never did get the underlying strategy behind her game but I think the object of the game was to let Dahlia win.

Trying to recreate a album cover idea

I had found this image when I did a search on the term "sole man". I wanted to see how feasible it would be for me to try and shoot students from IVE in the same way. I couldn't think of where I would get the glass for people to walk on. I pulled into the driveway and it hit me... I could use the Prius sloped glass to try and shoot the kids from underneath. Monti and Dahlia were as usual excellent participants in one of their mom's many crazy ideas.

Cross-eyed hula hoop

Dahlia is really good at hula hooping. She can go close to five minutes without a problem. She could probably go a lot longer but she gets so bored just plain hula hooping. She keep trying to add things to make it more difficult like doing jumping jacks or dropping the hoop to her shins. Another one of her ideas included trying to hula hoop while being cross eyed. It just makes me laugh to think of her brain trying to make such a simple task for her a little more complicated.

St Patrick's Day

Naughty little leprechauns possessed my sweet Dahlia on St Patrick's Day. She was so mad as Monti and I sang Danny Boy in the car. The huge fit started when I would not buy her a slice of pizza because we had dinner ready at home.

Irish festival

We were looking for something to do on Sunday so we headed down to the Irish festival at Seattle Center. I'm not sure how balloon creatures are related to Ireland but they were a huge hit especially the highly requested octopus.

Monti's photo shoot

Monti set up the upstairs hall to be like a photo studio. She had paint cans for some of us to sit on. She was emulating the Disney Cruise photographer's setup. She took about 20 pictures and I swear my Dad looks like he has his eyes closed in every one of them.

Dahlia's birthday week at school

This week Dahlia had a chance to celebrate her birthday at school. She wore her birthday crown and everybody sang Happy Birthday to her before eating their donuts. She made an "All about me..." poster this week to display in her classroom. It was very easy to tell who had helped her make her poster. All you needed to do was to read the responses written down on it. For example under the categories "my favorite people", "my favorite things", and "what I like" you could find the same answer for all three of them...Montserrat.

Cookalicious party

Dahlia headed out to her second birthday party of the weekend. This
one was at a cooking class in town. They each made their own pizzas
and cupcakes. The cupcakes were made from scratch.

Katie's birthday party

Monti watched a movie with her friend in their car out in the parking lot while Dahlia played inside the Kid's Bounce. Dahlia is usually the one who has to sit on the sidelines while Monti goes to fun birthday parties.

Eric Carle project

As part of the Art Docent program at IVE, Dahlia's class put together a
mural imitating Eric Carle's books. First the class painted large
pieces of paper with lots of different colors and patterns. Second we
pulled students over to our table in the back of class to cut out shapes from the paper they had made earlier. Then we took the shapes they had cut out and
we stapled them to the hallway bulletin board in the appropriate spot. The final village looked great. Eric Carle himself would be impressed with their work.

Cat and fishbowl

Dahlia's artwork.

Painting the bathroom

While I painted the bathroom the girls did their own painting. Monti
switched from painting to making figures out of clay.

group shot

Shedd Aquarium

At the Shedd Aquarium we saw the 4D version of "Planet Earth - Shallow Seas". I am not a big fan of 4D. I must have been sprayed 8 times during the 15 minute film and I jumped out of my skin when a poke in the back coincided with the sea snake scene.

Miniature rooms

Monti wanted to go to the Art Institute specifically for the miniature
rooms. The rooms are scaled one inch to one foot and show European and
American rooms from the late 13th century to 1930's.

Young artist at work

Monti learns how to duplicate artwork by using a grid system. She spent about 20 minutes working on her picture.

The girls worked on illustrations for their own story book. The picture behind them is a replication of "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"done by Japanese high school students using punched out paper dots.

Water park fun

Chip and Kim belong to the YMCA in Plainfield. Inside the YMCA there is a great water park which is the perfect place to have some family fun time. The water and air temperature is warm enough for even me. It has a range of water slides and sprayers along with my favorite — the lazy river.

best buddies

Brecken spent the night with my girls at my mom's house while Gabe had
a game filled birthday party at his house for 25-30 kids. Dahlia and
Brecken were the best of friends. Dahlia even gave up sleeping with me
or Monti to sleep with Brecken.

Snow Fest Chicago

In Grant Park the City of Chicago was holding an event called Snow
Days. There were about 20 snow artists working on a variety of
intricate sculptures. Unfortunately Chicago had some unseasonably warm
temperatures earlier in the week. All the artists were extremely
behind on their work which needed to be done by noon the following
day. The artists told us they would have to work through the night and
that they hoped for colder temperatures so they could achieve the
amount of detail in their sculpture they needed to win the contest.

Meeting Willlow

Monti and Dahlia traveled a long way to meet their new cousin Willow.
It was worth every penny. Monti kept saying, "She is just so
adorable." Dahlia was just in love. I asked her what she wanted to do
while Brecken napped and she said , " I just want to stand here and
watch Willow sleep."

OMSI

We love OMSI - Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It has great
activities for all ages. I was surprised when I realized our previous
favorite area of the museum was filled with babies and toddlers. My
girls looked like giants compared to all the young kids in the
Scientific Playground. It hit me that my little girls have grown up so
we headed to the "big kid" section. We had the best time doing
chemistry experiments, designing flying objects, perfecting sailboat
building and experiencing a simulated earthquake. We had to miss
school to come here but I think we did a pretty good job experiencing
lots of new things that day.

Embassy Suites Portland

We had the whole pool, hot tub and sauna to ourselves at the Embassy
Suites in Portland. We used all three.

Ski lift

The girls have now mastered the ski lifts. Joe and I got a chance to
ride up with each of them on Sunday. Dahlia is so comfortable that she
told me she almost fell asleep on the long quad lift up the hill.
Their legs are so cute in the way they go straight out instead of
bending at the knees.

Spoiling the girls

While we were away the girls were totally showered with attention. Above they made cutout cookies. They also had formal introductions announced. Monti was quick to tell me that Rosa would make 2 half sandwiches for her lunch. One was a cheese sandwich, the other one PB&J. She could eat whichever sandwich she was in the mood for at lunch.

Dahlia's heart

Moments before the variety show evening performance began Dahlia told
Joe her heart was "beeping" fast. I had to manage the backstage area 
during the performance so Joe had to care for Dahlia. He took her out
to the car to see if she could relax and get her heart back to normal.
Relaxing wasn't working so I would leave backstage every once in a
while to try something new to get her heart to slow down. I tried
gagging her, holding her upside down, and splashing her face with cold
water from the drinking fountain. If anyone saw me doing these things
they would have thought I was just plain abusive. Nothing was working
so I finally told Joe to start driving towards the ER. On the way over
she feel asleep in the car. The little nap did the trick! As they
pulled into the ER parking lot Dahlia woke up and she told us her
heart was OK. At first we weren't sure that she wasn't just saying
that because she didn't want to go in but it truly had slowed down and
no doctor intervention was needed. Thank goodness!

Continuous line art

The project seemed very simple but even "simple" with a class of
kindergartners can have its fair share of frustration. The kids were
to create a design using straight or curved lines but they had to do
it without ever lifting their pen off the paper. As a parent volunteer
you want to help several children instead of focusing on your own but
Dahlia just wasn't getting it. I finally took her hand and physically
helped her make some designs. These are the moments when I crave more
patience.

sucked into the TV

This is the normal site I see when we eat at a restaurant with a TV
playing. Joe and the girls become absolutely engrossed in whatever
program they are showing. Here they are watching downhill skiing.

Seattle Children's Hospital

I took Dahlia to Seattle Children's Hospital to get a second opinion
on her fast heart"beep" as Dahlia would call it. It general both
doctors said the same thing while this doctor seemed to lean more
towards the idea of a beta-blocker medicine if the episodes start
happening more.

Shamu's Happy Harbor

Shamu's Happy Harbor at Sea World area was perfect for our girls. It
was full of little kiddie rides that even Dahlia would get on. We
would not have even made it over to this area of the park if our
flight hadn't been delayed for 2.5 hours. It worked out great with the
delay except for the fact that we didn't make it home until 2 am after the 6 hr, 4 minute flight.

you cannot leave

If you look closely at the front of the car you can see a peacock head. As we were leaving one of the peacocks caught a glimpse of himself in the shiny black car we were in. He would not leave the car alone. We couldn't move at all without hitting this narcissistic peacock. However it did allow Dahlia a chance to do what she wanted to do all day long - chase the peacock away.

Peacocks

After the horses we went to check out the peacocks that lived at the country club. The girls were showing pretty good restraint by not chasing them across the yard. 

Falling in love with horses

After spending some time with these horses Dahlia and Monti were both trying to work both of us into buying them a horse as a pet. I must admit they were pretty easy to love but I'm not sure they would play ball like Dahlia wanted them to do.

Dahlia's best pal

I ended up with lots of pictures of Dahlia and Caroline. Caroline makes Dahlia feel so special and Dahlia just loves her.

Venice Beach at Sunset

At Venice beach the kids looked for shark teeth while we watched the sunset. Dahlia was so excited to see the sun set into the ocean. She just wasn't quite sure what would happen when that sun touched the water. She kept telling me, "This is my first sunset ever."

Hotel fun

Joe's mom took the grandkids back to the hotel while we grabbed some dinner. She had bought a box full of funny teeth so all of them could have a set. Dahlia had a hard time keeping her teeth in she was laughing so hard. 

masks at Billy and Lori's wedding

Billy and Lori did a really nice job making sure their reception was fun for everyone. They had a large craft table set up near the pool where people worked on making custom masks for the evenings. The masks turned out really great and it entertained the kids for a long time. 

Dahlia dancing with her favorite partner

My 500th post!

Dahlia danced at the New Year's Eve reception for Billy and Lori's wedding. Dahlia enjoys doing anything involving Caroline but her smile was extra large dancing with her. 

Digging to the center of the earth in Ft Lauderdale

Monti, Dahlia, and their cousins started digging a huge hole as soon as we arrived at the Ft Lauderdale beach. The hole was quite large and it gathered a lot of attention from passers-by. Dahlia was very protective of the hole especially regarding a 3 year old boy who just kept coming over to help. The next couple hours were spent converting that large hole into a home. The weather was great and none of us ended up getting sunburned.

Waiting for FedEx

Everyone headed off to Ft Lauderdale while we waited for our box of
clothes and shoes to arrive from Seattle. We had shipped them 13 days
prior but due to weather and the holidays they hadn't arrived. The
girls and Eliza used the extra time to skinny dip in the hot tub while
the boys were gone. After the hot tub they headed to the garage where
they created mock packages to put at the front door after ringing the
doorbell. We were so anxious to get the package that we fell for it.
The real package did not arrive until 6:15 PM. We still had a 4 hour
drive ahead of us.

Brownie project

Aunt Kim gave the girls cookbooks for Christmas so we decided to attempt one of the recipes. We made "Fairy Tale Brownies". As chefs we had complete success. They were devoured in under 3 hours and only with a little help from the 3 hungry girls.

Girls hanging out in The Villages

We enjoyed a day out in The Villages. We shopped, had pizza for lunch
and saw Bedtime Stories. Each girl went home with a mood necklace.
After picking out hers Monti said to me, "Mine will always be colored
grey because that means nervous and I am always nervous." I have 2
nervous children. Monti bites her nails and Dahlia has started to
twirl her hair till it knots and then she pulls it out. Her hair is
completely shorter on her left side because of this bad habit.

the wedding of frogette and froggy

Sunday morning is a great time for a wedding and the girl's were busy planning one. They had found 2 little frogs just waiting to find someone to perform the "froggy" nuptials. 

Christmas morn

Christmas morning was low key but enjoyable. Dahlia and Monti each received American Girl horses. It was the one item that Dahlia said she wanted from Santa in the ER room before she was stitched up. They both have already begged me to let them ride home on the airplane with them in their laps. I convinced Monti to let me crate them up for the plane ride if I added a carrot to the box in case her horse gets hungry.

cousins and presents

A bird's eye view of the kids before they opened their presents.

Christmas Eve

Joe is doing his best to tease the kids. We all went to Chip and Kim's house for a Christmas Eve party. 

Twins

Gwendolyn decided to wear Monti's dress which happened to match Dahlia's. Dahlia was thrilled that Gwendolyn would want to match her. Gwendolyn did her best to brainwash the girls into being Chicago Sox fans. It looks like she may have swayed Dahlia.

at American Girl

Each girl received a gift certificate to get one outfit for their American Girl doll. There are probably well over 300 outfits available there so the decision took some time. They came home with a riding outfit, a beach outfit, and a ballet ensemble.

Passed out

A snow storm was predicted to roll through on Tuesday so we moved up our plans to head downtown Chicago to do some Christmas shopping at Water Tower Place. We left after dinner and all 3 girls were dead asleep within 10 minutes of leaving the house. It was good because we stayed out till about 11:00.

at the Nutcracker ballet

Once inside the theater we could relax and enjoy the show. Ten minutes into the ballet Dahlia leaned over and whispered to me "Mom why aren't they singing?" I must agree with Dahlia ballet seems to be lacking a certain something when it comes to telling a story.

Capes made by grandma

Each of the girls received a black cape to wear to the ballet in
Chicago. Each cape had it's own unique colored lining. The problem was
that the temperature in Chicago was -3 before you considered the wind.
We were all so chilled to the bone it was just simply hard to move.
Long capes are a little more difficult to maneuver in and
they can catch the wind very easily. Both Dahlia and Gwendolyn fell
between the parking garage and the Auditorium Theater. Even with the
problems I loved the image of three little girls in a row walking in
their black capes with Mama following in her black cape. It was such
a great dramatic effect.

Tea party

The adults and Gabe were playing Apples to Apples while the smaller
kids enjoyed a tea party at my mom's house. This was the first bit of
a smile we had seen from Dahlia since her accident at home.

Flight to Chicago

After we were down at the ER we rushed to the airport and made our
flight. Dahlia was given Tylenol with codeine on an empty stomach
which made her sick. At about the halfway point of the flight Dahlia
asked me how many times she had puked. The 11 year boy next to us
piped up and said "It has been 4 times but really only two of them
produced anything."

Back at the ER

Forty-five minutes before we had to head to the airport Dahlia came upstairs blood pouring out of her mouth. A sisterly spat took a turn for the worse and Dahlia fell into a table. We headed down to the ER for the 2nd time in a month where Dahlia received 3 stitches on the inside of her mouth and 3 stitches on the outside. Her tooth had gone all the way through to the outside below her lip. Once again Dahlia was made into a burrito using a sheet so that they could numb her mouth and stitch her up. She now knows all the tricks of the nurses and dreads everything. I was a little worried when the social worker came in to talk to us because Monti had told one of the nurses she slammed her sister into the table. The social worker swore he was just coming in to give Dahlia a Beanie Baby. Each child who visits the ER  gets a new stuffed animal but I don't think it's enough to make Dahlia want to go back. As usual they were great at the Swedish emergency room and they got us in and out quickly enough so we had a chance to make our flight. 

Sledding in our neighborhood

Our neighborhood is great for snow days. There are lots of kids and a
endless amount of places to go sledding. Of course safe sledding
places become more limited so supervision is important. Parents would
take turns staying out with the kids who wanted to keep sledding all
day long.

School cancelled

The threat of snow cancelled all the Issaquah and Seattle schools on
Wednesday but Wednesday night we received a couple inches of snow
which shut down all the school districts for the rest of the week.
Living on a hill makes for a challenge with snow but Joe was able to
make it out with the all wheel drive on his new Apple car.

Mounting mirrors in the playroom

We added mirrors to two of the walls in the kid's playroom in the basement. Joe went to four Home Depots in the Seattle are to find the 7 large mirrors we needed. The kids enjoyed helping press the mirrors to the wall until the mastic stuck. This mirror slid slightly off square when we pressed it on which created quite a challenge to deal with when we mounted the 4th mirror onto this wall.

Playing games with Dad

Joe loves playing games but in our house it is hard to find someone to
join him. Dahlia decided to play with Dad but this game of Blokus
consisted of the yellow pieces and the green pieces having
conversations and setting up house.

Posing in their gowns

After Dahlia's trip to the emergency room the pediatrician nurse reminded me the girl's were overdue for their well-check.  Once at the doctor's office the girls did their best to make their gowns fashionable. The nurse checking us in had the same heart condition (SVT) as Dahlia does. Everyone checked out fine and no shots were required.

Trapeze

In addition to the swings we bought a trapeze for the garage. We have
a large 6' x 10' - 8" thick landing mat to go under the trapeze. I
should have the girls ready for their Vegas act in no time. Monti has
already created a song for their act called "Swing Girls."

Photo shoot for our Christmas cards

We all got into a rockin' mood by watching ipod commercials before
trying to get some live action dance shots for our Christmas card. We
put U2's "Vertigo" on repeat and everyone danced to it while Joe
and I took turns snapping tons of shots. After that I had a date with
my old pal Photoshop. Joe told me I could only work one day on the
card because he knew I could get very hung up on the details. (I kept
it to one day too).

Swings in the garage

Dahlia has been begging for a playground and our yard is just not
right for it. Last weekend we started thinking about adding some
swings to the garage. I bought the stuff and Joe hung them up. They
LOVE the swings! To quote Monti, "She is the luckiest girl in the whole world."

Denny's for our Thanksgiving dinner

After leaving the water park exhausted we realized we were also
starving. Nothing much is open Thanksgiving evening off the
interstate except Denny's so that is where we had our Thanksgiving
celebration with Boca Burgers and mac n' cheese. Monti added a bit of
traditional Thanksgiving by getting mashed potatoes as her side item.

MagiQuest at Great Wolf Lodge

Throughout the main areas of the hotel were kids running around waving
wands at anything and everything. It was absolutely killing Monti not
being involved in whatever they were doing. We headed to the gift shop
to see what it was all about. The game was called MagiQuest and it
required the purchase of a wand and a game. Once we had a wand we were
able to activate quests that sent us throughout the hotel trying to
find symbols or hidden objects. When you came across one of the
objects you needed you would wave your wand at it. The game kept track
of what objects you had collected and what quests you completed. The
objects could be found on 5 different levels of the hotel. We played
for a total of 3 hours and we walked a countless number of stairs. It
was a big hit with the girls. On a personal note I am still having dreams involving my unsuccessful search for the howling stone wolf.

In the water park

Dahlia was pretty scared of all the slides except for the ones in the little kids area. Both girls agreed that the wave pool was their favorite. Monti went on every slide she could. Nothing was too scary for her. She even stood under the large bucket that drenches those below it every 5 minutes or so.

After a long drive

We left right after caroling practice on Wednesday for Great Wolf Lodge. It is only 82 miles from Issaquah but due to holiday traffic it took us over 4 hours to get there. Monti must have asked "When will we get there?" thirty times before Joe told her no more. Once there we were able to play in the water park for an hour before heading to bed. The girls thought they were so special sleeping in their own private Wolf Den in our room. It contained bunk beds and their own personal TV to watch the Disney channel on. Of course they slept in those wonderful bunk beds for about 2 hours only before joining us in our queen sized bed.

Indian, Pilgrims, and Turkeys

Each kindergarten class came to the feast dressed as a different
Thanksgiving character. Dahlia's class came dressed as Indians. They
joined kids dressed as pilgrims and turkeys to sing a couple songs for
the parents after they were done eating.

Pottery project in Dahlia's class

I went in to school to help Dahlia's class make owls out of clay. At first I was worried we didn't have enough parent volunteers but the kids did really great with the project. The biggest issue was making sure the kids didn't press too hard on the clay when making their patterns on the body. We can't wait to see what they will look like after they are dried, glazed, and fired in the kiln. 

Dahlia's kindergarten art

Dahlia's class was getting ready for Thanksgiving by studying Native American culture over the last month. It looks like they were doing some type of cave drawings with the kids. All the kids had different stories that went along with their stick figure drawings. I found it interesting that Dahlia's story is so focused on the Indians choice of food including bunny rabbits, snakes, porcupines, and a cow. 

Beauty and the Beast in Issaquah

I took the girls and Monti's friend Samantha to see Beauty and the Beast at the Village Theater in downtown Issaquah. It was an excellent performance. We all enjoyed it so much — especially the tap dancing salt and pepper sequence during the song "Be Our Guest." The man who played Gaston was perfect.

Pediatric cardiologist

Dr Hesslein was able to diagnose Dahlia's issues pretty easily by looking at the EKG they did while she was at the ER earlier in the week. He called her condition "SVT". In SVT, supraventricular tachycardia, the heart rate is sped up by an abnormal electrical impulse starting in the atria. The heart beats so fast that the heart muscle cannot relax between beats. When the chambers don't relax, they cannot contract strongly or fill with enough blood to meet the body's needs. Because the heart can't contract the way it should, the brain may not receive enough blood and oxygen. It can make her feel light in the head, dizzy, or feel like her heart is racing or pounding. He says it will happen again but there is no knowing when. When she has an episode we can do physical maneuvers to help stop the rapid rate like holding her breath and bearing down, gagging her, or dunking her head in ice cold water. We can try to stop it by ourselves for up to 2 hours before heading to an ER for medicine. If the episodes become more frequent or more bothersome we can put Dahlia on medication or schedule radiofrequency ablation, a surgical procedure that uses catheters to destroy the tissue that causes the rapid heartbeat. 

At the ER

These are pictures of calmer moments at the emergency room. Getting an
IV into Dahlia's arm was a harrowing experience. After about 3 pokes
in the midsection of her left arm they were unable to find a vein.
Dahlia was crying and very upset. They suggested trying the other arm
and Dahlia lost it completely. She started screaming, kicking, yelling
"I want to go home. I feel fine." It was so hard to watch. They were
very good with her. They gave her a moment to settle down on her own
but they could see that she was not going to be reasoned with. They
had to wrap her in a sheet like a papoose before sticking her again
closer to her wrist. After a blood-curdling scream the IV was finally
in place. They didn't like putting the IV in so far down the arm. They
needed to get the medicine to her heart quickly for it to work
correctly. On the way home she apologized for kicking me. She told me
she was just really nervous and I told her "I know Dahlia, I was
nervous too."

Dahlia at the hospital

When we left the park Dahlia was complaining that her heart was
beating fast. Once home she was sitting at the computer and she told
me she felt sick and her heart hurt. I put my head to her chest and
her heart was going nonstop. I took her upstairs to Joe and he
immediately called the nurses phone line. They said, "Call 911. We don't want
to waste time by talking to you." Joe took Dahlia to the ER while I
took Monti to her friend's house. At the hospital her heart rate was
between 250 & 260. They tried to slow it down by manipulating the
arteries on her neck with hard massage but it didn't work. They ended
up having to put an IV in her so they could get some medicine directly
to her heart. They called the condition PSVT and the drug they used
was called adenosine. It worked great and brought her heart rate to
about 130. They did some blood test and a chest x-ray which all came
back normal. We will have to follow-up with a cardiologist. 

at the new park

The girls try out the new equipment in the park. We counted the steps
to the park from our house. It is 328 steps. The kids were
disappointed that there were only baby swings but they found a
workaround.

Day off school

We headed down to the Pacific Science Center on one of the days off this past week. We saw a great live show on combustion and an IMAX film about the first completed expedition from source to sea on the Nile. The highlight for the kids, however, was getting ice cream afterwards of course.

Lockdown drill

The kids during the week had a lockdown drill at school. Dahlia explained that it is what they do when there is a bad person who enters the school. She told me the teacher locks the door, covers the windows, and they sit on the floor and hold their breath (literally). I do wonder if this truly prepares the kids for a likely event or if it gives them another thing to unnecessarily stress about in life. After researching it a little I found that on average 1 person is killed each year and 80 are injured in school fires. In the last 10 years there have been 118 shooting deaths on school property. This only includes K-12 schools. So sadly I have concluded that there is good reason to practice a lockdown situation at such an early age. Dahlia is still waiting for us to practice a lockdown drill at home.

Picking out their sticker after flu shots

I did not tell the kids what we were doing until we pulled into the
doctor's parking lot. Dahlia immediately started panicking, kicking
off her shoes and crying and I thought we were going to have a repeat
of last year when it took 3 adults to hold her down for her flu shot. I
told her I would carry her if she refused to go in. She took a
moment, asked for me to give her her shoes, and she told me she would be
brave. They were both very mature about it. Monti said it felt like
they hit a bone and Dahlia cried for a minute after. I am so glad we are
done with flu shots this year.

Monti's choice for hiking clothes

I told the girls to dress for hiking in the morning. Dahlia actually
put on jeans and was so excited to discover she "looked just like a
teenager" in them. Monti chose this ensemble to do her hiking in. I
guess I was just happy she was wearing boots instead of dress shoes.

Posing for pictures

The angel and bride

The theme this year was white. Dahlia was an angel. Monti wanted to be
an ice princess but settled on wearing the bride costume I brought
home with full intentions of adapting it to be an ice princess. I
found out later that Gwendolyn, Monti's cousin, was an ice princess this
year back in Chicago.