Birthday Weekenders

I try to make birthdays special. I want to bring back that feeling you'd get when you were young, and wake up on the day of your birthday with a zing in your stomach, the anticipation of what surprises lay ahead of you.

I surprised Josh with a weekend up at the Westgate in Park City. It's a favorite of ours. So we lucked out with early check in and headed up to the hotel and went swimming. After that, we ate dinner at Bistro 412, a restaurant that features lovely french cuisine. Jack gave us some time to ourselves while he flirted with the hostess.

I made Josh a birthday cake, which happened to be the same cake I made Jack. It was such a hit, that I figured it couldn't fail. Even though Josh asked for his beloved 7 minute frosting- that I just plain wasn't fond of.

The next morning we had our complimentary breakfasts and then Josh was presented with a massage at Serenity Spa. (Thank you mom, and Laura.) He loves being pampered. He also loves hotel robes. So he wore his to the spa, even though it was 3 buildings away.

Jack and I kept ourselves busy till Josh came back. We all had lunch at Main Street Pizza and Noodle. They have excellent pizza and garlic bread. Then we went back to the hotel and had a nap. Then Jack and I ran off to outlets while Josh vegged out in his robe.

That night was a great episode of Celebrity Apprentice where I predicted that producers would never let Trump fire Sharon Osborne, so he chose to fire no one. Of course.

I gave Josh a buzzer for his birthday, he has never been one for presents, only necessities. So he was pleased.

Happy Birthday, Love. I hope you had a wonderful birthday.

Chicago.

How do I even begin to tell the story about our trip to Chicago...

I give bullet points.

- Dad took my sister Laura and I to Chicago as a Christmas present

- We arrived and were dropped off at the Miracle Mile to shop

- Miller's Pub was the place to get ribs, and they were delicious

- Sat morning we ate at Lou Mitchell's, the best breakfast in Chicago, and it was..

- The CUBS game was an experience, they lost, but we got nice shirts

- Sat afternoon included a lovely architectual boat tour with an equally lovely tour guide

- Sat night offered a great dinner at Avec, a ritzy small plate restaurant

- Sun morning dad had a bike tour scheduled, I rode "Big Al" in a very hard gear

- Turns out the best view of Chicago is from the 96th floor Women's Room in the Hancock Building

- Sun afternoon took us to a concert of chamber music, that dad described as a "good dose of carrots", that was until after the performance, which he really liked

- After the concert we ate at "Greek Islands" and it was truly greek

- Mon morning we ate at Lou Mitchell's again cause it's the best

- Flew home

I was SO camera happy in this town, it was miraculous and beautiful. I also more my holga, those are yet to be developed. So here's a good chunk of my favorites.

Thanks for an awesome trip, Dad.

One Year Ago Today

This time last year we were preparing to discharge Jack from Primary's after his third open heart surgery. Granted, we were admitted back five more times after this- but this was pretty monumental because it was Jack's COMPLETION of his series of heart surgeries.

Yes, we look rough. Wait till you see July of last year. It's even worse.

Jack has had a WONDERFUL year, going to many fun places, having his wish granted, going to school, making friends and keeping busy. It makes us so grateful to think of where we have been- and how good things are now.

We celebrated today by getting up at 7:30 to go to the University to see Jack's pediatrician who goes out of his way to respond to my beckon call. Jack has an ear infection, and will be taking an antibiotic.

A heck of a lot better than a chest tube.

I have given the Easter Bunny a bad name.

Over the past week I have come across some things that would go great in Jack's easter basket. And because I am a full-time mom, Jack is usually with me when I find these things. I don't mind, because I like to make sure that he approves of my choices, before I go throwing money away on them.

I have learned that Jack LOVES peeps. He picked out a big 12 packer of purple peeps. He asked for them over and over that night and I told him "Jack, I gave them to the Easter Bunny to put in your easter basket." To which, he replied "Whhhy?" and I told him easter is coming soon, and the Easter Bunny was filling up his basket.

The next day I saw a great LeapFrog game that Jack could use to learn how to write his letters, (thanks to LeapFrog, Jack can sound out any of the 26 letters of the alphabet.) Jack saw it come out of the box that came from Amazon and chased me up the stairs as I quickly threw it on the top shelf. He followed me in and said "Mommy what was that?!" and I said "It's something the Easter Bunny wanted to put in your basket."

Then today I found a cute little Mater Pez dispenser. Perfect for his little, growing easter basket. Jack approved it, and I hid it when we got home. "Mommy, where are my toys with the candies?" to which I again replied, "The Easter Bunny took them to put in your basket. Easter is coming up really soon."

And Jack sat in silence for a minute, then asked "Mommy. When is the Easter Bunny going to stop taking all my stuff?"

And I realized, I've made the Easter Bunny out to be nothing but a dirty crook.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

So we made it full circle. This was our last day at the Village. So we packed up and said goodbye to our Villa, and stopped at the front desk to check out. Upon checkout, we received another package of stuff. It included:

-A Gold star for Jack to take home (like the one for the magic castle)

-A big picture of our family and Mickey and Minnie

-A disc of all the pictures taken of us at the village, along with a disc of pictures OF the village

-A family passport to 100's of theme parks across the US that we have free admission to each park, once, for a year. (Yes, Lagoon is on there, score.)

So our flight didn't leave till 5pm, so we used our tickets to Universal Studios. This park is amazing, because it is TWO parks (Universal Adventure Park) in one. (For us at least, our tickets got us into both.) So we went to the regular one first, because we knew there was something in there Jack loved. But first, we hit a roller coaster that he was actually tall enough for. It was the Woody Woodpecker Coaster and it was really fun. We went on it about 6 or 7 times. Then we took Jack over to his favorite place in this big, wide, world The Curious George House of Flying Balls and Craziness. You'll remember he went there last year, in California and never wanted to leave. It was a lot like that here.

There were endless guns to shoot, buttons to push, vacuums to suck and bags to fill, but unfortunately there weren't nearly as many balls in this one, so the shortage created a sort of hoarding frenzy. But Jack loved it. I took cover for awhile because there are stupid middle aged men that think it's funny to shoot at me, I don't know why, but it drives me nuts.

So after the huge fit from leaving there, we rode the roller coaster a couple more times, and decided that with our 3 hours of park time, we should head over to the other park.

However, on our way, we saw the Rock'n'Rolla roller coaster, and Josh and I each took a go. This is where I said goodbye to my sunglasses, that I had tucked away in my shirt. I didn't tuck enough. But this coaster was really fun, and each seat had an MP3 player for you to choose a rock song to listen to on the ride, then you could buy a DVD with your song, and YOU on the roller coaster. Hilarious. But fun.

From there we headed over to Universal Island Adventure, and we got a distant glimpse of the new Harry Potter Theme Park. It is built to scale, and Hogwarts is huge, and snow-covered.

This park was CRAZY. They had a whole Dr. Suess Land, that was like an acid trip. We busted right through there to the Jurassic Park. I don't know why I don't have any pictures, but we took a really fun ride on this Tera dactyl thing where we were hang gliding around in a jungle. Jack went twice, once with me and once with Josh. Then we played in this big rope jungle gym, that you could run around in, climb, and go down slides. Jack could have stayed there forever too.

But our time came to go, and we headed out of the last of the 6 amusement parks we hit this week. It was so much fun, and we were treated so well, SO WELL- that we can never return.

(Thank you to MAW, thank you to Westland Elementary School, and thank you to our families. This was a trip of a lifetime, and will never be forgotten or taken for granted. Jack will have many things to remind him of how special he is, and how much fun he had.)