California Trip Days 5 & 6 Unexpected Illness and The Beach

Wednesday we had scheduled a rest day and were planning on going to the beach. We slept in forever, which felt so good. The day before when we were at Sea World, Lauren was acting kind of weird, nothing specific, just not herself. I kept asking her if she was feeling OK to which she always responded yes she was fine. Well when she woke up Wednesday morning the left side of her face was kind of swollen. We thought maybe she had an abscessed tooth or something but she said her mouth felt fine. All of her felt fine really, she was running around and acting fine but it was just weird that she was so swollen.

We called Mindy, who is a nurse and asked her what she thought we should do, and she recommended we take her into to a local clinic to get checked out and maybe get an antibiotic since it was obviously an infection of some kind. I went up to the front desk and asked them if they could give me a list of family doctors close by. She did a google map search and came up with four choices. The first one was called Family Medical Clinic. That sounded good to me so I called and checked to see if they took our insurance and to get directions. The lady didn't speak very good English but I didn't think that was too big a deal. After an hour of driving around and three different sets of directions, I realized it was a very big deal when we finally found the place.

Tyler and I just looked at each other and laughed, and then said, do we really want to take our child here. We decided that all we needed was a prescription. We would get in and get out. We walked in and paid our forty dollars cash, which is all the accepted and sat and waited. The finally took us back and the doctor came in to look at Lauren. We told her we were worried about the swelling in her face. She then took out (I am not kidding when I say this) a dollar store flashlight tried to turn it on, but darn it the batteries had died. She then went out and came back with the upscale version, one of those black and yellow camping flashlights that you can get at Walmart. Yeah so Tyler and I were just dying watching her do this. She shinned the flash light down Lauren's throat for 5 seconds and then said, oh yeah she has strep throat. I almost told her that her tonsils are huge already then I caught myself, and decided to just nod my head in agreement as she pulled out her prescription pad. She then took her flashlight and shinned it in Lauren's ears and pretended she could see something with her magic light and said her ears looked a little red too. She offered to fill the prescription for us there at the clinic but we both were quick to say no thanks. She told us she wanted to do a follow up visit in two days and tried to get that scheduled. We said that we would have to call them because we weren't sure what our plans were that day. Really we were both thinking, there is no way in hell we are bringing her back here. She didn't even address the problem that we brought her in for. Oh well, we got the prescription and that's all we needed. So we went to Walmart and got her filled and called it good. Lauren was feeling fine so we decided that we were still going to go for a sunset trip to the beach. I had bought a bunch of sand toys and bubbles for them to play with when we went, so I didn't want them to go to waste.

I have seen before where you can get your child's name in the sand done for you if you lose a child. I decided to so my own version of Taylor's name in the sand. I printed it up and framed it for Tyler's mom. She really liked it.

Fun family photo

Logan chasing the bubbles.

Fun picture of Lauren just enjoying the water on her feet and the breeze blowing.

My attempt of the foot picture. Logan didn't want to participate so this is the best we could come up with. I still think it is fun.

Tyler got some great sunset shots.

After we got back from the beach, the kids really wanted to go down to the pool and go swimming before bed. We had bought the kids goggles at the store earlier that day so they were excited to try them out. I love these pictures of the kids

So Thursday was supposed to be our first day at Disneyland. I gave Lauren a bath the night before and got her hair all done up in rollers so she could have pretty curly princess hair, but when she woke up Thursday morning, this is what we found.

Instead of her face getting better over night, it had gotten a lot worse. Her eye was almost swollen shut and her lips were even swollen. We started to panic a little bit, not sure what to do. I sent Tyler to the store to get some Benedryl in case maybe it was just some kind of allergy. While Tyler was gone I put in a call to her regular doctor back home and waited for them to return my call. Logan didn't like looking at her like that. He said to me, "I don't want to go to Disneyland with sissy looking like that. Everyone is going to laugh at her." I think he was really trying to be sweet and felt bad for her, but really it broke my heart to hear him say that. I felt so bad for her and wished I knew what to do. When Tyler got back we gave her the medicine but all that did was knock her out and give her a good nap. While she was sleeping the nurse called me back and I explained everything to her. She then told me that since she had already had three doses of the antibiotic and was still getting worse then she would take her back to the doctor, a different one of course. We then called our insurance company and had them recommend one to us. We were able to get her in there right away and were relieved to have found a normal doctors office with people who spoke English. The doctor there told us he wasn't totally sure what it was, just some kind of weird skin infection. He gave her a penicillin shot and two different antibiotics that were stronger than the one she already had. She had a slight fever and he told us that main thing to watch was that. He said that if her fever went up at all to take her right to the emergency room as it could be something more serious. That totally freaked me out, but I was able to keep myself under control till we got in the car and I started crying. We headed to Target across the street to fill her prescriptions and buy a thermometer. The doctor also told us no Disneyland for at least 12 hours assuming things started getting better. When we went to Target we let the kids each pick out a new toy to go back to the hotel and play with since we knew we wouldn't be doing anything fun that day. We decided to take a picture of Lauren each hour so we could tell if there was any change. We also took her temperature at the same time and were very relieved that it never went up. By the end of the day, this is how she looked. Much better than the morning.

I hate it as a parent when your kids are sick and there is nothing you can do to help them. It makes me so sad and worried to see them that way. We are just so grateful it didn't end up being something worse than it was. Lauren asked me later that day how come we were being so nice to her. I guess I need to be nicer on a daily basis. It just opens your eyes a little more when they are sick and you can't help but love them even more.
We love you Lauren!!

California Trip Day 4 Sea World

Tuesday morning we woke up very excited for Sea World. We also woke up to yet another home cooked breakfast made for us by Dan Day. Thank you so much Day family for letting us stay at your Day's Inn. We really appreciated your hospitality. We tried to get an early start so that we could be to Sea World right at 10 when it was opening.

I love this picture of Logan and Ethan. They just look like the best of buds.

Lauren and Hailey all dressed up matchy matchy once again. Luckily both the boys and the girls already happened to have these matching shirts.
BFF

When we first got in the gate, Shamu was there waiting for us.

I have no idea who this otter guy was but it was a good photo op.

The first thing we did was head to the under water observatory. We were able to sit and watch these dolphins swimming around under the water. It was so neat to just watch their bodies move.

We then headed up and over to where the killer whales are kept. The kids were so excited to see Shamu. There was even a baby one swimming around with its mom. They are side by side in this picture, so it is kind of hard to tell.

We walked over this bridge thing that lead you to the stadium where they do the Shamu show. They just happened to be doing some training exercises with the whales to get ready for the show. It was the coolest thing to sit and watch. There was only two other people there watching so it totally felt like we were getting our own private Shamu show. We sat there watching for almost an hour.

We passed another fun dolphin pool and sat and watched them jump for awhile. It was so amazing to me to watch them jump. It would look like they didn't have enough room and were going to run into the rock wall, but when they jumped it almost looked like they were moving backwards. They are such beautiful animals. They are building a new dolphin stadium so they didn't have a dolphin show going on when we were there. I was kind of bummed about that.

Next we hurried over the the Sea Lions Live show. I thought it was really fun, but the kids kind of got bored with it. It was definitely more of an older kid/adult show. The humor was a little over their heads and it went on a little long.
My favorite part of the show...the walrus!

Beautiful Girls!!

Logan is not a big fan of having his picture taken, but this day he was all for it so here are a couple cute shots of him along the way.

After the show it was off to see the sharks. They had all kids of different sharks. The coolest part was the end when you walk through this tunnel and the sharks are swimming all around you. The biggest sharks were in this tank too which added to the excitement.

Getting ready for the Shamu show. We sat in the soak zone, but not very close. A little bit wet was enough for us. These animals are so amazing and beautiful. It is so cool to just see the way their bodies move and see how all their muscles work together. Here are a bunch of pictures from the show. It was crazy to hear that just a week after we were here that one of the trainers at the Florida Sea World was killed by one of the whales.

Next we hurried over to ride the Journey to Atlantis ride. Up first were the girls and the boys waited and watched. Mindy and I are definitely the braver ones in both our relationships. Lauren and Hailey both loved the ride as well.

Tyler and Logan waiting in line for their turn.
I LOVE this picture!!

So I was given strict instructions as to how to take the picture of them when they were coming down the drop off. I had practiced to make sure I had it down good. Well the line was really long and the girls really needed to go to the bathroom so I hurried and ran to take them to the bathroom. We ran back as fast as we could and found that the boys were on the ride already heading up to the drop off. I hurried and grabbed the camera and got it ready, except I forgot one thing in the important list of instructions, of which I don't remember what it was, but because of it my pictures of them coming down, were not very good, and because of that, I got in trouble. Ooops, I guess we will just have to go back there again some day so we can try again.

This picture cracks me up. I bet you can't guess who didn't like the ride.

The last place we got to visit was the arctic exhibit. We saw the polar bears, the beluga whales, and the walruses. The set up for this exhibit was really cool.

On our way out of the park, Tyler took this cool picture of all the flags.

We had an awesome day at Sea World, and I definitely want to go back there some day. Next time though I think we need two days to make sure we get to see everything. We were so tired after the two long days we were excited to drive back to Anaheim and get a good night sleep.

California Trip Day 3 San Diego Zoo

So before I start, let me just give you a warning that Tyler took over 1400 pictures during this trip, so needless to say there will be picture overload in the next few posts. Monday morning we woke up and headed down to San Diego to go to the zoo. The weather was still unseasonably warm and we were loving it. The kids were excited to get their first glimpse of the ocean on the drive down the coast. The drive didn't take too long which was good considering the amount of time we had been in the car the previous two days. The kids were anxious to get there and were so excited to begin the FUN.

Logan has become obsessed with koala bears this last year as he latched on to one that was handed down in a box of Christmas decorations from my mom. It was one of those department store stuffed animals that they bring out a new one each Christmas to collect. So anyways, Logan had been so excited to get to see the koala bears at the zoo, that that just had to be our first stop. Lucky for us it was one of the first animals we came to. They were so fun to just sit and watch, especially when one would wake up and eat.

Here is a mommy koala bear holding tight to her baby. If you look close you can see the babies legs wrapped around the mom.

One of the next animals we came upon were the camels and if this shot doesn't scream out, come here and give me a nice juicy kiss I don't know what does.

Of course Lauren had to stop and smell the flowers!

A little while later we came upon a family of meerkat's. I over heard someone talking about how they had heard a rumor that one of the meerkat's had just had a baby an hour earlier. Sure enough, after close examination and a good pair of eyes, we spotted them. They were so cute and fun to sit and watch.

This black panther kept coming right over by the window where the kids were sitting. He would look right at them and stare them down. It was kind of spooky. Thank goodness for thick glass.

Lauren with the sleeping lions in the back ground.

I love this shot Tyler got of this giraffe with her baby, so cute.

The kids really liked going on the sky ride. It was fun looking around at all the animals from above. It was funny because on one of our times across Tyler told the kids to say hi to the other people as they passed us going the opposite direction. Lauren was too embarrassed to do it, but Logan would say hi to everyone that passed. It was just funny to see people's reactions when they are not expecting it. Some would say hi back but most just looked at us weird or ignored us. It didn't help that we were laughing the whole time either.

We were supposed to meet up with the Stubbs that morning when we got to the zoo but they were coming over from Vegas that morning and ran into some really bad traffic the whole way. They didn't end up getting there til about 3:00 that afternoon. The one thing that Hailey wanted to see more than anything, was the panda bears, so that is where we met them. The kids were so excited to finally be together.

Cute Adalyn

One of our last stops, and my favorite was the hippo's. It was so cool to watch their big bodies swimming around in the tank. The kids however had more fun climbing around on the fake hippos. They just wanted to play with each other and could have cared less about the animals at this point.

We stayed til closing time, but before we left, the kids got to go and pick out a stuffed animal to take home from the gift shop. Logan of course picked out a koala bear and Lauren picked out a Siberian tiger. Somehow though in all the 1400+ pictures we neglected to get a picture of the kids with their souvenir's, go figure. After we left the zoo we all went to Applebee's for dinner. It was nice to just sit down and relax after a long day of walking around in the hot sun. That night we went and stayed with yet another set of friends parents. My very good friend Jenn, who now lives in Texas, is from San Diego and her parents still live there and have a big empty house that they were so kind to open up for all of us to stay there. After a little bit of chit chat and catching up with her parents, Dan and Shirley, we were ready to hit the sack and get rested up for our next days adventure.