Snorkel Tests and No Posts

The last 2 weeks have been a total blur.  We had two weeks of swim lessons 4 times per week, plus gymnastics on Wednesdays, plus summer school, plus my birthday, plus some of us getting sick.

Kaelin's poison ivy is totally gone, but they have her on so many steroids, she is still on them.  Just a few more days.  Found out she and a few other kids all got it at school of all places.....bad teacher.  Tsk, tsk.  Jaemin had a stomach virus which Brian and I got, but not as bad.  Then as soon as he started feeling well, we had to take him to the ER to find out the reason he could barely talk was because he had strep and his tonsils were touching his uvula completely.  Poor boy!  Found out strep was going around summer school.  Needless to say, summer school was not a hit.

My birthday was pretty good.  Though I think people forgot (which is normal with it being in the summer), Brian went to a lot of trouble to make reservations at this far out (far away) winery I kept seeing and wanted to try.  It just looked so pretty.  He called my sister and brother-in-law and got them together with us without me knowing.  He tried to get my cousin and her husband, but they had plans.  40 is fine.  Just another day and another number.  Jaemin did say, Sunday, though that my birthday was not over because there was no cake and ice cream.  I agree buddy!

This week, we're trying to get some estimates.  And the girls did snorkel tests with the snorkel gear I found with our swim stuff.  One set was totally broken, but the other 2 work!  Yay!  Brian has a choice of Florida or Mexico if we go somewhere and wants Mexico, so we have a smaller town in mind and have found a place and Lois is all ready to be nanny for a week.  Cole even gets to wait until he turns 18 next year to apply for his own renewal of passport and it will last 10 years this time.  I'll work on the little kids soon.

Next on the list or agenda

We're trying to figure out what do do, if anything, next year, so after a friend of ours went to Mexico with another mutual friend we are thinking about that.  Jane raved about it and has been twice now.  The logistics for our family are a little different since there are only 3 of them and we have to talk Cole into the flying part.  But, with the help and a couple of other adoptive family friends, they're walking us through where to stay and what we want.  We're hoping for Akumal or Tulum and thinking since this will most definitely be our last vacation with all 5 kids, since Cole turns  18 next year and graduates, and this year is our 20th wedding anniversary, this will be worth spending extra on.  We can normally vacation, even at the beach , for $2,000 or less including everything.  This will be closer to $6,000 (not quite) by the time we get plane tickets, etc., but we can stay for an entire week and do so much and eat so much cheaper.  The stay isn't quite as expensive as the states.  We didn't go anywhere this year or do anything and may not as easily as Chase gets a little older and more into the football things he needs to.  Next year will probably be it for a couple more years.  I'm still a little unsure, but if we save what I hope to, I think we'll take the plunge.  The kids can swim in a cenote, swim and snorkel with turtles, rays and dolphins, zipline, jump from bluffs and the best part is my friend Lois offered to pay her own way and entrances if she can stay with us in return for watching the kids so we can have some alone time.  See, we haven't been away overnight and alone in almost 13 years.  This will really allow us to combine a vacation into a couple get away and  I've been wanting to do that with Brian for so long, but just haven't been able to get myself to leave the needs the kids have in us; especially Jaemin.  This is  the perfect way to do that in one plane ticket and stay!  I'd love to just do one night on the beach eating dinner alone with Brian.  How awesome would that be!!  Everyone keeps telling us we need to get away.  It's good for us as a couple.  This is my way of being able to do it without having all the anxiety.  Hoping it works out.

More Grant's Farm and Magic House

I think they had a good time.  They fed llamas, birds and goats.  The girls road the camels.  The boys went into a cage thing to hold parakeets and feed them.  They saw the Clydesdales.  I think Jaemin was a little surprised at how large they were.  Jaemin got to see his favorite turtles, but was mesmerized by the elephants for some reason.

We thought about the zoo, but thought Grant's Farm may be less crowded, plus it's cheaper.  At least it was cool outside.  Cole's too 'big' for family outings, so he stayed home.  The Magic House is always fun.  Us adults were getting tired.  Otherwise, I think they could have stayed for awhile.  

 I took this of Chase, so he swiped my camera and took one of me.

 The goats ate everything including trying to eat our shorts, shirts and Chelsi's shirt ties.

 I was too slow, but Jaemin and Chelsi touched the snake too.  It was pretty big!

 Chelsi didn't want to do it by herself and Kaelin was supposed to.  Our theory is Kaelin just didn't get on so that Chelsi would have to do it by herself.  She liked it though.

 The boys didn't want to ride the camels, but did want to go into the bird cage.  Jaemin did hold one and did feed a few, but didn't love it.  They loved Chase.  One crawled from his finger, up his arm, around his neck and onto his hat.

 And there he decided that hat was junk just like we keep telling Chase.

 Magic House!

 The girls get static.  They were told to shake it out first....that's what they're doing.

 Jaemin's hair did not go up, but I'm shocked Chase's did.  The boys shaking.

 Results.

 Jaemin liked the 3 story slide.

 I told Chelsi she looked like a natural in scrubs with a stethoscope.  Her and Jaemin would make great medical partners.

 She's laughing because too little girls next to Chase cracked the safe, but Chase couldn't.

Grants Farm

Some guy was nice enough to take a picture after he saw us trying the group selfie.

It's so funny as kids get older

They begin to change and you begin to see their personality that's inborn, for better or worse.  Jaemin just gets better with age.  He's so funny, so cute and so sweet!  Brian and I were just talking on the way back from Texas how Jaemin can misbehave, but then he flashes that smile at you and you just melt.  He has a great smile and loves to hug and kiss mommy.  I'm so glad he's so attached from me.  Sometimes it's hard when you realize that you and your husband haven't been away, alone, in many, many years....I think around 11 now.  I mean, I know people outside of sensory may not understand, but Jaemin would not do well if I left for a couple of days.  And sometimes that's hard wondering when you can get away to work on your marriage.  But I also know it's for the best for Jaemin and it's only temporary  We just absolutely love Jaemin more than words can say.  He was such a blessing and I couldn't think God enough for him.

Home is good!

I have some pictures of the last day of swimming.  Jaemin had become such a great swimmer.  He's going to love his swimming lessons in a couple of weeks.  He just jumps in the pool and doesn't worry.  But, now we're home.  We drove 14 1/2 hours straight with stops to eat, gas and potty.  We made really good time and I'm almost done with all the laundry now.  The girls went off to summer school this morning and Cole will join them tomorrow.  He's there for tutoring though, through the A+ program.  Then, he wrestles every night.  The boys are just outside right now making up for lost time in the woods and with the pups.  The pups really missed them.  The kittens have grown a lot in a week and are already scared of people.  They're only 6 weeks old and we've been gone the last week.  That's a large part of their life.  Back to work tomorrow and regular life, but a vacation is such a good thing.

Now, we can say we're planning to go to Korea, next vacation and hopefully in just 12 months.  I'm counting...yes I am.  :)  After that long of a drive we have a better idea of what will work for Jaemin.  First, he must have mommy to hold.  He cried part of the drive because I was in the front and he wanted me to hold him.  Second....as many movies or videos as we can fit on an iPod!  Lots of stickers.  Stickers were a hit with a doodle pad.  I think I'm good now.

The fat lady has sung

It's time to go home.  They let us check out tonight so we can leave before they open tomorrow.  We're hoping to make it in before 10 tomorrow.  It's going to be a LONG day.  We got one last day of swimming in, we're all packed back up with loads of laundry (nothing new) and got officially lost in San Antonio and the TomTom was no help.  But we got to try Whataburger and it was pretty decent for fast food.  See MO tomorrow.....happily.

The only bad part of our trip

We only had one bad thing happen so far.  It was at the beginning, but it's just about fixed.  We stayed at a hotel in OK and we let the kids swim the night we were there.  They were in the pool, maybe, an hour.  Chelsi said her eyes were burning and they were all red.  So we left and showered.  In the shower I couldn't not get the sticky gunk out of the girls' hair.  I washed it several times with everything I could find and it was sticky and felt like straw.  I told the hotel staff as we left the next morning that they had too much chlorine because the girls' swimsuits also completely faded out.  I mean more than I've ever seen fade with years of wear.  He said it couldn't have because it's salt water.  But, he said the heater was just worked on and he wondered if they accidentally put chemicals in it.  I told him I just wanted him to know because Chelsi had burns on her shoulders from it plus the hair and swimsuit damage.  We left and when we arrived in San Antonio we had a survey from the hotel.  I finally filled it out online and mentioned the pool problem there.  The manager contacted us right away.  She reimbursed us, completely, for the stay and then offered to let us stay free if we pass back through....which we're not.  She told us they shut down the pool because the salt level was at 65% which she was then told makes it act like bleach.  No kidding....it turned Chelsi's black hair reddish brownish blackish.  She also contacted her hair stylist friend so find out what we could do with her hair or we were going to have to cut off 7 inches of damage.  They told us to get a cholesterol treatment and leave-in conditioner.  I took her to a local place called Alamo cuts to cut off the worst of it at the tips and they cut about 1 1/2 inches.  They said it was pretty bad damage and basically dried out her hair almost to her scalp.  It stripped it.  Kaelin's was damaged, but not near to the extent Chelsi's was.  That place told us to get the cholesterol treatment, leave-in conditioner and a clarifying shampoo to keep any further chlorine or salt from the week from making things worse.  We also had to go to Kohls to buy new swimsuits for them as soon as we got here.  Luckily the lady in front of us was nice enough to ask if we needed her coupon.  Saved us 15%.

Today the hotel told us they were paying for everything we had to do from the damage.  Luckily so because the stuff that we had to buy at Sally's was pretty expensive.  They're paying for all of that, the cut and the swimsuits.  They were nice enough to just offer it up because of the severity of what the pool did and they said they were fixing it before it happened to anyone else.  We used the treatments yesterday and they worked great.  Chelsi's hair is a little strawish still and Kaelin's just barely, but it's a ton better!  I had never heard of this stuff before, but we can finally brush through her hair.  Situation rectified.  :0)

More Sea World

I'm not near as tired today as I was Wednesday.  Aquatica was a lot more relaxing.  I rode several slides with the kids....big and little kids.  We got there, again, when they opened at 10 and closed it at 6.  We left Aquatica to go back to Sea World.  The big kids wanted to get in more roller coaster riding.  Aquatica is pretty nice, but I have to admit I screamed pretty bad on the zero gravity slide.  The kids were laughing at me.  Chelsi was definitely braver on the water slides than at the Sea World Park.  Jaemin LOVED the water slides.  My little thrill seeker enjoys it all.  He went on Sting Ray Falls with Kaelin, Chelsi and I and loved it!  He wanted to go again, but it was a 45 minute wait and not quite worth that, so he stayed on the smaller slides.  Chelsi was actually tall enough for quite a few slides and some were in completely dark tunnels.  She never got scared of that and really liked it.  No one got burned.  Major accomplishment after staying out in it all day.  We used our .99 drink refills some more and got the Discover Dollars bracelets again, which works well when the worker that loads it actually puts your bracelet number in.  Poor Brian ended up having to be the one to refill all the time because mine didn't work.

We went back to Sea World about 4 and it was starting to die down.  We took the little kids to see Shamu again while the big kids said they got to ride the roller coasters about 10 more times in less than 2 hours.  The Shamu show was different today than Wednesday.  It was 4 whales this time and a lot more splashing.  We got WET.  Jaemin thought that was pretty neat.  The little kids rode the Shamu roller coaster (Chelsi did) and Jaemin rode  the Merry Go Round.  He really, really did well considering how tired he had to be.  He ran hard.  They went to the sting rays and petted them.  Jaemin really loved that.  He couldn't wait to touch one and when we rode Sting Ray Falls you go under them and can see them above you.  We went back for the dolphins right before they closed and Chelsi really enjoyed talking to a little boy who laid on the rocks beside her and informed her all about the dolphins.  They got pretty close, but without food, not close enough.  We did get splashed by them playing though.  Jaemin liked that. 

We ordered pizza to be delivered as we were leaving Sea World and it was perfectly waiting for us as we finished showers.  2 large pizzas are more than enough to fill us after running all day.  Too hot and tired to eat.  Cheapest we've gotten off all week.

We have one more day left.  It's almost over and it has been SO nice.  So nice just to be able to go against everything we normally do.  We got to just enjoy things and let the kids do things without worrying too much.    We vowed just to relax and not worry about the normal worries and it's been nice.  Tomorrow we will just hang out here, swim and relax before we leave early Sunday.  Thank goodness we are fortunate to have this vacation.  I think it's very needed and very nice and I LOVE watching Jaemin see things he's never seen before and watching the kids enjoy things we don't usually afford them to.  Jaemin watching the whales and wanting to go back to see the dolphins and touching the sting rays are just priceless.

BTW, the picture of Jaemin with his headphones is a picture I found on my phone from the way to San Antonio, last week.  The one of him sleeping in the van is after we left Sea World today.  He conked out on the short walk to the van.  :)

Fish are Friends Not Food....all about Sea World San Antonio

We had a great time....really.  Minimal fighting between the parents and all 5 kids, which really, with 7, that's pretty good......7 very different personalities.  The kids are tired, but they said it was worth our money.  :)   Good thing Grandma let us use her condo trade to stay here or it would be a vacation a lot closer to home and less expensive.  They're very fortunate, so are we.

We got there a little before 9:30 and the gates opened at 10.  We immediately went to feed the dolphins again.  Jaemin LOVED the dolphins.  Then we road a couple of rides and watched Shamu.  We did stop for the sea lion show for a minute, but Jaemin was confused and kept asking where the lions were.  He was expecting these big ferocious beasts....ya know.  Jaemin was pretty impressed with Shamu too. We didn't get wet, but he did like waving to him.  At one point the whale stuck his tongue out at us and Jaemin stuck his out, back at Shamu.  It was pretty cute.  Jaemin liked spending time in the kiddie ride section.  Apparently he loves roller coasters!  One of his all time favorite places in the park was standing in the splash zone of Journey to Atlantis.  He could wait there all day since every 5 minutes you get drenched by the ride.  I mean sopping wet, but he loved that.  Another day with nothing but a 20 minute nap.  I must say he did pretty well overall with only a couple minor melt downs.  We didn't watch anymore shows.....just road rides all day.  While it wasn't a packed park, the Quick Queue tickets still got us in a little quicker than plain ole' waiting.  You could tell when a show let out because the water ride lines would get much, much longer.  They probably bought us about 5 more rides each.  Which made it worth it.  I will say that the rides are WAY too far away from each other.  Moreso than the Orlando park, which meant these passes were worth even more because we could just turn around and go back through the exit and reride that much quicker before moving onto the next ride.    The boys made the most of the day and rode the heck out of the roller coasters and from time-to-time would meet up with us to ride some water rides together.

We also bought 2 refill drinks for $8 and $7.  This allows us to fill up for $.99 as much as we want as opposed to $2.69/drink and split it between all 7 of us.  They don't really let you bring things in, so we managed to get in 2 waters, but they quickly turned warm and the drinking fountains weren't very cold.  Even buying water was expensive and we can use our refillables when we go back to Aquatica on Friday.  In all it was $550 for the 2 days for 7 people.  No one got in free, we came out with a tshirt for Jaemin and a bracelet for Cole.  We did take advantage of the bracelets you can get where you give them your credit card and the rest of the day you don't need to find it back.  They just scan your bracelet.  This will come in even more handy at Aquatica.  Who wants to carry that stuff around a waterpark?  We can lock everything else up (the keys and wallets) for the day.

Great time.....5 minute drive from our condo.  Came back to salami sandwiches and we're off to swim again tonight.  Jaemin, however, it WORN slick and will be staying in for a movie with Brian.  :)