We're finally back from our nearly month long vacation and done with laundry so time for blog catch-up. We managed to cram a lot of family, activities, and miles (about 65+ hours) into our trip so prepare for a long travel log with a slew of pictures. As usual, I can't afford to miss a memory.
My nine-yr-old nephew, David was diagnosed with
Hirschsprungs Disease and had to go in for a surgery to bypass the colon in hopes that it would heal itself if gone unused for a few months. The surgery was scheduled for Thursday, July 28th and he needed to stay overnight at the hospital. I offered to drive up to Dallas with my kids for a few days to stay with my brother's other three children. We (the kids and I) got to Jesse's in Grand Prairie Wednesday night. David watched patiently as we ate pizza for dinner while he sipped broth. He hadn't eaten solids in several days in preparation for this surgery and was still sweet and brave. Thursday morning Jesse, Deborah, and David headed to the hospital and the rest of us went to see the movie "Brave," and played at the neighborhood park.(I really wanted to insert a "Brave" movie poster here with David's head in the girl's place for Dave the brave but I lack the skills so just picture it with me and giggle).
Friday I was able to use the last day on our family museum membership
to get us into the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science. We got the membership in San Antonio but it is good at hundreds of national science museums . So we all got in for free! We had fun and spent most the day there. I was trying to make it last so David could come home to a quiet house and settle in.
The museum is on the Texas State Fairgrounds and has a lagoon behind the building. It's a pretty and unique little area.
My little nephew, James, was anxious to go outside to run on "the snake paths" they have on both ends of the lagoon. Luckily the other one had more walls and less water.
Josh and Andrew, awesome boys on the wholly mammoth tusk.
Notice the single, grubby flip-flop? In the morning rush out the door I hollered out instructions to everyone to go potty, get shoes and get in the car. I stuffed food in a bag and filed kids into the car. After driving the half hour to the museum I opened the door and found Andrew with no shoes on. I wasn't about to drive back for them so I dug out an old, broken flip-flop out of the car, slipped it on and made him go through the museum like that. I'm sure it added to the irresponsible parent look I was accumulating with my reckless hoard of unkempt children but one proclaiming of "I'm Andrew. I did on purpose" from my "I'm too awesome for my shoes" preschooler and hopefully humor and understanding would displace all judgement. But in all reality, the kids were amazingly good and I was surprised all week how easy it ended up being for me to take 6 kids out by myself. They are good kids who genuinely enjoy being together and I had oldest sisters there to herd and help and the kids were mature enough to understand the situation and the importance of their being good.
When we got back to the house that evening David was not there and we found out that he was throwing up all the food he was eating and he couldn't come home yet. He ended up staying in the hospital about 10 days as they stuck tubes down his nose to pump his stomach, intravenously fed him and tried to figure out what was up with this kid. Turns out his overstretched colon was squishing his small intestine and backing everything up so they went back into surgery to move that stinker colon out of the way. So we stretched out our stay as well and enjoyed a fun week of playing with cousins.
