Lucy had a rough (or ruff) day yesterday. She was on her way to frolic outside when her paw got caught in the storm door and gouged it deeply. There was blood everywhere. Mike immediately took action and called our friend, Jenny the Veterinarian, to ask what to do to stitch Lucy up. Not surprisingly, Mike had all the right tools and solutions on hand to get the job done. Lucy was also a very good patient.

Here’s what the wound looked like before the surgery.

Mike mixed up a concoction to use as an irrigation solution and fashioned a water bottle to be a squirt bottle.

You may want to divert your eyes if you’re not comfortable with watching someone put a needle through one’s skin.

Lucy was amazingly calm throughout the procedure.

All stitched up with 3 sutures.

Lucy is not happy with the bandaging, but now she and her mommy having matching, left footwear.

Lucy has actually been really great since having her “cast” installed. She has only been told once to stop licking it. In fact, Lucy has been taking it easy since the incident just wanting to cuddle and lie around.

In other news, yesterday was a fabulous day to be outside. It got up in the high 70’s and was sunny. Mike decided it was a good time to mow the lawn. Good thing, too, because it’s raining today. The girls always love the opportunity to ride with their daddy.

It has become clear that not only I but Mike would also have no idea what to do with a boy in this family. Case in point, Mike purchased a little girl version of Lee Press-On nails for Annie and Mimi last night while out picking up a prescription at Walgreens. There was no coercion from the girls, it was all his idea. Apparently, Mike was in a particularly girlish mood because Lucy then got an update for her nail colors as well.

As difficult as it was to leave sunny and warm Florida, we did so and with much fierceness. Mike was determined to travel the whole way home without stopping overnight at a hotel. The girls and I were resistant to the cause, but Mike prevailed. We ended up pulling into our driveway at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning after 21 straight hours of motoring. It was a bittersweet defeat for me, but I have to admit it was nice to sleep in my own bed and have all of Sunday to get settled back into the Hawley way of life.

I’m sure your interested in hearing about our actual trip and not just about the drive home. We weren’t set to start our adventures Disney until Monday, so we arrived Saturday evening at the Smiths’ home and spent the rest of the weekend with them. We had a lovely Easter with them including an egg hunt and delicious dinner. Unfortunately for me, I was plagued with a sore throat and an inability to breathe out of my nose making life a bit miserable, but Mike and the girls had a wonderful time. The Smith girls were so patient with Annie and Mimi and played with them for our entire visit. Thanks to the Smiths for having us!

The girls with their egg treasures.

Rozzie and Maddie are getting too big.

Monday morning we got up bright and early and started our trek to Orlando. First on our list was to visit Epcot. We actually checked in to the hotel first and didn’t get to Epcot until almost lunchtime, but we were able to hit up all the things we wanted to see and do there. The grand finale of the evening though was our dinner at Princess Storybook Dining at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall where the girls got to meet most of the Disney princesses. It was very exciting for them. Mike’s favorite part (for possibly the entire trip) was the “Living with the Land” boatride. It features several greenhouses and some interesting plants such as a tomato tree, spirally grown lettuce, and Mickey-shaped pumpkins and cucumber. Mike was taking a lot of mental notes about how he may want to one day grow some of his plants.

Had to get the girls with the infamous Epcot icon.

I remember these “spitting” fountains from when I was a kid. Mimi looks like she’s going to get soaked, but the water is actually in front of her.

It was hard getting the girls out of this area. They loved jumping on each instrument “tile” to make that instrument play.

Mike was really sore at me for only taking this one picture of “Living with the Land”. Sorry, Mike.

The most magical part of our time at Disney: meeting the princesses.

We discovered that our Disney 5-day passes didn’t include the waterparks, so we decided to spend 2 days at Magic Kingdom. Boy are we glad we did because it took that long to get through everything we had to see/do. Tuesday was our first day there, and it was rainy and chilly all day. We managed to spend most of the time on indoor rides/attractions. Once in a while we could sneak in an outside ride long enough between rainy streaks. Another great part of trying to spend time inside was meeting many of the characters at Town Square Exposition Hall. We also got to see some more characters at other parks and even met up with some of the princesses we had already met. The girls didn’t seem to notice that those princesses were being played by different ladies at different parks. Day 2 at Magic Kingdom was perfect weatherwise, and everything was checked off our list by the end of the day. I was even able to talk Mike into a ride on “It’s a Small World”. Man, that song really does get stuck in your head. However, it was a little bit of payback because on Day 1 Mike insisted on riding on “Carousel of Progress” for which we managed to get Fast Passes included as a “bonus” with some other Fast Passes. It was more irritating than “It’s a Small World” and has an even more annoying and head-sticky theme song. The girls were great about riding the big kid rides. As long as it had more than a 40″ minimum height requirement, then we let the girls ride on it. They even rode on Big Thunder Mountain twice.

The girls loved Minnie’s House.

They also loved being able to ride with Mommy in the wheelchair.

Notice that the people surrounding Mike and the girls are wearing ponchos. It was very wet that day.

The girls were disappointed that we couldn’t actually go inside Cinderella’s castle.

I actually managed to get a shot of Mike and the girls on Splash Mountain. They are in the back seat, and Mike is wearing yellow.

Slap Cinderella’s name on it, and a carousel ride seems much more exciting to little girls.

The girls were quite ecstatic about riding the Dumbo ride. Mike and I quickly figured out that this ride is recycled several times throughout the parks, namely Aladdin’s carpet ride, Astro Orbitor, Tricera Top Spin, and many more. Oh well, the kids seemed to love all of them.

Since we had 5-day passes we decided to spend day 4 at Hollywood Studios. However, I wouldn’t recommend it for children under the age of 8 because most of the attractions/rides were for the older crowd. Plus, many of you know how much Mike despises musicals, so we didn’t spend any time with many of those offerings there. There was one “show” we did see, and that was the Indiana Jones attraction. I was actually the one who wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Just not my thing. The final thing the girls and Mike did was to ride on “the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror”. It’s a ride that takes place on an elevator and drops you randomly at different heights from as much as 13 stories. Mike was reluctant to take the girls since it looked kind of scary, but I insisted since the height minimum was 40″ (they would’ve made it higher if they wanted only older kids on it, right?). Well, I think the girls, especially Annie, were traumatized because they didn’t say much after the ride. In fact, Annie was pretty mute for the rest of the day and also hardly touched her lunch. By the end of the day they seemed to have overcome their distress though.

Like I said, there wasn’t much for us at Hollywood Studios, but we made sure to take a few pictures before we left.

On our final Disney day we headed over to Animal Kingdom. There weren’t many “rides” there unless you count the safari ride which takes place on a rustic, safari-type bus and the train ride, but the girls really enjoyed it there. I would say it was more like being at the zoo. Annie declared that it was her favorite park out of all the ones we visited. This was even after I asked her if she liked it better than Magic Kingdom. I think park of the allure was that it wasn’t as packed with Disney-goers and Mike showed a lot more enthusiasm at Animal Kingdom than any other park.

The Tree of Life was a fun feature to see.

There were lots of animals to see up close including this immodest gorilla who came up to the window just to pee.

Mike’s favorite part was the bird show.

There was even a petting zoo section. Mike noted that this goat licked the metal column the whole time we were in there.

Notice the girls’ new Minnie shirts. This is the one souvenir that we purchased for them.

And they actually got to meet Minnie Mouse while wearing them. How appropriate!

Overall, we had an amazing time. It was decided before the trip that I should rent a wheelchair for the week, and that was such a great idea. Not only did I not have to walk most of the time (thanks to Chauffeur Mike), but the wheelchair was a ticket for fast entrances to most rides. The girls also rode with me much of the time making for a quicker voyage through the busy parks.

The resort we stayed at, Disney’s All-Star Movies, was perfect for our needs. We were located in the Toy Story complex. The room itself was pretty basic, but we only spent from about 10:00 at night until morning there. Figuring we’d eat most meals at the parks we decided to sign up for the dining plan which included a snack, a counter lunch, and a sit-down dinner for each person for each day. This was definitely the way to go for us and saved us at least $30-$50 each day on meals. Breakfasts were just cereal or bagels in our room every morning so that we could use our meal plan for lunch, snack, and dinner throughout the day. Having the meal plan allowed us to dine at some of the best restaurants that the parks or Downtown Disney had to offer, and we weren’t worried about going overboard with our bill. The Akershus Restaurant bill was $150 and more expensive than what we paid for the whole day on the meal plan, but the meal plan covered it no questions asked. Mike also got to have sushi one day for lunch (which I stole a few pieces of).

In the courtyard by our complex of rooms was Woody, Buzz, Dinosaur, Little Bo Peep, and some of the other characters from Toy Story. Annie was excited that she finally got to wear her new bathing suit with matching skirt.

The girls got such a kick out of seeing how the housekeeping person would display their bunnies each day.

I’m so glad that I pushed Mike to make this trip. It really ended up being VERY inexpensive for us. The girls will have wonderful memories and pictures to look back at, and now Mike can no longer say he’s never been (and will never go) to Disney.

In case you haven’t heard the news yet. This is what the sonographer predicted for our future family of 5.

Life has been getting a bit easier with the awkward, ski boot that I must wear for a month, but I can’t move any faster than a 3-toed sloth. The other night the girls and I were in a fit of laughter because I told them I was going to race and beat them up the stairs to bed. We all giggled so much that it was hard for all of us to get up the stairs. At least everyone can enjoy themselves at my expense.

In other news, Annie has been home sick from school since Tuesday. As I mentioned before Annie had a fever/cough starting Friday through Sunday. I thought all was back to normal on Monday and Tuesday and sent Annie to school both days. Then I got a call from her school on Tuesday morning saying she had a fever of 101.4 degrees and would need to go home. Annie continued her feverish ways today, and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Apparently, there is quite a virus going around that causes a fever for several days or even weeks. I pray that she’ll be all better (and that nobody else gets sick) in time for our vacation this upcoming week.

Speaking of vacation, I haven’t mentioned it yet, but we are headed to Disney World for a week leaving this Friday. They are offering fabulous military discounts right now, so we figured now was the time to do it before baby arrives. The girls are very excited even though they have no idea what to expect. Mike purposely spilled the beans to them last week because he can’t stand keeping a secret. Fortunately, the girls have been great about not asking about it constantly. Now they are interrogating me regularly about the baby. Oh well, it’s kind of fun having kids that can understand the concept of a new baby and are actually excited about being busy, little helpers when the critter arrives.

The girls and I love the “Sound of Music”, so this was really fun to watch. We actually sing this song quite frequently together in the car. Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq6b9bMBXpg&hl

It was supposed to be a fun week. Daddy was going to be away, so us girls were going to a have good time. Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Wednesday morning brought a little drama. I was going to carpool with my neighbor to drop Mimi off at preschool, and then we were going to drive over to pick up Mike’s truck at the airport shuttle stop. On the way back into the garage to shut the door, my foot rolled as I was stepping on the stair. I heard a loud crack and knew it couldn’t be good news. Fortunately, my neighbor heard me screaming and helped me hobble back to her car. After dropping the kids off at preschool we headed over to the emergency room. As I suspected, x-rays revealed that I had a broken foot (the base of the 5th metatarsal to be exact). The ER doctor was not positive in the least. He said that it was probably the worst bone I could break in my foot and that I absolutely could NOT put any pressure on the foot or the bone would “die”. Fortunately, after visiting an orthopedic surgeon I found out that my case wasn’t so dismal and that I could have a walking cast. I am now crutch-free but am still moving much slower than usual.

Frantic, I called my mother-in-law to see if she could travel the 6+ hours to come help me and the girls, and she immediately made the decision to do so. Kathy didn’t arrive until 2:00 a.m. the next morning which I felt just awful about. She was wonderful to have here though with all the cooking, cleaning, laundry-doing that she provided us. I don’t know what I would have done without her here. Of course, life wasn’t entirely easy for us for the rest of the week. Annie developed a high fever, cough, achiness, and nausea which caused to her to have to stay home Friday from school. She was sick until Saturday night. Then the oven expired, so dinner plans had to be changed that night. The good news about that though is that we now have a new stove/oven and refrigerator being delivered on Tuesday. We were actually planning to purchase a new fridge soon anyway, and Mike and I decided it was probably time to get a new oven, too, rather than pay several hundred dollars to get it fixed. (I got to ride around in the electric cart at Lowe’s, too.)

All the while, Mike was livin’ it up in South Beach in Miami. There was nothing he could do to help, so I told him to just keep enjoying himself down there. Mike got home late Saturday evening, and Kathy headed out of town the following afternoon. I tell ya, it was a long week, but it was still nice to have Kathy around. Thanks so much for making the sacrifice, Kathy.

Daddy didn’t come home empty-handed. He brought the girls some funky nail polish. They were thrilled to get their nails painted even though the colors weren’t their typical favorite hues of pink and purple.

Even Lucy got in on the fun.