Julia and Emily's World

Today is Papere's birthday. We went to their house for dinner. Julia had sang happy birthday and ate cake (i.e. icing). After dinner Aunt Weezie took Julia out to play in the sprinkler. What a HOT day!

On Saturday we went to the zoo to enjoy the great weather. Julia was excited to see all the animals. She particularly enjoyed the animals that she could identify. Her favourite was the monkeys. Most of the animals seemed to be sleeping for some reason. Too hot? After the zoo we went to Grandma and Papa's house for dinner. Cousins Selena and Mya were there too. Julia actually went swimming this time. She had fun despite continually asking to get out. After dinner the kids went for a "train" ride (TTC's RT). Julia thought that was great. On Sunday we went to the Mandarin to celebrate Papere's birthday. Tomorrow we will celebrate his actual birthday with cake and presents. Julia is looking forward to that.

Julia loves to sing. Here are a few clips of her singing in the tub. The first two is her practicing for Papere's upcoming birthday.

Here is a video of our walk from our hotel room to the elevator. We aren't even at the end of the hall! Here is a 360 view in the Valley of Fire National Park. No one to be seen.

Mommy and I took off to Las Vegas for four nights this week. Julia stayed with Grandma and Papere. She has a great time and was well behaved (at least that's their story and they're sticking to it). Julia had lots of Dora time (videos and books) which drove Papere insane. Now Papere can feel my Dora pain. Las Vegas was HOT!!! It was over 38C every day that we were there. Night time temperatures were around 32C. We stayed at MGM Grand. It is nice but way too big. Too much walking just to get around within the hotel. Old people would hate it there (stick to Imperial Palace). Of course we lost money. We rented a Jeep for two days. We went to Valley of Fire national park. It has awesome outcroppings of red rocks. A weird looking place. It was around 75 miles from Vegas in the middle of nowhere. It's a strange feeling being out in the desert with not a soul in sight. The nicest casino washrooms...The Wynn. Granite sink basins! Wow! Here are some pictures. Video...

I'm way late with this post but here are some pictures of Mother's Day at Grandma K's house. First we visited Mama. She is doing great. Then we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and went back to Grandma's to celebration Mother's day and Grandma's birthday. Selena and Mya were there so Julia had lots of fun.

Well it's been awhile since our last post. Let me see if I can remember what's been happening. Julia's mystery illness seems to have passed now. We stopped giving her any vapour treatments on Friday. She really hasn't coughed since then. We're still not sure what she had. Bronchitis? Ear infection? Who knows. She's healthy now. On Saturday we went for Chinese food with Papere, Grandma and Aunt Weezie. We were celebrating Grandma's birthday since we couldn't go out during the week. We all ate well. Monday was Julia's first day back to school in 11 days. She didn't miss a beat. She was right back into her school routine. Today Julia participated in the "Kids Helping Kids" Walkathon (or "Wagonathon"). Julia and her classmates were out this morning for a 30 minute stroll. It was a great day to be outside! Thanks everyone for the pledges. This weekend is Grandma K's birthday. We will be going to visit on Saturda...

We got a call from the doctor's office today. The results of Julia's test show that she does NOT have pneumonia. This is good news but it gave us a bit of a scare on Monday. Better safe than sorry I guess. She is still doing the vapour thing until her cough gets better but we are reducing the frequency. At this point I think she will benefit more by sleeping through the night. Tomorrow she is going to stay home with Grandma again just to be safe and then back to school on Monday.

Today we went to Grandma's house to celebrate her birthday. What a nice day. We ate dinner out on the deck. Julia spent the day with Grandma and Papere. She seems to be doing well although she is still coughing. Other than that she has been her normal self.

This is from yesterday. Julia sings Happy Birthday to Daddy.

Julia is feeling better. Less coughing, no fever. She is getting use to the mask and even said "I like this. It makes a funny noise.". She even holds the mask to her face herself. She's not crazy about being woken up in the middle of the night. We have to do this twice a night. I stayed home today to do the mask thing and give her the antibotics. Tomorrow Grandma will take over those duties. Thanks Grandma! Today was my birthday. We had cake and Julia sang Happy Birthday to me (video to come later).

Julia went to the doctor's today. It was not an ear infection causing the fever, it is pneumonia. The doctor first checked her ears for an infection but they were clear. Since she had a bad cough and runny nose along with the fever the doctor suspected pneumonia. Julia had to get a chest x-ray which she HATED. This confirmed the chest infection. She is now on antibiotics and has to use a vapour machine with a mask. This gives her a steriod to reduce the inflammation in her lungs and a bronchodialator to help her breathing. This has to be done EVERY 4 HOURS for an entire WEEK! We did it the first time tonight and she was ok with it but since she was watching Dora at the same time. I'm not sure how she will like it in the middle of the night. We have to get her up twice during the night. On top of that, the antibiotics that she is taking doesn't taste good so we may have to bribe her with other treats. No school until this is cleared up because it is contagious if...

Julia has been sick for the past few days. She has a bad cold (coughing and runny nose) and has had a fever too. The fever has been better today (around 99-100). Ear infection? Maybe. She woke up one night with a high fever and said her ear hurts. She stayed home from school on Friday and stayed with Grandma. Yesterday Mommy and I went to a wedding so Julia spent the day with Grandma. Grandma brough her home later for dinner/bath/bed. Uncle Louis is coming over for dinner later today.

Not too much happened this weekend. The rain kept us inside most of the time. Lots of Dora, reading books, looking at old pictures... We went to lunch with Grandma, Papere and Aunt Weezie today. Golden Griddle. Julia was in underwear this afternoon. It was a so-so success. Although she went on the potty one time she had two accidents. Once in the kitchen and another time in her room. We'll keep trying. The good thing is that she really doesn't like to have accidents so she is at least trying.

Today we had Easter dinner at Grandma and Papere's house. Grandma K and Papa were also there. There was LOTS of food. The weather was nice so we got to spend some time outside too.

Today we went to Grandma and Papa's condo for Easter. It started out badly. On the way into the condo we dropped one of the Easter baskets because it was so windy out. Unfortunately it rolled into the driveway and a car ran it over. The driver actually saw the basket, slowed down and then proceeded to squash it! How rude is that? Squashing a kid's Easter basket...Happy Easter A-Hole! So Nathan didn't get a basket (sorry Nathan). The first thing we did was go SWIMMING in the pool! Julia was so excited. She was talking about it earlier in the day, "I'm going swimming at Grandma's!". The problem was that her vision of a swimming pool was 3ft in diameter and 6 inches deep not a REAL swimming pool! She did not like it at all. We only stayed in for a few minutes. The rest of the cousins loved it. The rest of the evening was fun for everyone. Good food, ducky game, playing on the balcony, chocolates! Julia was whipped by the end of the night. She sl...

Today we made Easter Eggs! Julia had fun dipping them into the colours and putting stickers on them. In the afternoon we walked to Grandma and Papere's house to deliver the eggs to Grandma, Papere and Auntie Weezie. We stayed for supper too. Julia walked half-way each way so that's around 1km each way. Not bad. A couple of falls on the way back but she was getting pretty tired. Yesterday the "Easter Bunny" visited the school and handed out stickers. Julia says "That's Michelle". She's not easily fooled.