Durham Bulls

Hello again! This past Friday night we had been invited to see the Durham Bulls (Minor League Baseball - for those of you out of town) by our financial advisor (my old boss from college) - Tom Horner. We thought it would be really fun to go and take Olivia to her first game, but did not expect her to make it through the whole thing. Well, not only did she make it through the whole game (it started at 7pm, she usually goes to be between 8 and 9!), but she stayed through the fireworks! She did great and had a lot of fun. There was music and lots of people around to keep her entertained.


She even wore her Red Sox hat to the game - but it didn't make it too far into the game. But Papa Steve would have been proud!



Here she is dancing to some of the music they played:

As it was getting later, she was wearing down, but never really got cranky or anything. Here she is with Mama drinking her milk:

Tom got her a cute little Wooly Bull stuffed animal that she has been carrying around with her since. I think she really like him!

This was the first time she saw fireworks, so we weren't really sure how she'd react. Especially since we were so close to them - and they were really LOUD. She was a little uneasy at first, but then settled right in and had a good time watching them.

We didn't get out of there until about 10:30 - but unfortunately our night was LONG from over! She fell asleep not long after we left the parking garage, but she soon started coughing - a croupy cough! Uh-Oh! I got a really bad feeling and mentioned to Grant that I had a feeling that we were going to wind up in the ER again. Sure enough, less than an hour after we got home, we were heading back out to the ER! Poor little thing! She couldn't breathe at all and was so worked up that she was getting sick everywhere trying to get some air. We rushed her to the wonderful children's ER at WakeMed and they took us right in. (This is the 3rd time we've had to go there for Olivia having severe croup in the middle of the night and they've always been great with her.)

She got an oral steroid and 2 breathing treatments. We were released a little before 8am and headed home completely exhausted. I have to say that hospitals must be the most uncomfortable places to try to sleep! But, at least Olivia got the help she needed and is doing much better now. She had a bad virus with a fever most of last week (and I got to be a stay at home mommy from tues - friday with her) and even though she seemed better on fri-DAY, by that night, it decided to rear its ugly head again. All that's left of it is a little cough.

Thankfully she is much better now and back to her funny little self. Here is a funny video of her from yesterday when I first brought her home from daycare. I took it on my phone, so the quality isn't great:

I guess they were doing ring around the rosie at daycare! ha ha!

Olivia Passed the Test!

Just a short post to let you all know that I had Olivia tested for Celiac and she was negative! Yeah! This doesn't mean that she will never have it, but as of right now - it is not active in her. (It is an antibody test). So, that is great news! We are very relieved - especially since her favorite foods are mac-n-cheese, peanut butter sandwiches and graham crackers! ha ha

Busch Gardens!

We took Olivia to a very important Nelson initiation! We went to Busch Gardens with her for the first time. She's always been a daredevil at home - it was time to put that to the test to make sure she could keep up with the other roller coaster fanatics in the family. She did great! She is a wild child and loved every minute of it! She was even more fearless than Gracie (and Gracie had been before!).

Here's we are on our ride up to Williamsburg, VA:

Dancing in the car

The first ride we did was the Oscar the Grouch ride in Sesame Street Place. She LOVES Sesame Street - so this is a perfect place to start. She absolutely loved it. Here are some pics and a video to show you her reaction to her first ride:

Then she rode a couple rides with Daddy:

And some with Mama:

The girls both loved the sky lifts:


We even got to ride a couple *big kid* rides while we were there. Here are pics of us on Griffin (it was my first time - everyone else had already ridden it previously). Here are Sara and I screaming our heads off:


Here are the boys before take-off - cool as can be! (until the drops!)

Then it was time for lunch. The only way we could manage to get Gracie to eat anything other than fruit was to have Livi help . . .

The girls even got to ride one ride all by themselves! They are so big!

They decided to ride the tea cups - NOT ME! I rode them at Disney and will NEVER do it again! So, I took pictures. You can barely see Olivia - but she's in there!

It was a fun weekend and we cannot wait to go back. Olivia had a wonderful time. It made for a long, tiring overnight trip - but we had a good time. (And us ladies - Sara and I - beat the boys at spades this trip! - guess they'll want a rematch!)