Vacation!

Mike decided he was tired of waiting around for the CWA to strike and said the heck with it, we're going on vacation. So we booked a cabin in the Smoky Mountains and headed out on June 20, with an overnight stay with Mike's brother and family in southeast Missouri. We returned Saturday the 27th. We spent a week in Pigeon Forge and had a great time just getting away, especially considering the heat wave we escaped here. Cabin rental is the way to go when you have kids. The boys had their own bedroom with twin beds, we were upstairs in a master suite, and we had a full kitchen, air hockey table, our choice of gas and charcoal grills, and a hot tub (though we never used it). We lucked into a good deal by booking last-minute.

Here's a quick summary of our vacation:

Sunday: arrived around 5:30, checked in, ate dinner
Monday: Dollywood
Tuesday: Smoky Mountain National Park, including the North Carolina side
Wednesday: Splash Country, dinner at the cabin, Smoky Mountains again
Thursday: WonderWorks, tubing on the river (Mike and Dominick)
Friday: Dollywood
Saturday: drove home

Dominick's favorite part was Dollywood, Mike's was tubing, mine was the Smoky Mountain National Park, and Noel's was throwing rocks into creeks and down steep embankments.

I have almost 300 photos to go through, but I'm planning to post some soon. Right now I'm just thankful to have a working computer again. When we came home, the computer appeared to have died, but Mike took it apart and repaired it last night. Whew!

Birthmark treatment update

Yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from Noel's dermatologist's office informing us that our new insurance covers pulsed-dye laser treatment of his birthmark. Mercy is smart enough to realize that removal of a port-wine stain from the face, especially one near the eyes, is not a cosmetic procedure. Why couldn't GHP get that?

While this is certainly good news, I'm feeling a little conflicted, mainly because I don't love the idea of putting Noel under general anesthesia 6-8 times. Maybe I'm also so used to his appearance now that I don't want to change it. I mean, could he be any cuter? But I know that treating the birthmark is in his best interest, obviously for Noel's self-esteem but also to prevent it from worsening. Doing so sooner rather than later means less disruption for him (imagine him going to school with bruising after a treatment) and a greater chance that he won't remember much of the experience or the birthmark. I just saw some before-and-after photos of kids who have undergone laser treatment for port-wine stains, most of them far worse than Noel's, and the results are amazing. Of course now I can't find the web page to share!

So I think we're probably going to go ahead with the treatment but wait until the first of next year. Even though it's covered, we'll still have a deductible and 10% copayments for each treatment, so we have to set up our health spending account accordingly.

New toy

Something that's been on our list a while...

You've got to love Craigslist. We're still working on the enclosure, but in the meantime the boys are having a blast. We just have to keep a close eye on them so that nobody gets launched off the trampoline.

Crib for sale

Lately, Noel has been coveting Dominick's bed, so much that every naptime and bedtime, he's run and jumped into it. For a couple of weeks, we've searched antique malls, garage sales, and Craigslist (haunting it, actually) for a twin bed. We wanted to find one in a style and wood tone similar to Dom's, preferably with footboard, rails and mattress included, and not too far from Webster Groves. (Hauling was going to require the use of a friend's truck.) The right bed hadn't shown up yet.

My neighbor Judy was back in town for two days from Rhode Island (Dominick asked, "Does it have a lot of roads?"), where she's been on a year-long sabbatical/fellowship that she has extended through next summer. Before leaving today, she mentioned offhand that she had a complete twin bed in her garage. Ooh!, I thought. I said we might be interested in it if it was compatible with Dominick's existing bed, so she showed me the bed. Well, take a look at this:

On the right is Dominick's bed, and on the left is what is now Noel's bed. It certainly fit our criteria, and all we had to do was fetch it from the garage next door. How easy is that? Now I have some shopping and/or sewing to do: pillow, bedskirt, comforter, sham, etc.

The boys were very excited about this new development. I suppose it's a pretty big milestone, moving out of a crib and into a big bed. They're growing up so quickly. [sigh] As expected, Noel has had trouble staying in his bed tonight. May the novelty soon wear off! In the meantime, anyone need a crib?