Ten days vacation..

Ten thoughts about our Ten Day Vacation  (written by Kylie (her words typed by Mom) and Tricia)


10.  10 days on the road visiting 3 states, over 2,000 miles on the rental car (which was jammed packed with bags and things) and staying in four hotels. That's like 1 million minutes in the car.

9.    Eating out for every meal, I am personally not a fan but Kylie thought it was the coolest thing.  I ate pancakes nine out of ten days! My favorite pancakes were ALL of them.

8. Trying / Experiencing new things. I saw lightning bugs for the first time, June bugs,  paddle boating, mountains,  deer up close, swimming (attempted to) in Lake Michigan and the Lincoln Park Zoo.

7. Great Wolf Lodge - what a cool fun place to spend a few days.  I loved every slide and going again and again and again. 

6. GPS Gene - If I have been there once I know how to get there again.  Um, not the case!

5. Corn Fields - They are endless, seriously people that is all I saw for hours!!  Made me hungry though for some corn on the cob, cornbread, corn casserole, what about corn salsa?  I started to think up recipes.

4. Top Hits.  After almost 22 hours in the car, Dad and I knew the rotation of songs on Sirius Hits One.  It's funny when your Dad starts singing When I see you again and knows all the words.  

3.  Seeing / Meeting Great Grandpa and Great Grandma.  Unfortunately, my Grandpa (Kylie's Great Grandpa) has been in the hospital for a few weeks so we went to stop and visit with him and my Grandma. I prepared Kylie for seeing someone in the hospital as so far she hasn't seen anyone in a hospital besides herself.  I forgot to tell her he had an amputated leg and the first thing she saw when the nurse came in to check on him was he was missing a leg. She also saw him receiving dialysis and I explained what that meant to her.    I saw his fake leg and met their dogs Lucy, Charlie Brown and Ana.  That Ana was crazy. Great Grandpa said I talked a lot and I called him George, he smiled.  Great Grandma gave me some dolls her name is Patricia like my Mom.

2.  Everyone is your cousin.  Okay well not really.  However, we (the cousins) had a hard to explaining to our kids who everyone was so we decided saying that they are your cousin was the easiest.  It is so awesome to see the next generation all playing together like we all did!  Brody (he liked to dance with me and play hide and go seek), Nicholas (he liked to throw the glow sticks and helped me catch bugs), Zoe (shared dancing a), Dalton (he danced all night), Baby Oliver (not a cousin nor a baby) , Baby Ethan (he came to the wedding in a basket) and Nicholas' brothers (Matthew and Lucas -they were tall)

1.  Attending two weddings! 

Katie (my cousin - no really she is) married her soulmate Shawn in West Virginia.  Almost 15 years (WOW I feel old) ago Katie was a flower girl in our wedding and a week ago she walked down the aisle, with an amazing backdrop of trees and mountains and a lake (something us Florida girls don't see everyday),  embarking on the next chapter in her life.  They had by far the coolest and best tasting wedding Pi cake ever!    Katie's wedding was awesome and they had candy and I danced all night.  And glow sticks (I am still carrying those in my purse.. I am thinking they don't still work but she wants to keep them in her memory book). 

Dani married her soulmate Justin in Chicago.  Dani was in our wedding as a Junior Bridesmaid.  Dani is Kylie's godmother and Kylie was a flower girl in her wedding.  Dani met her husband on Match.com (it does work!)  I didn't get to throw the flowers I had to carry them by my belly button and make sure the ring helper made it down the aisle. I got ready with all the girls for the wedding and my feet hurt after the wedding so I wore my pink flip flops.

Here is our wedding with Katie being the flower girl closest to my bouquet and Dani is to her right.  I am so proud of both of them for the women they have become.

We had an amazing 10 days with a lot of laughs!  I can admit I am so happy that tonight I don't have to dig through a suitcase to lay out my outfit for tomorrow.  This was an amazing trip one that I surely won't forget! or will Kylie! I think I convinced Kylie not to get married until she is 41, phew!! Thank you to all... now good night!

Not missing a beat

Did anyone notice we are already half way through June?  Where exactly did this month go already? Summer is going to fly by with a blink of a eye! 

We haven't missed a beat in the Lum household.  We are trying to enjoy every second of the summer and then some.  Sleep is not necessary but hours of fun and family time is! Now with two cochlear implants that are waterproof there is no stopping us!! 

Here is some fun we had at a recent Luau Party...

 Welcome to the Luau Party! 

Olaf by the Pool

The Small Frog Splash Slide

The Large Slide .. First by herself than Daddy's turn

Spider Man

Tug of War

Dunk Tank.. Kylie was taunting the kids to knock her in

Then it was Brian's Turn

The Last Day of Kindergarten

So amazing how fast time goes!!  Here is Kylie on her last day of Kindergarten, I also included the picture of the first day. We are moving up to First Grade! 

Last Day

First Day

Is the music on??

Ever since Kylie was little she has had an iPod alarm clock radio in her room.  We used to play Little Einstein’s songs, Jewel, Enya songs to soothe her to sleep.  We felt the music did the job, perhaps because we fell asleep listening to it through the monitor.

In the last few weeks we have left her room confused, sad and perplexed.  Every night she says her goodnights, tells you what she wants for breakfast the next day, the book she wants to read tomorrow night, the order of the activities for the day, whatever it may be.  Then she gives you a hug and kisses and says goodnight.  Lastly she takes off her princess ears.  The last few weeks after she takes off the princess ears she looks right at you and says, “Did you turn the music on?” 

Think about it for a second, she can’t hear anything.  She has to ask you if you turned it on because she can’t hear it to validate if it is on or not and you stand there thinking. What do you do?? One side says you could say sure is and off you go but that would wrong.  You turn it on even though she can’t hear it because that is the right thing to do.  So tonight as we walked out of her room we set the sleep timer and on came the music maybe more for our benefit than hers.  However, she can’t go to sleep at night if the music isn’t on.  In her mind it is a check off her list before she goes to sleep.  Blanket – Check, Kisses – Check, Music on Check.  Sleep is next.  While it does leave us perplexed… she is always Smiley Kylie!