A Quick Update

Sorry I haven't been sharing updates-- with the work it's taken to get the family out here and settled I've been kept hopping, and then since they've arrived we've been hitting the sights pretty hard the past couple of weeks. In the past week alone we've toured the Newport RI Mansions (Breakers and Elms), Boston's Fenway Park, the New England Aquarium, whale watching on the Atlantic Ocean, Boston's Old State House, hiked to a quiet beach at the end of a forested trail and collected shells, the Jack o Lantern Spectacular at the Roger Williams Zoo in RI, the famous Boston Duck Tour (on an amphibious vehicle that all of our kids got to practice driving while on the Charles River portion of the trip,) Eden's birthday picnic dinner at the Quincy Market "Hall of Feasts" (our own name we've dubbed the huge food court hallway), Plimouth Plantation (an authentically researched and recreated 17th century village as close as possible to the original Plymouth colony site, filled with live actors who were quite impressive in their roles as townspeople in the interactive village), Boston's Science Museum, cranberry bogs during harvest, and the Westport Family Farm Harvest Festival.  So grateful for free passes and discounts at many of these places thanks to various tips, research and (in the case of the Science Museum) gifts from the hospital family center.  2-year-old Gideon's headcold also passed to Audrey last weekend. She is still receiving weekly dilation procedures under general anesthesia; last week's went fine, she had constricted some and he gave her her third round of steroid injections and took her back to a 12mm opening, still shy of the 15mm goal. She came down with the bug last weekend and has been steadily recovering, she is her perky self again, so this morning I got up at 3:45 am, showered and drove her in to Boston in order to be at the pre op waiting room at 6:15, but the anesthesiologist listened to her lungs and heard some wheezing with mild chest retractions, so her procedure was canceled and we were sent upstairs to pulmonology. She had a giant wet sneeze in the pulmonologist's office (it was really funny, actually) and after that there was no more sign of wheezing or retracting, but the doctor said that any wheezing whatsoever was treated proactively in these kids with the same asthma medications we were so used to in Eden as a baby. Many frustrating hours of logistics and pharmacies later--including a trip to the compounding pharmacy in New Bedford, thanks again Wendy B who gave me the tip to go there for our difficult-to-fill compound prescription!-- I finally got to rejoin my cute kids who had been enjoying a warm day at the green and lovely rental house in Westport. Justin has had a lot on his plate for work still and continues to juggle those responsibilities between and sometimes in the midst of our playtime, much the way I'm still managing the logistics and sundry details of Audrey's appointments, meds and much of her care. But between his conference calls this evening we cooked a nice dinner on the barbeque, had lots of discussions with the kids about important decisions and prayers and thoughts for our 11-year-old EA/TEF friend Aliyah who had major surgery today, and took some gorgeous photos of the sunset over the water. Heading to an early bedtime. Love to you all! Thank you for your prayers and help!!