Sunday, October 28 - Fall Fest at Calvary Chapel

This year Fall Fest was planned to be on Friday, October 26, but Hurricane Sandy thought otherwise of that.  With sustained winds and gusts up to 50 mph with an occasional downpour, the church thought better of it and changed the date to Sunday.  It was an awesome turnout!  I was afraid with the short notice in date change, there wouldn't be as many people there, but I was wrong.  It was a nice setup again this year.  The kids choir sang three songs in the church sanctuary and did really well.  Ashlyn knew the words to every song which brought tears to my eyes because I think it's the first time she's known all the words.  The kids had a lot of fun and Shelby got to hang out with us as we went through the trunk or treat lines.

Our old man Scout (12 years old)

Most of the kid's choir

The Sprinkles and their outdoor adventure

Lego family

An actual wagon

Kaylyn enjoyed posing on the Sprinkles kayak

Saturday, October 27 - Halloween Party

Had a Halloween party with a few friends over and it was fun.  Shawn & Jennifer brought their two boys, who played with the girls.  There was lots of food!  The costumes were cute and Tara's was my favorite.  She dressed up as a zombie who was pregnant and the baby ate its way through her tummy...the best part was that the baby doll she used was a cabbage patch!  Hilarious!

My fellow hippies Chris & Sarah

Ashlyn was Athena, I was a hippy, Kaylyn was an Indian Princess, and Wai-po was a part of the Mod Squad

 

Zombie Tara & Baby

Bryan as a militia man (fake guns of course)

Bryan killing zombie Tara

Carmine as Cookie Monster & Jen as Big Bird

The royal family Shawn, Jennifer, Tyler & Brayden

Thomas the retired tourist with a beer gut

Winnie the Pooh

Ariel

Zombie Baby...hahahaha

Wai-gong was a cowboy

 

Ashlyn's Medical Update So Far

Ashlyn went to Tampa to see her ear doctor.  He finally took the inner ear packing out and it stayed out (yeah...no more ear drops).  But, we still have to keep her ear dry until Thanksgiving...ugh!  We have to start flushing it twice a day with the alcohol/vinegar mixture starting on Halloween.  Her ear doctor said "no way" to the submucous cleft palate surgery because he thinks she is outgrowing the ear problems, so we'll see how her ear does from here on out.  He wants us to get a hearing test done between Thanksgiving and Christmas to check if he was able to improve that, which he thinks he did.  Going to the doctor in Tampa has gotten bad with waiting.  Her appointment was at 11:30 and she did not see the doctor until 1:00 and had to rush back so she could go to choir.

On their way back on 192 in Kissimmee they witnessed an accident completely happen within feet from them.  There was a head on collision of an SUV with a motorcycle.  The SUV sped up to about 70 mph and crossed a small median into four motorcycles.  One motorcycle was able to avoid the car, but another one wasn't so lucky and the motorcycle was ripped to shreds and it was obvious that the motorcyclist was dead.  Poor Ashlyn witnessed this and of course they all came to a stop and as she watched, she said "Daddy, I think that guy is dead!"  She seems okay about it though, but I know she has some amazing coping mechanisms.

We got the MRI results in and everything looked normal.  This means that there is nothing wrong in her head that would have caused the precocious puberty and that the true cause is really "unknown."  But, the speculation, of course, is still that we tried to "catch her up" on her eating when we adopted her almost three years ago.  Not sure how you couldn't want to do that though.  I could wrap my fingers around her upper thigh and touch my fingers, she was so malnourished.  I guess they should have better literature in the adoption world about how an adoptive parent should go about feeding a child who is malnourished so that this could be avoided.

We are still waiting for the specialty pharmacy to call us to let us know that the insurance has approved the implant and they are sending it to our doctor's office.  I think I will try to call them today to see where they are with that.  I feel like we are wasting time!  All the results (blood and bone x-ray) state that she will be starting her cycle in 6 months were taken months ago (blood was 8 months ago and bone x-ray was 2 months ago).  I just hope we're not too late and we can slow this process down!

October 13, 2012 Kaylyn's 3rd Swim Meet

Swim had their 3rd meet of the season at the Cocoa Beach Country Club.  They swam against Spirit, Indian Harbour Beach Montessori, and Community Christian.  Kaylyn did pretty well.  They moved her up to the 12 year olds for two of the relays!  She beat her own time in most of the individuals.  Her team got 7th place in the 200 yard freestyle relay (12 year olds), 4th in the 200 yard medley (she swam freestyle with 12 year olds), 2nd in the 100 yard Individual Medley, 4th in the 50 yard freestyle, 1st in the 50 yard backstroke, and 1st in the 50 yard butterfly.  She said she felt sick after doing the IM.

After leaving the meet, we headed to Coconut's on the Beach since it was right down the street and ate lunch with the Sprinkle family.  After eating, we walked down to the beach for about 15 minutes so the kids could put their feet in the water and look for seashells.  After everyone went home and took showers, we picked up Shelby to have a sleepover with Kaylyn.

 

Kaylyn chillaxin while waiting for everyone else to finish :-)