I haven’t posted in a while because we had to cycle the whole family through a cold. It meant a number of rough nights with little sleep for me and Bill, but we made it through without seeing the doctor. That is a “yay!”

After being in the house quite a bit all week, I wanted to get out and do something this weekend. We decided to try the “Balloon Glow” holiday event in Gilbert. I guess I should have known better.

I planned ahead and got the boys some ear protection for when I know it is going to be loud.

It just didn’t matter. Brendan was terrified of the balloons. They both wanted to go on the bouncy houses and things, so we bought tickets and then they were too scared to go in. I ended up giving some little family about $10 in ride tickets on our way out.
Brendan was screaming in terror, Trevor was crying that he wanted cotton candy before dinner.

We bailed out of the chaos and went to McDonalds instead. At least this one had a cool light up table that changed when you touched it.

Today, we decided to make a “Gingerbread House”. I really dislike gingerbread, so our house was made of solid chocolate-melts.

Claimed!

They are spreading the chocolate mortar.

Choco-nose!

The decorating begins. I tried to do as little as possible and let the boys do their own thing.

Just the right size for Batman.

Tada!

Proud boys loved doing this project

Nibble, nibble, like a mouse….

We took too long to decorate and the chocolate was getting soft! Oops, collapse!

The boys were fine with that.

I like Brendan’s thumbs grip

We did put up our tree and decorated too, but pictures of that will have to be another day!

We finished up our weekend of outdoor adventure with a little road trip and hike today with friends. We drove up a super bumpy 6 mile winding dirt road that went most of the way up Mount Ord. Then there was about a mile of walking up the rest of the way to the summit – 7129 feet elevation.

We had a quick picnic lunch in the parking lot before doing the hiking part of the trip.

It was a steep walk but the boys all did great. Brendan and elevation don’t get along, so he rode in his backpack. He called Bill his BatBot and Brendan would “steer” by turning Bill’s head. He says the backpack is only for Batman. The view at the top was amazing.

Roosevelt Lake from above

There is a giant array of different communications towers on top this mountain (cell phone signal was great!) There is also a Forest Service watch tower, but there was no ranger today. Sometimes the rangers allow visitors to come up in the lookout.

That’s the road we drove in on.

In some of the shady areas, there were oak leaves covered in frost.

The leaves were cool (literally, I suppose)

Awesome frost!

Trevor was spent on the way down. I carried him for some distance until he got too heavy. Then SuperDaddy took over and carried them both down the last 1/4 mile of the trail!

We had a nice dinner in Payson with our friends and then headed home just in time to get the boys to bed!

Full week = long post!

We had a GI appointment on Wednesday. It was good to finally follow up with his new GI doctor. We talked about the emptying scan he had months ago and it turns out his stomach actually empties really fast, instead of slow like they thought. His retching and throwing up during feeding could come from “dumping” and not really reflux. We have some samples to try a new kind of formula to see if it helps. We will be trying that soon, but not while we had big weekend plans.

Tip to self – don’t forget to lock the medical supply toolbox. These boys both LOVE tape.

Fortunately this kind of tape is easy to remove!

The boys got their next Lego set from their Lego rental service. This one was a big complex demolition set with a building that it designed to blast apart.

We did not have any plans for Thanksgiving and making a turkey dinner for just us seemed silly. So we hit the road instead! Getting out of town for Black Friday madness was good! We did a little tiny hike in the dry creek.

Doesn’t this branch look like a weird critter?

Trying to stay warm while Bill lit the campfire. Brendan has been doing really well wearing his cap again, is off oxygen, and having a fire was a little bit of an experiment. There was a good breeze taking the smoke away and the boys did great. Brendan didn’t cough once.

Roasting hot dogs!

Some marshmallows on the perfect roasting sticks that they gathered in the creek.

Trevor’s very first s’more. Funny thing is, I ran to the grocery store Wednesday night to get last minute supplies for our trip. I get to the baking aisle and there was not a bag of marshmallows to be found. Bare shelves! It didn’t even occur to me how many people make sweet potatoes/yams with marshmallow topping.
As I was getting to the checkout, I saw an end-cap holiday display almost bare – with ONE bag of large marshmallows left!

It got down to the low 20’s over night and we woke up to frosted trucks.

Frosted trees

It didn’t stop Trevor from digging

Desert boys don’t get a lot of chances to go sledding. So they have to push trucks up the hill instead.

And go truckin’!!

They did about 20 runs!

In the end, the boys helped put up the stabilizers and pack to go home. Such good helpers!

We certainly missed all our family and the big Thanksgiving feast with loved ones. We have a lot to be thankful for. It was not a traditional holiday, but we made special memories!