Month: May 2011

It’s a scorcher out there. Nothing better than an open fire hose to cool off.

As the school year is drawing to a close, we wanted to host a thank you party at Edda’s school to thank all the folks who help Edda make her days at school fabulous! We showed up at school and Edda’s hair is amazing. I don’t know who did it, but it was unbelievable.

Edda’s favorite cake:

Don’t forget about the fire drill in the middle of the party:

Vince and Edda:

My high school girlfriends and I planned a weekend getaway – to Atlanta! Why Atlanta? Because it offered the cheapest airfares from the three cities we were traveling from. We wanted to go to Las Vegas – but the flights to LV were crazy-high! It’s been 20 years since we’ve spent time together – it was a lot of fun, and not as hot as it is here in MD this week!

We saw the Aquarium:

Splurged on one fancy dinner:

Saw the art museum:

And visited the Oakland historical cemetery :

And unbelievably – my brother was in town for business – so I spend 45 minutes with him at the airport and ate a McMuffin with him before he had to run off to do something with Power Point (I’m sure).

Edda’s been on Keppra for about 9 months now – her daytime seizures are gone, but we are still seeing up to 4 nighttime seizures a week. We’ve pretty much maxed out the dose of Keppra – so we are trying Lactimal now.

The Lactimal seems to taste better than the Keppra – at least Edda doesn’t complain when she has to take it. We are hoping this works, because if not, Edda’ll be classified as having intractable seizures. Blech!

We hurried back from the wedding to make Vince’s first violin recital on Sunday afternoon. He looked dapper with his red bow tie.

The tough part wasn’t the playing in front of the audience, the tough part was sitting still for all the other students’ performances. We forgot to prep him for that, so he was extra wiggle-ly.

Kappa came down to DC special just for the occasion.

We had the best time this weekend at Tony and Natasha’s wedding in Long Island. Edda was a flower girl, Vince was the ring bearer. Vince did not lose the rings. Edda did not lose her cool. Tony and Natasha really know how to throw a party, I had so much fun talking to their parents and relatives and friends! It threatened to rain, but it held off for the outdoor ceremony. I was trying to tell Tony – cloudy days make for great photographs!

Waiting for our turn in the procession:

After the ceremony:

Partying with the groom after the ceremony:

The reception was amazing and we all had a great time. Edda enjoyed dancing more than I expected.

All during the reception, we tried to convince Vince to dance – the dance floor was hopping, with so many people dancing and the DJ was really good. Vince kept begging off, he said he didn’t like to dance with only grown ups. I thought he would never get up on the dance floor – but finally, Fire Burning came on and Vince could not resist, he cleared the dance floor with his moves. It was unbelievable. Someone tipped him $20!

And to top off the evening, guess who caught the bouquet!

Vincent came downstairs today sniffling and coughing. He complained that he woke up at 2 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Nevertheless, I sent him to school. Is that a terrible thing to do? I told him that if didn’t feel well during the day, he could go to the nurse and I’d pick him up. I didn’t hear from him all day. I hope he sleeps well tonight, or else we are all going down in a ball of flames as the bacteria/virus makes its rounds through the rest of the family. Coinciding perfectly with the wedding on Saturday in which my children are to be picture perfect. I’m imagining grumpiness and snotty noses in professional wedding photos. I’m hoping to avoid this.

My mother-in-law is in town this week, helping me permaculture our backyard. I’ve taken some time off to help her dig, mulch, cardboard and native plant our little plot in suburbia. Here is a photo of a clementis which was planted before we got here.

Vince’s illness did not prevent himself from having a tremendous about of fun after school spraying himself with the new garden hose sprayer we bought from Home Depot.

Edda, our super-trooper, tried out the ECO2 today at school. She did pretty well with the calibration and the selection of songs or videos. Not so much on academic work. But I think it was promising and the best part is that the company is going to loan it to Edda for a month for free and the school system is going to arrange all the logistics and the teachers will work with Edda for a month with it to try and get her to pick something else besides Dora videos. I don’t have to do anything! Except give her kisses and hugs which is really all I want to do. And snuggle too. I learned a long time ago that shouldering too much of the therapy on my own shoulders leads to nothing but tears (for both me and Edda).

Vince is lucky enough to be a ring bearer this weekend (and Edda is going to be a flower girl!) so the hair needed to go, go, go!!!

I had to bribe him with both cartoons and ice cream.

Pre-cut:

Post cut:

Jeremy just came back late last night from a 2-night trip to Chicago. I was so tired last night, that I fell asleep with Edda at 7:45 pm after telling Vince that he had to put himself to bed (which he did very nicely at 10 pm).

I just wanted to finish off our recap of our spring break trip to Pittsburgh. Why did we go to Pittsburgh? Because I wanted to go see Fallingwater (which was amazing in so many ways). Falling water is about 1.5 hours outside of Pittsburgh.

Here’s Edda in Fallingwater’s cafe: