Quick Trip To Town

Buckle your seatbelt and get ready to join us for our quick (but extremely busy!) trip to Anchorage... Right after church on Sunday, I took all the kids, except Ned and Rylea who were still in camp, into town. Here are they are enjoying the ride through Lake Clark Pass in the back of the 207. Asleep is how I usually enjoy it too! We had a really good flight. When we arrived, it took my awhile to find and install all the proper carseats in the Suburban, but we finally got it figured out and were on our way. My mom was in town too, so we went to McDonalds for lunch and then to Old Navy. After that was a quick trip to the 5th Avenue Mall.

Tony and Maiia are wonderful and let us stay at their house. It works great since they have a big playroom in the basement and all the kids can sleep in there. Malachi does not enjoy being away from home and had a horrible night. On Monday morning, I went back to the airport to pick up Ned and Rylea. We all went to Wal-Mart after that. I let the kids each pick something they wanted to buy with their Christmas money from Aunt Alice! This is the first time they'd all been to town since Christmas. I was soon reminded why... After everyone had finally settled on what they wanted, we went to the McDonalds at Wal-Mart. While I was waiting for the food, apparently several of the kids were spitting on each other and Isaac pushed Nezzie, who was standing on her chair, which crashed to the floor, causing everyone in the restaurant to come rushing over to see if she was mortally wounded, which is what it sounded like gauging by her ear-piercing screams. Awkward... anyway, it was back to Maiia's for naps after that. My mom came over and stayed with the kids who didn't need to go to the dr. at the time and the rest of us left just in time to pick Leo up and head to the dr. office. We had 4 appointments-just general stuff and it went well. We have a new dr. and I really, really like her! Leo was laughing at me when I told him later that she and I bawled together when she told me her husband had just passed away last September, leaving her and her two little boys... anyway, after that we went back to Tony and Maiia's and ordered pizza. It ended up being a very nice evening and the kids played in the yard while Leo, Ned and I went to Costco. This next picture is from when we were getting started on the list. Looks like we're in the frozen food section :)

Here I am in line waiting to check out. Notice the hair is back in a ponytail, as I was sweating like crazy by this time. It was about 90 degrees in that store! I am always so thankful when Leo does a Costco run with me and I don't have to load the car by myself and then unload again at the airport and sort everything and box it and label and weigh it by myself.... I forgot to get pictures of that part of the process. Once that is all done, at some point, the groceries are loaded on an airplane and make the trip to Port Alsworth, where they are either dropped at our house or we pick them up at the hangar and bring them home to finally put them away! Whew- it's a lot of work, but we're thankful to have a full pantry and freezers again!

7:45 Tuesday morning found us waiting at the eye dr. The kids bought new coloring books to keep them busy while we waited.

Meanwhile, I had three pages (per child) to fill out before we could see the dr. No biggie, since we only had 7 appointments this morning!

Here are Rylea and Nezzie waiting for their turn. All the kids checked out great, except our Superhero of the Week- Kaiden! He ended up needing to order glasses and he can't wait to get them in the mail :) He'll be so cute!

While I waited inside with the last couple of appointments, Leo took the other kids outside and let them run around. We just got a new camera, so he was trying it out. Here's Sammy in the irises! I won't gross you out with details, but we ended up throwing a couple of extra appointments into our schedule Tuesday with Sam. He had to do a UA, a blood draw and get an ultrasound of his kidneys and bladder. By the time we finished with all of that, we were more than ready for lunch. By the way, his tests results all came back great, which is good, but we're still wondering why he sometimes pees what looks like gravel or coffee grounds... any suggestions, please let me know!

My mom (wonderMOM, as you can tell by now) had picked up stuff for a picnic and we went to a park down the road a bit. Here is Ned pondering our day :) We had to be back by 2:00 for our afternoon at the dentist.

Ned was awesome with the camera and wasn't shy about taking pictures in the dentist office. Here's Lizzy getting all checked out.

And Rylea, with her shiny metal teeth :) Kaiden surprised us at the dentist too and had to have his top front tooth pulled as it was abcessed from hitting it sometime. The dentist asked Leo if he'd hit it hard and Leo was like, "Uh, probably..." :) We finished up there at 4:00-not bad for 7 dentist appointments, including a couple of fillings and sealants... I just have to take Ned back in for fillings in a couple of weeks and Lizzy has to go in to get her "tongue crib" installed. It is a "gate" to help her stop sucking on her finger. She was fitted for it Wedsnesday morning.

We had dinner with my cousins that evening. I ran into the bookstore really quick afterwards, and Leo took this picture of our carfullllll of of kids :) We even had an extra, Charis, who was a huge help!

Since Malachi did so poorly sleeping at night, he seemed to enjoy his nap in the carseat. Leo tried to keep him awake as much as possible during the day, but he snuck a little nap in here!

Wednesday morning, after Lizzy's dental appt., I had an appointment myself. I found out I've got impetigo in my nose (gross!) You probably didn't need to know that... anyway, Leo took the kids to the playground at the hospital while I was seeing the dr. I also got a referral to see the chiropractor as I could hardly walk that morning! I think it had something to do with carrying Malachi in the front pack the whole day before. Hopefully, when we go in the middle of the month, I can see the chiropractor. Yesterday, after we got home I was in the kitchen and my back seized up and I couldn't move for a minute. Nezzie was behind me and said, "What's wrong, are you dettin' old?" Yes Nezzie, I do feel like I am!

Isaac on the slide.

And our star of the show, Kaiden, with his missing front tooth!

We flew home and landed about 3:30 yesterday afternoon and boy are we ever glad to be back in Port Alsworth, with no car seats or drs. or dentists anywhere around! I'm so thankful how smoothly all of our over 20 appointments went. If you were one of our prayer warriors- thank you so much!!!!