The Big Apple With Baylie

The Hawaii trip was a wake up call for me that we need to travel more. We fly for free and time is passing and we need to take advantage of these opportunities. Baylie had a 3-day weekend the weekend before her birthday so I decided we should go somewhere. Originally I wanted to take her to Europe, but realized her passport would expire a few days before the trip. I decided we wanted to just take a non-stop somewhere so we wouldn't get bumped in a connection city.

After looking at a few options, we decided to go to New York City. Originally we wanted to see Hamilton, but the tickets were way to expensive. We could get two tickets to Phantom of the Opera for the price of one Hamilton ticket. Plus, we learned that the lead was the first black woman to play Christine on Broadway. 

We had to wait until after the recital so we left early Friday morning to drive to the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport. They have a non-stop flight to Newark. We had fun singing in the car. I love being with Baylie.

We put Baylie's  hair in extensions for the trip. It was a lot of hair!

Baylie is such a fun travel partner. 

The weather in NYC was going to be freezing so I bought Baylie boots and a coat since she didn't have either. 

We got First Class!

Once we got to Newark, we caught the Airport Express to the Port Authority in New York. It was really close to our hotel and we even walked by the theater on the way!

Our hotel was only two blocks from Times Square. Perfect! It was freezing!

We got a great deal at the Hotel St. James. It was an older hotel, but it was clean, the reception guy was fantastic and the location couldn't have been better.

Our room was heated by a radiator!

The elevator was old, but it worked!

Check out that phone and bell! 

Baylie had a list of things she wanted to do - mainly see the Hershey and M&M stores. We bought Jalen the largest Reese's peanut butter cup made. We even got stopped by airport security so they could see what that weird thing was in our suitcase.

A fellow Optavia coach, Julia, recommended that we get pizza at BSide. It was incredibly good. 

We ordered the roasted cauliflower and a Marge pizza. Delicious! 

We hit the M&M store on the way back to our hotel. It was huge.

Hugh Jackman is on Broadway. I would have loved to see him live, but those tickets were even more than Hamilton.

Baylie LOVED Phantom. It brought back memories of when I first saw it. It's such an emotional experience. And I loved that she got to see someone that looked like her on stage in the lead role. It was a beautiful evening.

We walked back through Times Square to get back to our hotel. It had been a perfect day.

The next day, we met my fellow coach, Julia, for breakfast at the Star Lite Deli. She said they had the best New York bagels.

Baylie agreed that the bagels were amazing. I had an omelet that was less amazing...

Then we went to Junior's for New York pizza.

I got a little raspberry one that was delicious. Apparently they also sell them at Costco, but I'm sure it's not the same as getting it fresh in NYC.

Baylie doesn't like cheesecake, but she loved her red velvet cheesecake from Junior's.

We went through Times Square one last time on our way back to the Port Authority to catch our bus.

We got First Class on the way home too!

It was a perfect trip. We were only gone one night, but had such an adventure. I look forward to more experiences like this. I hope Baylie will always remember this special time we shared together.

Recital Time

The kids continue to take music lessons from Cathy Shurtleff. She is such a great teacher. I love the way she talks to the kids. She builds them up so much. They had their recital on Friday, March 11.

Jalen played violin.

Baylie played piano.

I'm glad they have the opportunity to take music lessons and I'm so grateful they have a good teacher.

9-1-1

On Thursday, March 3, I got a terrifying phone call from Jalen's school. They said he had been hurt on the playground and they were calling an ambulance. I headed to the school as information was still coming in. I made him an appointment to get him in to Dr. Mills, but they decided to send him right to the children's hospital in an ambulance.

When I got to the school, the ambulance was there and it was a horrible sight. My heart fell. Jalen was already loaded and I climbed in with him. He was definitely not himself. I knew something was wrong. We weren't sure exactly what happened. Some children said that Jalen fell off the merry go round and other children said he was pushing it and got knocked down. So we thought maybe he had a concussion. He was complaining about his neck and back hurting so they put a brace on him.

Neither of us had ever been in an ambulance before. So that was an adventure.

When we got to the hospital, they asked Jalen how he had arrived there. He said it was in my car. He didn't remember riding in an ambulance. He also said his birthday was January 18 instead of 19. He was able to answer all the rest of their questions.

We got settled into a room in the ER of the children's hospital. At some point, I got a call from the principal that said they had watched the security video and Jalen hadn't been knocked down, he had collapsed. He had been pushing the merry go round, stopped took a breather, then pushed, backed up and collapsed. 

Gradually we were able to piece together more of the story. After he collapsed, he went to music class. While there, he was not behaving normally so the teacher put a fan on him. His hands were read and his skin was splotchy. She then called the nurse. When he got to the nurse, his heart rate was 120. They were able to lower it a little, but never lower than 100. That's why they decided to call. The assistant principal called me to say that she thought he showed signs of having a seizure. 

I mentioned that we had been in Hawaii and asked if maybe he had some kind of a tropical infection. They asked if he had been tested for Covid, but they didn't test him. They did blood work, but there was no infection. His blood sugar was low. It was 65, but it isn't considered hypoglycemic unless you get to 60. 

Because he had complained about his neck, they sent him for a CT Scan. I was pretty sure there wasn't anything wrong with his neck at that point, but they checked to be sure. They didn't find anything.

We were there for six hours and he wasn't able to eat anything. Once they got all the tests back, they let him have a popsicle and they let us go home. David came and got us because I had left my car at the school.

I kept Jalen home on Friday and he slept in until 10 a.m. That is so not like him. 

He laid on the couch all day. In the afternoon, he built a Lego creation. It is not like Jalen to be so still all day. He was obviously still exhausted. He wasn't back to his normal self until Tuesday.

On Monday, I took him to Dr. Mills. (She doesn't work on Fridays.) She ordered an echocardiogram and neurology scan for him. The echocardiogram came back normal and we haven't been scheduled for the neurology visit yet. So we really have no idea what happened. One thing I do think is that Jalen needs to have more protein in his diet. He lives on cold cereal and Skinny Pop. Ever since the collapse, we have been reinforcing that he has to eat protein. He's been doing a great job with that.

We received the bill today. It's just over $8,500! Thank goodness we have insurance. I don't know how much we'll have to pay, but we have some money on the Flex card that should cover most of our deductible. I would feel better about it if we knew why it happened. I hate to think that we are paying for nothing. Mostly I'm just glad he's okay. I hope never to ride in an ambulance with one of my children again!

Hawaii Day 6 - Waimea Waterfall and Flying Home

We were sad to be on our last day. Usually at the end of a trip, I'm ready to come home, but we all agreed that we could stay another week. The kids were ready to move to Hawaii. (Notice the bowl of fresh pineapple - so good!)

While we were there, Jeff's kids taught us how to make earrings out of banana leaves. We learned that a banana tree only produces fruit one time and then it dies. I had no idea! Jeff's kids are working on a project to do something with the leaves so that they don't just go to waste. They are starting with earrings and may later expant to other items like key chains. The cool thing is that every pair is unique.

Baylie modeled the pair she made. Isn't she beautiful?

For our last day, we decided to go to the Waimea waterfall. We stopped on the way for one last taste of Ted's Bakery. These two were my favorites.

The waves were unbelievably high so we stopped to get a look.

Pictures can't show how impressive the waves were.

The hike to Waimea falls is so beautiful. It's a botanical garden and everything is just beautiful.

Taryn and her kids joined us along with a friend who was driving their car back so we wouldn't need to. Jalen and Hailey became such sweet friends. He called her "my little cousin" and she called him "my cousin." He was so sweet with her.

Garden boxes made of lava rocks.

First view of the falls.

We donned life jackets and swam at the foot of the falls. It was pretty cold, but not unbearable.

At the bottom of the falls.

We couldn't stay as long as we wanted to because we had to make it back in time for our flight.

On the way back to the Christensen's we stopped for lunch at Kahuku Farms. They grow all their own food and it is AMAZING! This was grilled banana bread. So delicious!

The farm pizza was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life.

The kale in the garden was almost as tall as Baylie!

And then it was over and we had to go to the airport. We had received notices that because of the weather, our flights might be impacted. They suggested we change our flights, but we stuck with our original plan. Miraculously, we made both our flights without any problems and even got to sit together.

Jalen watched movies the entire time and never slept from Hawaii to Washington, D.C.! He just watched movie after movie.

Layover in D.C.

We were all exhausted! Everyone was asleep but me.

We were so excited to get home, but also sad that this perfect trip was over. It was such a great time to be together and we made many wonderful memories.