Blessed Beyond Belief

Seattle - part 5 > warning! picture heavy!!

Part of the reason for staying the extra day was to be able to drive through the Historic Columbia River Highway. Wow. I am so glad we did. There are a handful of times in my life that I can remember as almost speechless times of awe because the beauty I was witnessing. This was one of them. All along this highway there where pull outs and places to take in the view. This was our first stop to see the Columbia river from above.

Oh, and I guess I'd better preface all this by saying the kids weren't thrilled with our sight seeing adventure on the way home. Will was tired and not so much into it, Autumn did her usual complaints about not wanting to go, and then there was Russell. First of all, he was NOT happy that we took an extra day to get home. Then he planted himself in the back seat and was determined not to get out of the car till we were in Kuna. (his words) The first falls we stopped at we just left him in the car. After walking back up I even offered to wait if he wanted to go see the awesomeness we just viewed. nope. Then at multnomah falls, I insisted he get out and come with us. Nope. He said - "why should I get out? there's nothing GREAT about here" I wanted to just shake his teenage angst right out of him. I dismissed it and we left him in the car to wait for his ride home. It saddened me that he missed seeing this, but I was NOT going to let that ruin my experience of it.

We continued on and the drive just became more and more gorgeous. It almost felt like we were traveling into another time.

EVERY tree was covered in thick green moss and ferns growing straight out of the moss. I'd never seen anything like it.

Then the Vista house came into view so we decided to take a looksie. The info that I found on the house was that it was built as a tribute to the pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail to settle the Oregon Country and the Columbia River Gorge. Tim says that the folks inside said it was built so people driving this road had access to a bathroom. That's good, cuz I used it! The building really was stunning from the outside circular shape of it , to the light pouring in from the windows on the huge dome.

Here's the view of the river from the Vista house parking lot.

Throughout the drive we spotted countless mini waterfalls seeming to come out of nowhere. Just thin streams of water pouring out of the rocks. But then we caught sight of one that seemed to be more than a thin stream. Latourall Falls. One of the things that made this whole experience amazing was that we had no idea what we were looking for or what to expect (at least I didn't).

So we jumped out of the car to get a closer look and discovered a trail leading down. It was only a few minute walk but as we got further down we realized just how close to the waterfall we were going to get.

The closer we got, the more powerful and majestic it felt. We were RIGHT there getting sprayed by the water.

There was one other couple with a baby ahead of us and they happily agreed to exchange picture taking with us. I LOVE this one, I want to frame it.

Tim decided on an even closer look. Autumn told on him - "MOM! dad's doing something dangerous!"

We headed back up the trail. I just couldn't get over the beauty of the area.

Multnomah Falls was not much further down the road. I guess everyone just skips over the tiny falls and heads to this one. Because the parking lot was packed and there were people gathering around like they were headed to a mall.

If the other waterfall seemed big then this one was giant! Even more powerful and demanding of attention. Just amazing.

Tim wanted to get to the bridge so we hiked up the path.

Here we are on the bridge. Will wasn't impressed. He was cold and wet. See Snoopy? Nearly every person we passed either commented on him or stopped to pet. And there were quite a few people. That furball gets so much attention!

Tim wanted to go even FURTHER, so we stayed on the bridge while he checked it out. No sense in pushing our luck, cuz luck running out means Will gets carried all the way back down. See us real tiny in the middle right of the bridge?

And a last good shot that Tim got from above the bridge. You can get all the way to the top, but with the kids we decided we had gone far enough.

Utterly amazing - have I said that yet?? We got back to the car, situated ourselves and headed home. Here's a LINK I found with more info on the area. Tim and I have vowed to go back by ourselves so that we can spend a couple days stopping where ever we want, hiking as far as we want, and taking as much time as we want to really explore the area. I can't WAIT!

Seattle - part 4

At the appt. Dr had mentioned an ice cream that was gluten and casein free. She was raving about it, but as anyone knows - it's not easy to find a truly dairy free ice cream. She pointed us in the direction of the market that sells it and we headed off. This ice cream was GOOD! All organic, natural ingredients and made of coconut milk. Coconut Bliss - good thing it's pricey and only sold at a store that we never go to here. Or else we might be addicted to coconut ice cream.

Anyhow, everyone was hungry and no one was willing to settle on a shared pint of ice cream for dinner. We asked ROSEY to show us what was in the area to eat.

ok Tim here to tell you about rosy. So we start driving deciding that we want japanese food. Rosy has a "points of interest" feature that will give you things near you to look up. So Tara starts looking up japan food. We see one and "hmmm..looks kinda shady" so we skip the closest one we see. Now, it is raining, dark, and we are in a section of Seattle that reminds me of some sections of LA. Probably 50 or 60 years old, some streets that are pretty narrow, especially on the side streets. So we pick a place and ask rosy for directions. "right turn in .4 miles" ok...cool. DING DONG just as we past the street where we should turn. DAMN! "calculating route" thanks. "right turn" so I make that one onto a side street. "right turn on so and so drive" I get to it and it is a different street name. But rosy is dinging so I take the turn. 'left turn in 1 mile" she is taking me back to the main street that I missed the first time. We get there and it is VERY busy, I'm coming out of a side street so I have no signal to stop traffic for me. So I'm going "there is no way I can make a left here", 6 o'clock traffic on a Friday night. Now all the back seat drivers are starting to giggle and give opinions. So I make a right turn and figure that I'll go down and turn around eventually making the left that Rosy wanted me to make.
So I go down to make my u-turn and Rosy is saying over and over "calculating route". She is easily confused if you do not follow her directions. I am waiting for her to say "Will you please just follow my directions!" like my 8th grade typing teacher. Now the opinions and giggles are getting louder from the cast of very experienced back seat drivers. So I head back out on the bearing that she wanted me to make the left for. Suddenly before I am back to where she was taking me in the first place "right turn" WHAT?? Now you have changed your mind?? I'm going the way you wanted me to 3 minutes ago! Then I realize that she has recalculated route. So against my better judgement and mumblings I make the turn as the people in the car are really starting to get their kicks out of this face off between Dad and Rosy.
So now I am headed down a street where we came from the doctor originally. I know this is not where I want to be. The people in my car are mixing in laughter, suggestions about where to turn (mostly on the side of rosy) and some minor grumbling about hunger. "OK, this is ridiculous. I'm going back to 85th street where she wanted me in the first place. That puts us back on track for the hotel anyway. I'm not going down anymore long and winding roads!" Laughter at my frustration and shouts for support of Rosy. ha ha. Thank you all for your confidence. So I turn around and head back for 85th which is where she wanted me to make that impossible left turn. "calculating route" Whatever. Just wait until I get where I want to be and then calculate OK? "right urn in .4 miles" (before I get to 85th) and I tell rosy with much defiance and frustration in my voice " NO! I'm not doing that!" Of course the car erupts with laughter and I had to giggle too. I was winning my battle with Rosy. So I get to 85th and from there it was one simple turn on another major street and we were at our destination. Teriyaki something or other. Looked like a a converted donut shop. OK This is it. You wanted it, we are going here! So I pay 35 bucks for fast Japan food that was the worst I have had. I did not know fried rice could be so terrible. This is my reward for going head to head with rosy, in the rain, in a strange town in the dark with my family rooting against me. Sort of. Over all, it was very entertaining. For them....I guess I had to laugh too. It was a simple route back to he hotel. I already knew my way and did not want an opinion from rosy. Thank God that ice cream was waiting in he car for us!

I knew he had SOOOO many more details in his brain about that night than I do. Yes, we were laughing at him arguing with a GPS, but we also knew that at any point his frustration would take over and without a word would head back to the hotel with no dinner. The next morning we got up and checked out as early as possible. We were leaving Seattle, but no before we visited a couple of tourist attractions.

This is how we roll: it felt a little ghetto - does it look it???

Remember our parking nightmare at Pike market? This time we were determined to find a place. We went back to the same parking lot that we didn't fit into before. Only this time it was mostly empty and we Tim could maneuver the car around into a spot.

Course we hit up the first ever Starbucks. I stayed outside with Snoopy where he attracted quite the attention. I think the overwhelmingness of the situation started here for Snoops.

Pike Market was fun. Crowded and crazy, but fun. I so wish that I had a market like this to go to whenever I wanted for fresh produce and fish.

One last stop before we left Seattle - the space needle. We had been looking at from across the city for the past couple of days so we promised the kids that we'd get a close up look. They wanted to go up in it. You won't get me up there, but maybe someday we'll go back and Tim and the two olders can check it out.

So - we decided not to drive home on Saturday because of the mountains that nearly swallowed us up two days before. It would have meant driving through them in the dark and if the conditions were the same that would not have been good. Tim decided that we would leave Seattle and drive to Portland to stay the night and head home the next day. We got to portland around 4:30, checked into our hotel and relaxed for a bit. We needed dinner and I couldn't see us spending the whole evening with the 5 of us in a hotel room. So we headed back into the city. This time we weren't gonna mess around with some unknown eatery. Outback was a safe choice. So, we continued our family togetherness in a booth at outback.

Here's where the story gets a little tense. I had been looking into getting Will a laptop lunch box for awhile. According to their website there are no retailers in ID that sell them - BUT there were lots in portland. There are a chain of stores in portland called, New Seasons. Really cool store, kind of like a whole foods but not. I won't go into the long drawn out details, but Tim and Rosey had an even harder time trying to find this store. It was horrible. I told Tim to just forget it and go back to the hotel because now I was starting to feel really bad that we were all going through this for a lunchbox! But we were so turned around and far from the hotel that he didn't want to give up. We finally found the store!!! It was not busy because it was about 9 pm. We looked around, I found the lunchbox but decided against because it was too expensive, and Tim found the service manager to talk about our pizza crusts. New Seasons is local to portland with 8 stores. We got information on who to contact about getting the crust into the store. The kids were getting a bit antsy. (I can't imagine WHY) I'm not sure exactly what happened because I was looking at something , but I knew the kids were messing around with each other. Then I heard a loud THUNK on the floor and Tim whisper yell - 'sh*t'! I ran over to see Will being peeled off the floor. He had tripped on his shoes or something and went head first onto the floor. Oh my gosh I was so scared for him! We took him to a chair and I sat with him while he cried and I worried about brain damage. The spot reddened and swelled right away by his temple above his left eye. You could also see little purple broken blood vessals. Tim ran to get some ice and of course it attracted the employees. I sat for awhile holding an ice pack on his head until I felt he was ok and wouldn't need a trip to the eR. Tim and I thanked God that his head didn't split open when he hit. Stitches in the er would not have gone well. for anyone. We left and found our way back to the hotel simply and in silence.

I lied, this wasn't the final leg of our trip. The next day was magnificent. But that's the next post.

Seattle - part 3 - the dr appt.

This is from the TACA website:

"Having a child with special needs require focus and diligence.

It is important to focus on the three core components of managing your life after the diagnosis. Think of these three areas like a stool - without one leg the stool will fall over.

Traditional Therapies

Traditional therapies are the intensive early interventions provided to help the child:
Minimize behaviors
Enable learning
Set and achieve goals and objectives
These therapies include:
One-on-one therapies such as applied behavioral analysis (ABA), Floortime, RDI and others
Speech therapy
Occupational (OT) or physical (PT) therapies
Social skills
Read more info on traditional therapies under "Behavior" in the column to the left.

Biomedical Therapies

Treating children with autism with only one therapy either biomedical - or - traditional therapies is not enough. You need to focus on both.
Biomedical therapies include:
Testing for genetic disorders and baseline testing
Testing and treating for other problems besides autism
See "Medical" in the column to the left for more information.
Biomedical therapies take the longest to yield results but diligent effort, research and persistence will pay off.
There is a high percentage of autistic individuals that have medical conditions besides autism. These conditions need attention and treatment.
It is important to never let the excuse that "your child has autism" be the reason for NOT TREATING a medical issue that requires treatment.
Remember: Autism is treatable via biomedical interventions. There are a lot of choices.
Consider going to a DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) conference. Regardless of where the next DAN conference is - it is worth the time and travel.
Find a DAN! doctor

Keeping Family Healthy

One of the most devastating events to happen to a family is the diagnosis of a special needs child.
Many families focus on the needs of the child while neglecting other children, spouse and family members.
Even though time is precious - paying attention to these other relationships is key.
Managing health of care takers is also important. Do not neglect your own health needs while caring for a special needs child.
It is important to investigate local support groups for family and marriage counselors in your area
The divorce rate the U.S. is high enough - but odds increase when you have a special needs child. It is your job to buck these odds and whenever possible stay married.
An important note is that special needs children do better in a two-parent family.
Keeping family healthy is an important part of the stool and should not be ignored."

The reason for the trip to Seattle was to see a new doctor. Since 2005 we have worked with a couple of doctors who specialize in biomedical interventions for children with autism. They are often referred to as ‘DAN!’ doctors. Find out what DAN! is about here.

As far as I know, there are no DAN doctors in Idaho. Most of them do phone consults but I wanted to find one somewhat close to us that we could actually have an appointment with once a year or so. After doing some research I choose a doctor from several potentials. I had talked to her on the phone and really liked what she had to say. We spent three hours with her at her office.

First she went over all of Will's history - what he's doing now, what we have done in the past, and what we would like to do now. So we went over what vitamins and supplements he's taking now and changed that up a bit. And we talked about what testing would be beneficial to him. Since he's already had a lot of the basic tests done, we are going to move onto some more specific ones. The biggest one being a test to check for leaky gut. We also talked about his asthma and she gave us some great info on how to handle that better. I felt like we covered everything and she really took the time to individualize his treatments to HIM and not just what everyone else is doing for kids with autism. She's very accessible and quick to answer questions. Being monitored by a DAN doctor keeps us connected to a world that is trying to treat autism. Instead of the world who says all you can do for autism is behavior therapy.

We decided to also have Autumn evaluated. She has always exhibited a lot of the medical conditions of someone on the autism spectrum - without actually having autism. Gut issues have always plagued her and all I've gotten from regular doctors are suggestions to treat symptoms. So, we have a plan for her too and I'm anxious to see if it will help.

Oh, another thing that I'm happy about - both the kids are going to have their titers checked. Meaning- through a blood test we can find out what they are still vaccinated against and what they are lacking. Since Will's diagnosis I stopped all vaccines for the kids. There is a safer way to do them and I wasn't about to keep loading them up on vaccines before I knew how to do it safely. (don't bother arguing with me about it) Once we have the results back then we can decide what they are not currently vaccinated against and then proceed with caution. One at a time in single dose vials. Very happy about that.

So, all in all, a very successful appointment, happy with the plans, insurance is picking up most of it, and we liked the doctor. She has all the medical knowledge of a regular ped., but treats from a more holistic point of view. Love that.

coming up...... the final leg of our trip.

Seattle - part 2

Friday morning we took a drive down to the Puget Sound pier area. It was windy and overcast and we were the only ones there. We could always tell which way the wind was blowing by looking at Russell.

So here's standing the other way with the city in the backround.

Autumn was quite impressed with the pier. It was a nice change of scene to be by the water and smell the salt in the air.

The Seattle Aquarium was right there on the pier. We didn't really plan on going here, but it worked out just right and everyone was excited about going.

Not sure how this came about, but when we were right inside the entrance the topic of 'is russell taller than mom yet' came up. So, we decided on some photographic proof. Drumroll please....... YES russell you ARE taller than your mom now. you have arrived.

See how happy this makes him?

BUT, we had to make sure he stayed humble by showing him that a shark can still take him out.

This was the coolest aquarium! It was totally set up for educational purposes. Everything had an explanation, things to touch and people to talk to you. I would love to go back and spend the whole day just soaking (haha!) it all up.

Check out the diver in the tank! She waved and high fived all the kids and also had a microphone to talk to everyone.

We touched star fish, crabs, and sea anemone.

This guy has his own built in sun visor. Course it would probably work better if it wasn't between his eyes, but above them.

And she (looks like a little old puckered up lady to me) was just plain cool.

This room was really neat to be in and just feel like you're floating in a bubble underwater.

Russell found a friend.

MY favorite part was the otter exhibit. I could stand there and watch them all day. So fun and cute and active. Will thought they were pretty funny.

Near the end of the tour we came upon the bored teenager exhibit. Hey - where can I get one of those??? nevermind.......

Here's the breakdown>
me saying: 'where's william?!'
me thinking: can we slow down a bit so I can really look at everything??!
Will saying: 'can we go to the gift shop now?'
Will thinking: can we go to the gift shop now?
Autumn saying: 'this is SO cool! thanks mom and dad for bringing us here!'
Autumn thinking: can you guys hurry up - I want to go see what's over there!
Russell saying: 'Hey dad, look at this one!' (as they giggle funny comments to each other about how something looks)
Russell thinking:
Tim saying: 'OK, did we get our 60 bucks worth??' -with a smile
Tim thinking: ok, did we get our 60 bucks worth?
I think we did.

The kids were endlessly entertained by the toilet on the pier sidewalk that looked like an elevator. It said, 'automatic toilet'. We were too scared to open the door.

We had a few hours left before our appointment. I wanted to go through Pike Market. But after circling the street several times, trying to fit into a parking lot space that was too small for our beast of a car, not being able to go into the covered ones because our car hat made us too tall, and then trying to park on the street only to be approached by loud pushy man insisting that we park there and then asked Mr. Idaho (that would be tim) for money - well, we decided that we didn't have time to stick this mission out and we got the hell outa there. Also several times it looked like tim's head was going to explode. We left and asked Rosey to guide us to something to eat. That's when we found Dick's. (see previous post)

All righty then, you want to know about the doctor visit. I'm getting to that. It'll be next, I promise.

Seattle - part 1

First of all - thank you for your thoughts and prayers for a safe trip. We were certainly blessed. Wednesday night before we left was a little stressful. Up until about 8pm the suburban was still not running. But Tim persevered and got it done. Thankfully it ran well the entire trip. I love that car. And here's our fearless driver. Up to any task or condition the road throws at us.

Everything was good and easy going the first couple of hours. I think this was the first rest stop we stopped at. We've had quite a bit of snow, but I haven't seen it pile up like this around our place.

Then we got into the Blue Mountains. I guess we went through them on our last trip to Seattle, but that was October and everything was dry. THIS time was tough. There was packed ice and snow and slush. At certain points everyone needed to get into one lane because the other side was so bad. Visibility was horrible. There were quite a few semis and every time we went by one huge amounts of slush and rocks spewed at us. We got a couple of pits in our windshield and I watched one rock crack a hole (not all the way through) in the middle of the windshield. Scary. I pretty much white knuckled it through the Blues. I think it might have been an hour and a half, though I'm not sure. We finally came out of them and a little while later we pulled off the road to make some adjustments. This was a beautiful site after a mountain range of snow that I thought was going to swallow us up.

We pulled into our hotel in downtown Seattle after dark. We soon realized it was more of a 'business' hotel than a family hotel. It was ok though. Well, except for the part of being surrounded by concrete and only one tiny patch of dirt behind the hotel for pottying snoopy.

We were on the sixth floor and had an interesting view of downtown.

Will wanted to show Snoopy the city. I'm sure he felt like he was going to be tossed to an untimely death.

Uh? Lady? you wanna put down the camera and help me.....?

more to come......

Home

We're home now. The roads were much clearer coming back. I'll post more tomorrow. Just wanted to share a picture of one of the falls we saw today. I still can't believe the amazing beauty we were in this morning.

It's what's for lunch.

Don't blame me. Apparently, the GPS (whom we've named ROSEY) is not very healthy conscientious. Yes, that's right. In 2008 it's OK to blame the GPS for where we end up. Run, don't walk to your nearest GPS selling store so that you too can have someone (or thing) to blame in O8.

A long time ago...

circa 1996. Russell and Cierra. Carpinteria. Simpler times. Happiness from sand, secrets, and toys in the camper bunk.

Now they're BIG, and in high school, and driving (or wishing to drive), and able to caucus. Caucus? Doesn't every 17 year old count down the days till they are 18 so they can register as a democrat and caucus??? I knew nothing of caucusing when I turned 18 - good thing too. I'm sure it would not have amounted to anything good. shoot, I digress. Anyhow....

Flash Comments at WishAFriend.com">

Happy Birthday Cierra! The funs just beginning!!!!!

I stayed home. :)

Tubing at Bogus Basin. We did THIS last year. Remember? So Tim, Autumn, and Russell went on their own. Only Russell didn't tube. He opted to snowboard.

Tim took these pix - Russell may or may not be in that crowd.

Doesn't she look so happy and REFRESHED??

Here's a couple little snippets for you. Weather was much worse this year. The road down the mountain actually closed for a bit because of an accident. And it was storming all over the valley for the ride home. I was happy when all my ducklings (as my dad would say) where back home.

NOT sure why he is getting snow down his butt. It's not like your crack can hang out of snow pants with suspenders. Tim - care to explain????

Most of you won't care.

Are any of you aware of my love of aprons? For the past year I’ve been wanting to sew my own. I look at them in specialty shops and I drool over the patterns and fabrics of different aprons online. This one is soooo cute! And here's an
apron pattern that I MUST have.
I even purchased an extremely simple pattern awhile back. But for some reason I haven’t found the time (more like the nerve actually) to start and complete the project. I have visions of whipping up different aprons so that I have a choice to match my mood or what I’m cooking or maybe the season. 2008 WILL be the year that I produce my own aprons!

I do have my trusty pink Williams Sonoma apron. I couldn’t find a picture of myself in it, so this will have to do. Maybe I’ll have to make a special one for visitors who like to clean.