Transplant Games Day 5

Today was a great day as Neal won his first medal. Grandpa Mike again walked the babies to sleep around 10am.

After that we headed over to cheer on the team Ohio volleyball team. Apparently we did not feed Gwen enough as she decided to eat her brothers foot. Did I mention how dirty they were?

As a good blogger though I had to make a decision to catch this on film or stop it. I determined the damage would be minimal to her. At this point in the trip mommy was sick, so she stayed in with the kiddos while the rest of the troops headed to the closing ceremonies.

All in all a great trip and the babies did 100% better than I anticipated. The ride home was about 80% success. Grady started crying about the last 2 hours and then Gwen decided to chime in the last hour. If we would have been in the car another hour, I am pretty sure I would have been in tears.

Transplant Games Day 4

Today we had nothing planned for the Transplant games so the babies got some well deserved naps and play time. Gwen woke up early and sat patiently waiting for Grady to wake up!


After naps we headed to the zoo. Madison has a free zoo and it was great. We saw a lot of animals and we went on our first carousel ride and hit up the kiddie train.

It was a pretty low key day. At this point the babies were pretty sick of being in the car or the stroller.

Mathematical Equation

Let's face it, I have always been a math geek. So here is the new equation I have discovered.

One ear infection
One sick mommy
Two new teeth and a runny nose

EQUALS


and one daddy that cannot wait to get back to work

Transplant Games Day 3

Day 3 we had to get up and head down to the games pretty early. Neal competed in ping pong, I mean table tennis! After day 2 I decided the babies would be released from the stroller to crawl around. It worked, although it was completely disgusting! After an hour of crawling, Grandpa Moustache again walked them to sleep.

Look at how dirty they are!

Neal did great going 2 of 4. We then headed to lunch at a barbecue joint. Thank god for corn on the cob is all I can say about that trip. Also, why do they only put changing stations in the ladies room? I had to change 2 poopy diapers there. I should have checked out the men's room just to confirm.

We took Neal over to tennis practice and the babies played on a court.

After we took the babies home for a nap. Grandma and Grandpa volunteered to stay at home that night so I could go watch Neal play basketball. Neal's team won the first 2 games, but unfortunately lost the third. It was a tough team! This was his first year competing in basketball and it was very exciting. It is a big crowd and very loud and exciting event.

Oh yeah, I did give the babies a bath some time in there!

Transplant Games - Day 2

Day 2 felt like it was 96 hours long, no exaggeration here. We did not even set an alarm and the babies did not wake up at the crack of dawn. We started out with breakfast then headed down to the transplant games around 10. We spent a couple of hours looking around, getting some swag, took a team picture.

The team seemed much bigger this year. Now you can play where's Neal...

After that we decided to walk around downtown Madison. They had a huge farmers market. It was very nice.

The babies sporting their OH - IO shirts.

After that Neal headed to basketball practice and the babies took a short nap in the car. Next thing was a tailgate and the opening ceremonies. Grandpa Moustache did quite a few laps and finally got the babies asleep at about 8:30 (typically they go to bed at 7). We positioned them so we could see them from the stands.


It is quite inspiring to see all of the lives that were saved by transplantation. I again had tears when the living donors and donor families proceeded out. It truly is a miracle the sacrifices these people have made, not to mention the fact that they are supporting the cause. I believe there were over 130 living donors in attendance. I immediately thought of how lucky we were to have Ryan make the decision to donate to Neal. This is my favorite event at the games.

Unfortunately Grady and Gwen had other plans. This is when the screaming, whining, honestly I do not even know because at this point mommy was 100% exhausted that she wanted to cry too. It was at this point (about 12 hours after we left the hotel in the morning) that mommy made the executive decision to head home. Daddy got a call to get outside or find a ride home. Finally we arrived home at about 10:00 and everyone went right to sleep.

Breaking news...

Neal won a medal today! Doubles tennis. Great job Neal!

These are the pictures we had taken day one at the games.

Transplant Games 2010 Day 1

This year we took a road trip to Wisconsin for the US Transplant Games, basically the olympics for transplant recipients. It was our first real vacation with the babies, thankfully Grandma and Grandpa Moustache joined us. With Neal busy most of the time I needed 4 extra hands. We rented a mini van and headed off on what would be an 8.5 hour drive with no stops. We ended up making 4 stops, only 2 of which we got the babies out and we made it in 10 hours. Not bad at all. The dvd players were a life saver. The adults almost went crazy from Yo Gabba Gabba, but the babies could not get enough. We only had about 5 minutes of whining right at the end of the trip. The babies car seats were closer than normal, so they got to share some toys.





We left at 5am, so I figured we would have some more sleeping in the car, but really only 2 very short naps all day.



After arriving at the hotel we decided to take the babies swimming so they could enjoy themselves a little. If they were not totally exhausted before swimming they were after.


The babies first kiss! Ok, it was a little staged since we did not have the camera ready for the first one, so it is really the second. They are just starting to kiss and wave at one another!

Gwen is our fish, she loves the water!

Grady preferred to hang out with just his feet in the water. Hopefully we can break him of this!

After this long day. the kids and the adults were out before 9!