Orlando 2011

Last week we took our annual trip to Orlando for vacation. This year Katherine was significantly more aware of the things around her and of what we were doing. In fact, a phrase of the week was “what are we going to do next?!”

The week before was a bustle of activity led primarily by S. I was away on a business trip through Wednesday so he was tasked to pack all of the non-clothing related items. That entails 3 rubbermaids full of “stuff” ranging from kitchen things to sun-protection to blankets for the sofa for TV time. He’s a rockstar and had it all done by the time I got home on Wednesday so the only thing I had to do was pack the clothes for us. ;)

We left on Friday and as we’ve done with our last couple of drives we stopped half way. We usually do this because we don’t leave until later in the day and that gives us a night of rest so that the next day we don’t arrive, to start the trip off, exhausted from the drive. We stay at a hotel just off of I95 and this time we arrived in time for Daddy to have some cocktails. They were free. And he’d driven the whole 5 hours so he was ready for a beverage… or two… or three or… you get the point. We decided to walk to dinner. Needless to say I had two individuals to watch that they didn’t wander into the middle of the street. ;)

Saturday we arrived at the resort just in time for check-in. We were on track for arriving a little early but then in typical FL fashion the last 15 miles of the trip took us well over an hour to get through. A little dinner (thanks to Yelp for the recommendation) and some grocery shopping concluded the night for us.

Sunday it was miserable raining. Oh, did I forget to mention that Saturday it was that way too? We were drenched after unloading the car. Quite a scene we made too. K yelling “don’t leave me!!!” as S and I are 10 feet away at the car to getting the next suitcase, Rubbermaid, etc. in an effort to get everything under the shelter so that we could take it up the elevator. Scene. Quite a scene.

Sunday we had plans to go to Sea World for their Halloween event but given the rain we’d decided that was going to be a no-go so we hung out in the room till around lunch time and then decided maybe we’d go to the mall. As we walked outside the sun broke through… IDEA: Go get the Sea World passes and seeeee if we can go trick or treating… oh yeah, and get K’s costume too. I did… we did… we went. It turned out to be a lot of fun. They’d moved the festivities into a ballroom and called it Penelope’s Party, complete with trick or treating, music, hula hooping, candy apple making and tons of other fun things. The candy apple making was a treat for the whole family. Oooeeey gooooey caramel… slurp. I’m not sure K got much past the container full of “decorations” (AKA: licorice, marshmallows, m&ms, sprinkles, etc). After we finished at the party I looked at K’s trick or treat bag and noticed that it seemed to have less than the other kids bags… Little did I know we had a Halloween goblin in the family sneaking candy on the side. Two in fact!!! Silly me!! We managed to sneak in the Shamu show and Sesame Street show before the park closed at 6.

Monday we did go shopping at the mall. There is an M&M World and they had a Build-a-Bear that we visited. KK had a blast at both… this is one instance where “what are we going to do next” was heard repeatedly.

Tuesday we made a “pool day”. We’d visited the kiddie pirate ship pool on Monday after we’d gotten back from shopping and the water was frigid… at best! K’s lips were purple within about 5 minutes but she was swearing (through teeth chattering) that she was having a GREAT time. Mmmm. I think not. So, Tuesday we went to one of the other pools that got a little more sunlight than the dear old pirate ship did. Muuuuch better. That afternoon Tootsie & Pop drove over to meet us for a couple of days of fun. We hung out at the pool for the rest of the day and headed out to dinner at one of our favorite tapas restaurants. Sangria & tapas… need I say more? K out ate me with hummus and half a pizza. When she saw that there was only one slice of pizza left she inhaled it because she wanted to finish her slice before I did so she could have the last one… Smart kid. ;)

Wednesday we went to Downtown Disney for the day. KK had picked out a Rapunzel dress that she wanted to wear, before we went on the trip. I’d gotten it and put it away waiting for her to wear it that day. She looked quite the princess, complete with the little freckles on her nose, just like Rapunzel. She loooved it. They do a dress-up thing in Downtown Disney where the little girls get their hair, makeup and get dressed up like the princess of their choice… One day that will be our girl, but for now she’s happy with us dressing her up! ;) One of the highlights of vacation included a trip to the Ghirardelli Soda Fountain for sundaes. S asked, foolishly, if the three of us could share one sundae. I’m lucky I got a spoon in there for the shoveling KK was doing. Glad he got his own else he’d have been very unfortunate given his ladies were in quite the deadlock over getting the next scoop.



Thursday we went back to Sea World for some more shamu. The show isn’t the same now that the trainers can’t go into the water. As with anything involving animals it’s all about what they want to do. Sunday, they were doing everything just the way it seemed like they were supposed to. Thursday…. Not as much so. All in all though still a good show. LOTS of splashing to make up for the lack of trainers in the water. The Dolphin show is still great and KK loved it. She told me after the show she “is going to be the pink girl when I grow up!”. The “pink girl” is the “little girl” in the show that plays with the dolphins throughout. She also loved the “yellow guy” and the “black guy” – two colors of the “birds” in the show. They were guys dressed in different color wet suits. The “yellow guy” gave her high fives so she immediately hearted him. Thursday night we had some pizza for dinner and fondue for dessert to celebrate Poppy’s up-coming birthday. K clearly knew something better was coming along after pizza because she saved room for the strawberries, pound cake, bananas and other dipping goodies! Poppy and Tootsie said goodbye and headed back home after dessert.

pink girl:


Friday we took K to Aquatic@ for the day. S thought it would be a 3 hour or so event… hehehehe. Not so much so. We were there from about 11 until 4:30. K had a BLAST. She’s SUCH a dare devil!! I was totally surprised by how much she loved the big slides. The faster the better. There was one that required her to be with a grown up and between S and I we must have taken her on it at least 20 times. It was fast for me… she thought it was BLISS!!! She’d yell WATERRRRRRRRRRRRRR (as we were sliding down) and as soon as we hit the water she’d yell FALLLLLL!!!!!! She made us laugh all day.



Saturday was the epic trip home. It took less time than anticipated, which was nice. We ended up getting home by 6pm and that left a good part of the night to unpack and settle back in.

Another great week together and much needed break for us all. As you might have seen on FB I started a new job mid-September and I’ve been traveling the last few weeks. This is my first week home since September 24th. The hope is that the travel will drop off in the next couple of weeks and we can get back to the “normal” routine. S is looking forward to home cooked meals each night (as I work from home) and me waiting for him at the door with a beverage in hand… He’s cute. And dreaming. ;) But I’ll let him have his dream – for now.

Much love to all… Happy Fall!! xo

Customize your own scrapbook

Nurse Betty

Yes, yes, I know. It's been a while since I've posted. And it will remain at least a few days until I post about the goings-on in the Aleksza Family. =)

Tonight I met a woman that I heart. We call her "Nurse Betty". I sat with her for about 2.5 hours and her passion for homecare, for the patients she serves and for the people around her was infectious. So much so that I at 3am ET I'm coming back to my room to write this. Perhaps because I don't want to forget than anything.

The background: Betty is 79 years young and has been a nurse for more than 50 years. After finishing high school she had wanted to be an Egyptologist. This determined as a result of going into her grandmother's attic and reading old books and seeing the pyramids in pictures. Her mother had another plan for her. She enrolled her in nursing school with a group of nuns from the Sisters of Christian Charity. As Betty tells it, "I'd never even played doctor with the little boy next store... A lost opportunity, but I mean seriously!" On her first day of nursing school Betty decided to listen in at the door when the sisters were talking after class... She heard them laughing and joking and decided then that they were fun and she'd stick around. She enjoyed nursing school tremendously. She said the sisters taught her so much. They allowed them to do all of the things they would be doing in "the real world" during their education. She told me that she feels so badly for the nurses today that don't get to wear the starched hat, uniform, etc. with the fancy graduations. She thinks this is a right of passage and one to be proud of.

Fast forward a bit... Mmm. Okay. Let's say 50 years.

Betty has had a wildly facinating life. She "moonlighted" as a "Stew" (AKA Stewardess) during her early nursing days. She worked for Air Canada and flew all over the world. She recalls that time in her life as amazing. "A little farm girl flying all over the world?!" (BTW: She says that the uniforms you see on PanAm are perfect to the time period but the story... she says is "BS". I don't know how true that is but that's Betty's version. ;))

Nurse Betty was nominated by one of her peers at the Home Health agency that she works at for an award. An award to be given to a compassionate person in the home health or hospice industry. Betty's nomination letter was wonderful. She was referred to as "the closest nurse to a modern day Florence Nightingale" that the submitter had ever met.

She kept us going for hours with her tales and stories. As she says "I'm Irish... I can keep on talking!" She told us the McD's parfaits (that they made smaller - much to her chagrin) with caramel are better than sex... At least she thinks so; It's been a while. She met a man in the elevator tonight as I was walking her back to her room that she said was a real "cutie pie". Even invited him back to her room, saying she wouldn't mind having some time with him. Doesn't know what she'd do with him but she's pretty sure she could figure it out. (Ohmy!) She challenged our CEO to a pole dance (she'd do it if he'd do it). (Fortunately this offer was politely declined... whew... for us all!!) She talked about her husband, who passed away, with a heart still full of so much love for him, despite her randy talking. :) He was "the most handsome man I'd ever met in my entire life." She loves jammin' to the Eagles while on her way to home visits. She feels a compulsive need to answer that lil ringing phone, even though she knows she shouldn't do so while driving. (We introduced her to bluetooth tonight.) She is a proud nurse. One that wants the world to know that Homecare nursing is more than taking blood pressures.

She reminded me again about the lives that are affected by homecare. She's only been in the industry for the last 6-7 years but she wishes she'd found it much sooner. She said she feels like she's able to do more hands on nursing than she did in the years previous as an ER nurse, burn center nurse and a variety of other nursing roles. She loves her patients and genuinely wants the best for them.

Betty is an incredible woman. One of thousands doing the same job, every single day. It struck me after her speech. She had a number of clinicians come up to her to say how much they related to the stories she told during her 3 minutes or so speech. They're there, doing the same things. Wading through the animal excrement, roaches, fleas, mice, biting dogs, cats, and homes with no HVAC. Making the most of those situations by carrying dog biscuits (toss and RUN into the house) or apples (for the stray horse that meets her at the end of one of her patient's driveways and escorts her up... At which time she feels him the apple.)

Nurse Betty plans on retiring at 80. Not because she doesn't want to do nursing anymore, but she wants to make sure she can travel before she's lost too much time. :) She wants to finally go see the Egyptian pyramids. Maybe see Orlando (I'm trying to convince her to come to Orlando next year and room with me for the conference!) Go back to Ireland to see if there is any family left (her Dad was a first generation immigrant). See the sites and experience more of the world. :)

I've been in this business for 14 years now and remain in love with the people I get to work with that care for patients in the home. They not only give of their skills... they give of their hearts. My deepest thanks to my clinician friends like Nurse Betty that care for the "sick and wounded" each day. To put it briefly: You rock! =)

Hello? Tornado? Why you broke my house?

This is the call K made to "Tornado" (pronounced nanado) yesterday. We're approaching 3 months and she still talks about it on nearly a daily basis. She decided yesterday to call "Tornado" to ask it some questions. We were all in her bedroom, hanging some flower lights on the wall, when she picked up her pink pretend barbie phone and made the call. Apparently "Tornado" wasn't home. He was out. ;) She continues to be very excited to see our roof each night when we get home and now is in love with the new windows. The new windows in our bedroom in particular. "They're beautiful!!!" I agree. Certainly an upgrade from the boarded look.

Seven years ago on June 29th, we purchased our house in Raleigh, NC. For those that don't remember it was quite a whirlwind time. Stephen and I had been married about 8 months and decided we didn't want to travel 40+ weeks ago year, four to five days a week. You know it's time to stop when you wake up and roll over to look at the phone in your hotel room to figure out what city and state your in. Or, at least, that was my queue. The decision to stop the travel gig required us to sell our house and relocate to Raleigh. We did so in less than 30 days, all the while, still traveling. I smile as I type that and think... Now THATs some serious project management skills! =) I wonder if Stephen used that as hours for his PMP? =P

June 29th was a momentous day 7 years ago and it was again in 2011. I came home mid-afternoon on the 29th to be there while the gents installed the remaining windows and replaced the damaged screens. I was sharing with one of the subcontractors, Brian, that it was the anniversary of the day we closed on the house. His response, "We need to get the big stuff done today!!!" True to his word, he did. As of June 29th the biggest exterior repairs were completed: Roof replaced; siding replaced; windows replaced; gutters replaced. We're so grateful to Carolina Restoration and their subcontractors for all they've done to help us restore our home. Travis, Brian and Paco have been wonderful. Truly good, and honest people, to work with. We're not finished yet, but there is not a single tarp anywhere on our house. Now THATs progress. :)

The next series of projects include light replacement on the garage, replacing the garage door (which seems to be getting worse and gets stuck at the most inopportune times), repainting the front door and all of the trim, front screen door replacement, screened-in porch repaired, screen door on the porch replaced and then we have some interior things we're doing. Floor repair/replacement, painting and some other home improvement projects that we're going to tackle now since we're tearing things apart. I think my fortune about a month ago was right... By the end of this year I WILL be living in a new house. While the address will be the same, there will be a lot of new parts. :)

In previous blogs I've asked you to pray for the folks in Tuscaloosa and Joplin. Today I ask that you add one of our neighbors to your list. Very early this morning their house caught fire. Their home is behind ours on a diagonal. (Note: we were not affected by the fire.) This is a home, that I believe, was spared significant damage during the tornado only to have their house seemingly destroyed by fire. I'm not a fire marshal or proclaim to know much about it, but to look at the videos and reports (we weren't home when it happened) it seems pretty bad. The second floor collapsed into the first. Fortunately the entire family made it out of the house safely.

This makes me grateful again that our middle of the night scare of the fire alarms going off was a false alarm. The pounding of my heart and my terror running to get a sleeping K from her bed has stayed with me. For those that have known me a long time you know my fear of fire is significant. GINORMOUS. I know. And I was a fire police officer?! I'll remind you my "team" called me "speed bump" and usually the FP officers are far away from the actual fire... Well, all except that time that I drove straight up to the house that was engulfed in flames and then hightailed my Ge0 Metr0, in reverse, back out to the main road. But that's a story for another day... Check your smoke detectors. Remember, after 7-10 years they "go bad". Replace them.

I hope all of our family & friends had a wonderful holiday weekend. xo

Love,
Dar, Stephen & KK