On the hunt for better music. I’m not content with my music library. Here’s what I have so far. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Carbon Leaf – Wolftrap and Fireflies

The Fratellis – Chelsea Dagger

I was clearing out our phone last week and found a few pictures that brought back memories. Here is a picture I found of Moura the first week back from California. She spent 6 months in Honolulu  in the Animal Quarantine Holding Facility. I was able to visit her for the first 3 weeks before I had to fly to Maui to find us a place to live. I didn’t see her for the next 5 1/2 months. Fortunately Mary was kind enough to visit Moura every week and read to her and just spend time with her. I still feel really bad about having to leaver here there.

Sitting on the couch watching the office, we ate banana bread and agreed to not be grumpy. It had been a bit of a rough morning, but Leif gave us a good laugh. He broke into an incredible dance routine, smiled, ran up to the couch, and sneezed at us. How could we possibly stay grumpy after that. Especially when dangling from his nose in a thick ribbon was a large boogie engulfed piece of cat food. He declared the end of his glorious routing with a very pronounced “Ta Daaa”. We couldn’t help but to laugh hysterically. If only I could have captured this moment for you to see.

The day before Gavin’s spring break ended, we remembered that we had to buy a return flight for him. He spent most of his spring break at grannies house on Oahu just after her recovery. We’ve talked about sending Gavin unaccompanied on a plane to save some money for the past few trips, but for one reason or another, someone always ended up going with him. Now there was no reason for someone to spend the extra money to take an extra trip to pick up Gavin. We finally decided to buy Gavin a ticket for an unaccompanied inter-island plane ride. We were all a little nervous about it, but Gavin said he was brave and could do it, so we did.

Mary dropped him off at the airport and was able to get a special pass to bring him down to his gate. There were two other unaccompanied kids and a person in a wheelchair that also needed assistance. The other two kids didn’t have any of the paperwork that they needed. Their parents bought them a regular ticket and just sent them down to the gates. Gavin had all his paperwork ready to go. He handed it to the unorganized attendant who was busy trying to get these other two kids in order. Gavin wasn’t given any instructions, so when he noticed the man in the wheel chair being pushed to their plane, Gavin walked out onto the tarmac and was ready to head to his plane. He was very brave. The attendant chased him down and let him know that when she was done with the other kids, they would all walk out together.

Mary watched as the kids were all put on the plane. After all the other passengers were boarded, she watched as the plane backed out of the gate, drove  around to the runway and took off.

Meanwhile, Me, Holly, and Leif arrived at the airport on our end to see about picking Gavin up. At the check-in counter, they assured us that Gavin would be escorted off the plane and to the baggage claim where we can meet him. They would not give us a temporary pass to meet him at the gate.

We walked down to where we were to meet Gavin. His plane was supposed to land at 4:20pm. While we were waiting, we played “deactivate the baby”, where you hold up an imaginary remote control and go “p-chewwww” and the baby falls down, does a short breakdance and then lies still on the ground. He was in self-wake mode and got up to do it again. At 4:30pm, we got a call from Mary with word on whether or not we picked up Gavin. There was no sign of him yet. Apparently the plane was late. I pushed Leif around in circles in his stroller as we waited some more. I strolled Leif down to a water fountain to get a drink, and on the way back Holly announced “There he is”. We walked to the exit where Holly signed fo Gavin like a packaged being delivered by UPS. Leif gave him a big bear hug. We all took our rounds hugging. We were so relieved. It is good to have our boy back.

I picked up Gavin’s bag and we headed for the car. We called granny to let her know that we had the boy and he was safe. Gavin was all excited about his trip all by himself and preceded to tell us all about it while we took the short walk to our car. I’m so proud of him.

Mary was sick for almost a week when she went to the doctor. Actually, it got so severe that over the weekend, her sister drove her to the ER. They wouldn’t give her a definite answer, but they hinted that she might have viral meningitis. They told her that they couldn’t tell her for sure unless they gave her a spinal tap. A spinal tap wasn’t really wanted so they told her to go to her doctor in 4 days and they would see how she was doing. When we realized how serious this was, we sent Holly over on a plain to help take care of her. That was Tuesday.

This left me, Gavin and Leif home by ourselves. This was Leif’s first time spending a night away from Holly. We knew it would be rough. We all slept in my bed at night. Leif woke up a few times looking for Holly. He usually does this, rolls over, nurses a bit, and falls back asleep. Of course Holly was not there so he ended up crying quite a bit. Poor kid. He actually did better than I expected he would. I stayed up singing to him quite a bit in the middle of the night, but I didn’t have to walk him around the house until he fell back to sleep. That was nice. Gavin had a rough time as well with his little brother turning sideways, kicking him, and crying every few hours of the night. After a few days of this, we all flew over to visit ever improving Mary.

We stayed at Mary’s house for the weekend and the first few days of the following week. She had an appointment that Monday. They agreed that she was improving and told her to start adding her daily routines  back into her life, but to be cautious and me sure to stop at any signs of fatigue or lightheadedness. They left her with various bottles of controlled narcotics. Yum Yum. Fortunately she stopped needing them later that day. I suppose now she had a temporary source of income. 🙂

The last two days we were there, Mary improved vastly and did things like taking a trip to Costco, walking to the grocery store, and eating delicious foods. She was even getting a full solid night’s sleep.

With Mary feeling almost 100%, we decided to book tickets home for Holly and I, and leave Gavin there for the remainder of his spring break. He loves his granny and she loves him and we all would have been quite sad if Gavin couldn’t spend spring break with her.

It all sounds so simple in this post here, but the feeling we all had while Mary was sick was stomach churning. We were extremely fortunate. Meningitis is super serious and could have ended very different. We are so thankful that Mary had now made a full recovery.