2016 Florida Vacation - A Mostly Good Day

Our second and final full day with Mama Dell and Papa Earl started out with a visit to Myakka State Park where we first stopped to look in the Myakka River. It is hard to see in the following photo, but there were a few alligators resting in the water.

Nest we went on a short nature walk.. no gators here!

The highlight of the park was a canopy walk.

We climbed up a short tower and then made our way across an unsteady walkway amongst the trees.

Once across, we climbed an even higher tower where we were well above the trees and could see for miles around.

The following picture gives you an idea of the height of the tower as seen from the bottom.

In the afternoon, we went to try another beach in the area. Kai gave it a thumbs up.

The beaches in the area are apparently known for being a good place to find shark's teeth. Someone had built a sand shark.

We found a sign that reminded us that we were over 1200 miles from home.

We took a walk to the end of a fishing pier.

And had an ice cream.

So, most of the day was good.

But not all.

There's nothing like staying with relatives that reminds you of how much your child doesn't behave the way you'd like him to.

There are the times when Kai spills milk - an accident he says, but when when it happens more than once I consider it carelessness.

There are the poor manners during meals when he puts the food on the table instead of on his plate.

But by far the most frustrating are when he can't stop with the iPad and insists on having everything on his schedule.

The past two evenings, we had dinner late. But on this evening dinner was ready shortly before 6PM. Kai was in the middle of doing something on his iPad and was not pleased to have to stop for dinner. We told him to take a break and he could finish up afterward, but he didn't want to stop. And when we insisted, he said things he shouldn't have said, using language we don't permit.

He lost his iPad privileges for the rest of the evening.

And that made him more mad.

He got angry at everyone and said that he has a miserable life. He went on and on so we sent him to a bedroom while the rest of us started eating.

We explained to his grandparents that one of Kai's biggest challenges is flexibility, and he has a difficult time when things catch him by surprise. In this case, he was not expecting that dinner would be ready much earlier than on the other days. And for a boy who craves a schedule and a routine, that was tough.

But it did not excuse his anger or his bad language.

The good thing was that eventually he did calm down. And he did come back to the table to have dinner with the rest of us.

And after dinner Papa Earl showed him how to play Hearts.

Kai actually won that game, though it was as much due to luck and my own bad play. Still, it was a nice way to end the evening.

The ups and downs of our life.

I don't think we've seen the last of it on our vacation.

But for now we have a happy boy again.

Easter Sunday in Florida

It was Easter Sunday on our first full day in Florida. Mama Dell had not forgotten and had a box of Easter goodies for Kai.

Kai had wanted to hunt for Easter eggs first thing in the morning. Mama Dell had gotten two dozen eggs for Kai to color, but the night before Kai got upset when he found out that the eggs would not be ready to hunt so early in the morning. It is frustrating for us when Kai does not deal well with his disappointment; in this case he expressed anger toward his grandmother who was trying hard to make his stay so enjoyable. But rather than get exasperated as I would have been, Dell responded beautifully, cutting up paper eggs for Kai to decorate, and telling him that we could hide those eggs.

He liked that idea and did a nice job of decorating those eggs, which we hid for him to find.

After the hunt for the paper eggs, it was time to color the real ones.

Kai enjoyed experimenting with various mixtures of colors.

Later in the morning we went to a nearby park.

And then after lunch, it was time to go to the beach.

In past years, Kai was afraid of the ocean waves, but this time he enjoyed battling even the big waves.

It was a good way to spend an Easter Sunday in Florida.

Spring Break Vacation - Back to Florida!

It is Kai's spring break and we have returned to Florida where we had some fun times last year. This year we decided to drive down.

It was a long two days.

We got off to a relatively early start, leaving the house at 6:30 in the morning. Traffic getting through Chicago was remarkably light. And we made pretty good time through most of Indiana, though we had some heavy traffic near Indianapolis and beyond . We got to the Kentucky state line around lunchtime.

And since we were in Kentucky, we decided to have KFC for lunch.

Lunch would be the highlight of the afternoon.

We had several slow areas in Kentucky, between construction zones, accidents, and just heavy traffic.

We were happy to get to Tennessee.

Though Tennessee turned out to be the worst. It seemed to take forever to get through this short state. Who would have thought that Chattanooga would have far worse traffic than Chicago.

Kai didn't mind though. He was enjoying watching videos in the car.

By the time we got to Georgia, it was starting to get dark.

And when we reached our motel in Marietta, it was after 9PM.

My wife took Kai for a quick swim in the pool. (I could not go as I had sliced my finger with a sharp knife the day before). And we had dinner before finally going to bed at 11PM.

The next day, we got on our way to complete our drive.

The drive through Georgia was not bad at all. The biggest delay was trying to get lunch at a Wendy's where the line of folks waiting to get the meal they had ordered had filled up the waiting area. After waiting about 10 minutes without being able to even order, we left and went to a different fast food outlet where they messed up our order but at least we got to eat.

We made it into Florida after lunch.

It was after 6PM when we reached our destination. Mama Dell, Papa Earl, and their feathered friends greeted us.

Mama Dell had a delicious dinner ready for us. After dinner and some conversation, my wife and I wanted to go to sleep and rest up after the long drive. We were tired, but happy that we were in Florida and ready to enjoy a couple days with family.

Florida Vacation - A Day on the Water

We had another great day with Mama Dell and Papa Earl.

First order of business was to clean up the shells we collected yesterday so that we could pack them up to take home. I estimate that we had over three hundred shells.

And then we got a ride on Papa Earl's boat. A few years ago, when we went for a ride on Papa Earl's boat on Lake Erie, Kai was scared when it went over the choppy waves. But he enjoyed this rid.

We saw many birds including this osprey who was feeding her young.

We rode over to a seafood restaurant over at the next town. Kai enjoyed oysters on the half shell, clam chowder, and here with fried shrimp.

The meal and breeze got everyone very relaxed, Kai and Mom especially.

On the way back, we had a big thrill when we saw a dolphin swim right toward us before diving under our boat. Though it happened so fast that I couldn't snap a picture.

Later in the afternoon, we returned to the beach. This time Kai wanted to go in the water. It was a bit breezy so it was actually warmer in the water than out. Kai has become so comfortable in the water that the bigger waves of the Gulf of Mexico did not faze him at all.

It was another good day and Kai is having a great time.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Mama Dell and Papa Earl an move on to the next part of our adventure - the Everglades.

Niagara Falls Vacation – Day 1: Visiting Grandparents, Playing with Rocks & Mineral Cards

We just returned from a trip to Niagara Falls. As you might expect, there were plenty of highs and lows, and I will be writing about all of it over the next few days.

Our son has a three and a half week break between the end of summer school and the beginning of fall term. We typically like to use part of that time to travel – to give Kai exposure to new places, and also because he would drive my wife crazy if we stayed home the whole time.

After our experience on last summer’s vacation, we tried to scale back expectations. This year, we thought a shorter trip might work out better. We also wanted to pick a destination that would be fun and interesting for Kai, but not so jam-packed with sights to see that we would be tempted to do too much.

After much consideration, we decided on Niagara Falls.

As a kid, my family took driving vacations almost every summer. We saw most of the United States that way with my dad driving our station wagon from place to place. But one area of the country we never went to was the northeast. And so, I had never seen Niagara Falls myself.

I wanted to see it as I had heard from others that it is a place you must see at least once. But it was also hard to imagine that there would be so much to do once we had viewed it for five minutes. I thought there would likely be plenty of free time to go to the pool and take it easy.

In the days leading up to our trip, Kai was very excited. It reminded me of how excited with anticipation I used to get as a kid before my family’s vacations. In his last speech therapy session before the trip, he had a nice conversation with Alyson, telling her about his upcoming journey. I think he most looked forward to traveling to a state he had never been to before: New York.

On our first day, we drove to Kai’s grandparents house, as they live about halfway between home and Niagara. Kai was happy to see them, and they gave us a warm welcome.

After all the greetings, Kai could not wait to use the community pool.

He showed Mama Dell what an improved swimmer he is compared with our visit last summer. Though, to our chagrin, his form is never as good with us as it is when his swim instructor supervises him.

When we visit relatives, it is often hard to have a conversation, as Kai requires so much attention. On this visit, however, he was content much of the time playing with his latest obsession. When I was a kid, I collected baseball cards; Kai now collects cards about rocks. But there is no doubt that he enjoys his cards as much as I enjoyed mine.

Mama Dell was the person who first introduced Kai to Basher books a couple of years ago. This is a series of kids’ books on various science topics. The thing that makes these books different from others, and so appealing to Kai, are the fun, colorful illustrations that go along with the explanations of each topic.

Kai now has the Basher books on the periodic table, the human body, biology, algebra and geometry, and astronomy, among others. Recently, he discovered that the company also makes flash cards, and he has been collecting the set of Rocks and Minerals cards.

We have been using the cards as motivators to get him to do the online Thinkwell math program that I learned about from my blog friend Shiroi Tora. Without the cards, we struggled to get Kai to do one section a day. With the chance to earn cards, he eagerly does five or six a day.

Now, sitting by his grandmother’s coffee table, Kai busied himself by re-creating the entire set of cards.


Whenever Kai gets a new card, he wants us to read all of the information on the back. Some of the descriptions are not easy to understand, using words that are difficult for even my wife and I to pronounce. So, we wondered if he learned anything we read him. I was surprised when I quizzed him and realized that he had memorized many of the facts on the cards – things like pyrite is a look-alike of gold, that talc is one of the softest minerals while diorite is a hard igneous rock.

His preoccupation with these flash cards allowed us to have some serious conversation with Dell and Earl. It was funny, though, when every now and then, Kai would yell over from the living room to comment on something that we said. Even when he was engrossed in his own activity and not appearing to pay attention to us, he was listening. (However, when I want him to hear something, I may have to repeat it a dozen times to get his attention.)

Anyway, after great home-cooked meals, a good night’s sleep, and a nice time with the grandparents, we said our goodbyes and moved on to our next destination.

Tomorrow – On to Niagara!
See our Facebook page for photos from our entire trip

A Weekend Away

We went away for the weekend to visit Kai’s grandmother in Ohio.

We haven’t visited there in three years, and Mama Dell doesn’t get to our area too often either, so, with school off last week, it was a great opportunity to visit.

Mama Dell was thrilled to see us. She gave us big warm hugs and welcomed us.

She and Papa Earl live near the water and Kai wanted to explore the dock area, so Papa Earl set up some fishing poles for us. My wife had hardly fished before so this was a new experience for her. She ended up catching the most fish and the biggest one that first day. Kai didn’t want to handle the fishing pole, but liked checking out the fish that Mom hauled in.

When he got bored of the fishing, Kai went inside and helped prepare dinner. After my wife found out how successfully Mama Dell had gotten him to peel potatoes, she hired him to be her new sous chef at home.

The next day, Dell insisted that my wife and I get a break from Kai. She took him for the bulk of the day, going to a merry-go-round museum, pick-your-own strawberries, and the park. We want Kai to know his family better, and so it was nice that he had this opportunity to spend a day with his grandmother. And though picking strawberries was tough on the back and Kai wasn’t perfectly behaved, she appreciated the time they had together.

Though I think that my wife and I got the better end of the deal as Papa Earl took us out on his boat for some fishing on Lake Erie. It was a beautiful sunny day with a gentle breeze keeping things from getting too hot. My wife  kept her fishing luck from the previous day with more action in the boat.

As we were away from Kai for so long, a strange sensation came over us. I vaguely recalled the feeling. I think it is called relaxation.

But, eventually we had to head back to shore. And Kai “welcomed” us with some bad behavior that I may write about later in the week.

But there was no dampening the warm feelings of sharing time with loved ones and renewing bonds.

We ended our visit on a great note, visiting the local pool before we left yesterday. On other vacations, when we have gone to a pool with him, he is too scared to try to swim. But this time, he was much more comfortable, and showed Mama Dell how much he had improved with his swimming.

Today, we are back to our daily routine with Kai starting summer school. But, our weekend in Ohio was a great way to kick off our summer and we won’t forget the fun times we had.

Date Night For Parents, Great Night For Grandmother

With many of our family members living in a different part of the country from us, or even on the other side of the world, it is always a treat whenever we do see them.  My wife and I both came from small families and did not have a lot of cousins or other family members that we saw very often.  So, we really appreciate it when our son has opportunities to spend time with members of his extended family.  It is particularly nice because he gets very excited about seeing his relatives. 

Since the middle of last week, Kai’s grandmother has been in town on business and has been staying with us.  We don’t get to see Mama Dell too often, so she always notices how much Kai has changed since her last visit.  This time she was quick to point out how much he is interacting with her, making great eye contact, and behaving so nicely.

Often, when Mama Dell comes to town, she is so busy with work that she doesn’t have much time to spend with Kai.  This time, however, she wanted to give my wife and me a break, and offered to watch Kai one evening.  It has been many, many months since my wife and I had a date night, so we took her up on her offer. 

The evening was a win-win-win all around.

My wife and I had a nice night out, a pleasant break from our usual routine.  Kai had a great time with his grandmother; they played fun games and laughed a lot when she read him a funny book and sang a sweet, silly song at bedtime.  And, when we later returned home, Mama Dell was glowing about how much she enjoyed spending the evening with Kai.  She had earlier lamented that since she lives so far away, she doesn’t feel as connected with her grandkids as she would like.  So, the chance to spend quality time with Kai was very special to her. 

At one time, Kai couldn’t interact with others.  He was difficult to handle.  It was hard for all of us, but particularly his faraway relatives, to see what a sweet, remarkable child he really was.  But, I am happy to say that is changing by the day.

And so, I paraphrase the famous credit card commercial: A night out for Mom and Dad – sweet!  A chance for grandmother and grandson to really bond – priceless!