Funny Story

So, Bailey has done quite well with her new contacts. All up until Tuesday. Tuesday night she went into her bathroom to take out her contacts. After a while, she came to me and said that she had gotten one of her contacts out but she couldn't get the other one out. I told her that she had to learn to do this on her own (and she has been, I haven't helped her once) and to go try again. More time passed and she came back to me, one eye clearly bloodshot and irritated.

Bailey - I still can't get it, Mom.
Me - Are you sure you have it in?
Bailey - yes, I think I so. I can feel it moving.

I looked in her eye and I couldn't tell if she had it in or not - her eye was so irritated at this point. I had her get a flashlight and I looked some more and I couldn't see a contact in her eye.

Me - Did you put it in this morning?
Bailey - I think so. I had trouble with it.
Me - What do you mean, you think so? Can't you tell a difference in how you see?
Bailey - No, this is my "good" eye that I can see with.

Poor Bailey has one eye from me and one eye from Rominal, meaning one eye sees pretty clearly (the one from me, thank-you-very-much) and one from Rominal that doesn't see clearly. This is why she wouldn't wear her glasses - she could just read and see out of the one eye and she's gotten by doing that throughout her life. I went into her bathroom and looked around on the floor a bit, then on the towel in front of the mirror where she puts her contacts in. Sure enough, there was the dried up contact from the morning. She had never gotten it in, and she didn't even notice. Worse, she had spent the last 20 minutes or so trying to get the contact out.

So, the next day she had to go to school with one contact, although this time it was on purpose. Luckily, she had an appointment that afternoon to pick up her contacts after the trial of wearing them for a bit. I told the story to the doctor and he looked at her chart again and said, well, maybe she should only wear one. He tested her sight with only one contact in and agreed. So, she has saved us some money since now we will only have to buy contacts for one eye.

I'm happy to report that her "good" eye has recovered from the extra poking and prodding and is just fine.

Some pictures

Ok - here's some quick pictures from the Grand Canyon. This first one is of El Tovar - the 105 year old hotel that we stayed at. It's the one on the left nearest the canyon.




Here's another picture of it as we are walking in. The sun was just starting to set behind the hotel.

Here's a quick shot of the Grand Canyon. Have I mentioned how amazing it is?

And you have to be very careful to not fall off the edge. . . Rominal didn't get this message apparently.

But most importantly, always remember to bring your spirit fingers!

Home

Well, we are home. We had a wonderful time. Unfortunately, the realities of coming home from a vacation are now setting in. Mounds of laundry, piles of mail, bills to be paid, groceries to be bought, stupid cooking projects due for Bailey's class, etc. Honestly, she had to make a potato dish to take to school today. GRRRRR. That meant going to the store and buying things (not that I didn't have to do that anyway - it was just one more thing to do last night).

Since I didn't post any in the last couple of days, I'll fill you in very quickly. We drove up to the Grand Canyon on Friday. It was beautiful, amazing, and awe inspiring - I can't say enough about it. We left early Saturday morning to start the long drive back home. After about 10 hours of driving, we arrived in Amarillo and a 2 hour time difference - and not in our favor. I'm still feeling the loss of those 2 hours. Sunday, we got up and drove the rest of the way home. I'll be going through the pictures and I'll post some more later.

One funny thing, last night Rominal and I were joking about how in four consecutive nights we will have slept in four different beds - Scottsdale, Grand Canyon, Amarillo and finally our own bed. When Rominal came to bed last night I woke up a bit and started talking. Apparently I do this often and normally he just says, "uh huh" and other quieting noises and gets me to go back to sleep. However, last night I was so disoriented that I couldn't figure out where we were. I was asking him where he came from. When I am in my bed I can see two doors, one is the entry into our bedroom and the other is the door to our bathroom. I had to ask him where the bathroom was, because I honestly had no idea, and I needed to know. I guess when I asked him that he gave me a real answer and I woke up enough to remember where we were.

Sedona and Verde Canyon Railroad

Today was a full day. We got up early and drove to Sedona. We went straight to the Chapel of the Holy Cross, which was perched up on a mountain. It was a stunning sight.

Here's the church from the other side.

Here's the view from the chapel. I plan to buy this house at some point in my life - just to tear it down and put a more tasteful house in its place.

Then we had lunch at Heartline Cafe in Sedona. They had the BEST hummus ever! The chicken salad sandwiches were great too! And this cute guy was hanging around outside. And no, the bag in my hand is not a bag of chocolate chip cookies.

Then we drove to Clarkdale to ride the Verde Canyon Railroad. Here's Mom and me on the train. We are inside in our seats for this picture.

This is Rominal and Bailey outside in the viewing car.

Ok - this is a picture of a bald eagle sitting in her nest. It was pretty cool to see - later in the day we saw a young eagle flying around as well.

Here's the three of us back inside the train.

Here's one of the best parts of the train ride, especially for one of our passengers. It's a tunnel. Can you guess who enjoyed this the most?

I bet you guessed Bailey. You'd be wrong.

Travel

We are traveling this week. It's late here, so this will be a quick post just to update everyone with some pictures. Oh - where are we going? We are going to Scottsdale, Arizona then to the Grand Canyon. We are driving though, so we have a stop in El Paso, Texas on the way there, and a stop in Amarillo, Texas on the way back.

First of all - one of the highlights for Bailey when we check into a hotel is getting to ride on the luggage cart. This is in the hotel in El Paso. But you knew that, right? Don't you recognize it?

We met Rominal's nephew Keenon and his wife, April and their family for dinner. We went to a local Mexican restaurant and had a great time. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at the restaurant, but here's a picture of Rominal and Keenon in our hotel room. It was great to see them.

On Sunday, we arrived in Scottsdale. Here's our view from our balcony.

We went for a walk around the grounds - and there is lots of wildlife here!

Some is scarier than others. . . It's a good thing Rominal is here to save us.

Here's one of the many pools here. We spent the afternoon here today. I know, it's rough, but someone has to do it!

On Monday, we went to the Heard Museum. It's a museum filled with Native American artifacts. We really enjoyed that.

After the museum, we went to one of Mom's favorite places, MacAlpine's soda shop. We had lunch there.

Then we had one of these . . . Actually, this is a picture of Bailey's root beer float. I forgot to take a picture of Mom's chocolate soda that we really went here for.

Today we went to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio in Scottsdale. It was amazing and I'm so glad that we did the tour.

Here's Mom in front of a sculpture on the grounds.

And here's one of the three of us in front of a beautiful tree.

And finally, one more picture from today. This shows you that you just never know who you might run into while shopping in Scottsdale.

Milestones

Bailey wears glasses - or I should say, she should wear glasses. Her eyes are such that one eye is near sighted and one eye is far sighted. She has developed a way that she can switch from eye to eye to read or see clearly. It would be frustrating for me because when I would insist that she wear her glasses, she would complain that, "Mom, I can read." I would then test her on this and sure enough - she could read. However, I know that it wasn't the best for her eyes to be switching back and forth - or actually I don't know this for sure - I just do know that the eye doctors have said that she should wear glasses and since they have the degree and I don't - I'm gonna follow their instructions.

So, after our daily battles regarding her glasses, the begging of, "Mom, can I have contacts" came up pretty quickly. Rominal was completely against it, believing that she is just being vain and glasses are just fine. However, since he has never been a 13 year old girl, he might not understand the complexities and social pressures to fit in. I, on the other hand, was once a 13 year old girl and I do remember how important it was to not stand out from anyone else. One of her main arguments was, "so and so wears them!"

Rominal and I talked some more and he finally gave in, or in reality said - do whatever you want. So, last night Bailey got contacts. It took her a while to get them in for the first time, and then she had to take them out while we were at the doctor's office. They were very patient with her and I think she's going to get the hang of this very quickly. Just to be safe though, she set her alarm clock to go off early this morning so that she could have extra time to put them in before school. Turns out that this was a good thing, she needed that extra time, but she eventually got them in.

So, as she went off to school this morning, I was reminded of how she is growing up so quickly and maturing before my eyes - hee hee, pun intended. Soon putting in and taking out her contacts will be second nature to her - another step towards independence and a big milestone in her life.