August 4 - Maybe not so magical of a day

Today's plans for an uneventful day sure ended with a bang, or a wheeze.

Today we just go out to eat for lunch and catch our reserved van to get from Kowloon to Lantau Island where we'll spend 2 nights at Disney's Hollywood Hotel and do 2 days in the park. (They were having a stay 2 nights get a 2nd day in the park for free promotion)

I'd made the reservation on the phone a few weeks ago after several failed online attempts. Well... it turns out that the "park view" rooms I reserved and requested as "connecting" can't be HAD as "connecting" because NONE OF THEM ARE CONNECTED. A SMALL detail that would've been helpful during the reservation process. Oh! and of course, there are no connecting rooms available. So blah, blah, blah.... we'll just cope. We're glad to be in a room where the kids can veg in front of more innocent cartoons in the English language(so that they'll actually stay parked in front of the TV long enough for me & G to take a break/nap).

Now here we go...

T-boy is having a bronchiospasm episode that's not responding to his inhaler. We all go downstairs to try and eat but T-boy's just getting worse. Geoff goes to the front desk to see if there's a doctor. The front desk manager calls him a taxi to go to the Adventist Hospital. I'm at the cafe with 2 trays of food and drink and 3 kids... we need to go to the room. I can't keep them corralled. Wonderfully there's a "cast member" who sees me trying to manipulate 2 trays of food and drink and 3 kids and helps us up to our room. In the elevator I vent some of my stress about Turner... He responds "Oh, you're in room -insert our room # here-." He was one of the staff members helping G get the hospital trip together.

Once I get the kids fed and settled I get a call... I'm hoping its' G but it's the front desk manager. She tells me that if there's anything they can do to help to let her know. She's also asking me if I have any new news. I suppose that when you've got a Disney resort management position you need to know if there's a case of bird-flu at your hotel.

I finally hear from G. They're spending the night and T-boy will have IV medication. I respond, "Wha!? What about a nebulizer?" We're in Hong Kong(China)... they don't do nebulizers because of SARS. G and T-boy have also gotten the quarantine treatment once the staff discovered we'd come from Thailand... bird-flu-fear.

Well... at the least the other kids got to watch the fireworks from the hotel room. The TV read them a few bedtime stories... and we all eventually went to sleep.

... Here's where I wish we could ALL breathe a sigh of relief.

Geoff says to go ahead to the park with the other kids tomorrow. I feel off about it... but it makes sense... certainly no sense in staying cooped up in a hotel room with 3 kids.

Tonight, the luggage gets a treat... its own hotel room with a view of the park.

April 5 - Oh Cr-p!

Kids are up at 3am local. It’s a sh—ty morning. I’ll elaborate…

1- Cam does his usual poop and bounce on his bottom. It can’t be too messy for him. Thank goodness for the handheld sprayer in the tub.

2- We’re in Japan. They’ve got these fantastic high tech toilets. They’re so high-tech that toilets have warning pictures. One of them is a caricature of a little boy sitting on the toilet leaning back on the lid with an “X” next to it, warning not to lean back on the lid or you may break the toilet structure. Turner’s interpretation: Little boys may not sit on the toilet. Yep, he had to poop. So where is a little boy to poop if NOT on the toilet? Where else but in his underwear while on the white, white, white bed linens… of course. So that’s mess number 2.

3- Felicia’s excited to take a bath in the fabulous, high-walled tub. So I help get the bath drawn and get her IN the tub. While she’s in there she gets her urge to poop and goes to the toilet to poop. Well, she didn’t quite make it… Did I mention that the tub was deep? She calls me to help her get back in the tub….. THAT’s when I see what’s happened to the white, white, bathroom. There’s now brown, brown: in the bath water, on the tub where she eventually climbed out in a trail connecting tub to toilet, and toilet to the door to call me. Oh, and then there’s Felicia.

Geoff was sleeping since he stayed up late with them while I passed out as soon as I hit the mattress… airplane clothes and all.

We hit the buffet breakfast at 6am and all is well :o) It’s the first of many occasions where I attempt to communicate that I can’t communicate in “fill in language here”.

So we squeeze on to the 7am bus to Narita Airport. We need to unfold seats that fill in the aisle. Fun for the kids. Not so fun to get through passport/ID check to the airport.

At check-in we try to convince the airline to let us bring Cam’s car seat on to the plane… nope. Looks like we won’t be able to strap Cam into a seat to keep from losing him… that’s going to hurt. Turner’s asthma kicks into full gear on the flight. By the end of the flight we could tell it was FINALLY improving. Phew! Nanay was scared. I’m also VERY sick of pacing the aisles with Totoy(Cam). So I’m in tears by the end of the flight between Turner’s asthma scare and the Cam challenge. So glad that Ronan sleeps the whole flight and Felicia is self entertaining for the 6 ½ hours.

WE’RE IN THAILAND!

Where’s the stroller? Waiting…. Waiting…. Waiting… “So sorry for the inconvenience the stroller is at baggage claim.” No biggie. Trip to bathroom… go through customs and make our way to baggage claim… we’re thinking we’re sooo not going to see the car seat or stroller. But hey! There they are! Got the blue Samsonite (which I’ve grown to loath… I swear it refuses to close for ME)… But there’s no black bag or silver bag. Geoff finds our black bag on someone else’s cart. We find a bag that soooo looks like ours. But soooooo is not. Thai Aiways rep is very helpful in filing paperwork to find bag. Hmmmm what was in the bag? Over $1000 of meds! 4 months of Singulair and inhalers, Tamiflu, Z-packs, malaria, etc… Gifts for Thai folks and our family toiletry bag! Maybe it wasn’t a mistake…. Maybe someone hit the pharmaceutical jackpot?

An angel with driver is at the airport to pick us up. Jack and Peter-the-driver (from Delta… company in Thailand) drive us to our temporary home. It’s over 90 degrees F and humid. It feels like 4th of July. We’re so happy to ride in an air conditioned van with bottles of water.

We get to the house and meet our very nice landlady and her husband. We get a ton of keys and a very nice looking bottle of wine. Jack and Peter take Geoff to the store so we can get toothbrushes, food, etc.

WE MADE IT!

Quote by Jack while shopping with Geoff at the Carrefour store, “Ahhhh, garlic! Very important.” Some things are universal, aren’t they?