Vacation Part 2

Our first stop of the morning was Abraham Lincoln's birthplace.  Kaitlyn earned another Jr. Ranger badge.

We continued our trip south and stopped at Mammoth Cave next.  It was so hot out!  We loved going into the nice and cool cave. Kenzie liked the dark, cool cave so much she fell asleep almost immediately after we got inside!

We spent the night in Memphis, so we could go to panda stop number 1 the next morning... the Memphis Zoo.  It was so exciting to be there for the eclipse!  We already had our own glasses, but the zoo had a thousand pairs to give out as well.  They also had viewing stations set up in front of certain animal exhibits, so people could view the changes in animal behavior during the eclipse.  Memphis experienced 94% totality. We watched near the elephants.  The zoo's streetlights came on and the elephants headed for the back of their enclosure towards bed!  It was so cool!

I have tried to put various hats on Kenzie for pictures while she slept, but the little snot always wakes up immediately and rips them off.  I actually laughed at Kevin when I saw him try to put the glasses on Kenzie, but she was out!

There were 3 baby giraffes.  One was born just the week before!

Of course, we had to swing back around to visit the pandas one more time!

Vacation Part 1

We had a great time on our vacation road trip!  We were actually supposed to leave a couple of days before we did, but Kevin had something come up at work which made us push the trip back.  I kept the days off, however, and really enjoyed spending the time with the girls.  One of the days, we joined Mammy for a picnic lunch at Bug Light, a drive, and ice cream at the beach! 

The girls are ready to go!

Kenzie stole George from Kaitlyn's bag. Kaitlyn is a great big sister though and happily shared him!

After a rough first day of travel...  a typical 9 hour drive turned into nearly 14 hours due to construction and really bad traffic, we rolled into western Pennsylvania around midnight.  Kevin and I have been wanting to visit the Flight 93 Memorial for a while.

The Memorial is beautiful. At the top of the hill is an overlook to the crash site, a path showing the flight path of the plane that day, the Visitors Center, and a Museum.  There is a 3 mile walking path that winds down to the crash site and around back to the Visitors Center (or you can drive).  At the bottom is the crash site and the Memorial.  As the volunteer was explaining this, she told Kaitlyn about the Jr. Ranger program.  She'd been given Jr. Ranger stickers before, but we never knew how extensive the program was.  It amazes me that out of all the National Parks we've visited over the years, no one else has mentioned the program.

Every National Park has a Jr. Ranger booklet geared to the site.  The number of activities and type of activity depends upon your age. After you complete the activities, you bring the book to one of the Park Rangers to review.  The ranger will then swear in the Jr. Ranger with an oath that is also tailored to the park (at MLK's birthplace, for example, she swore not to discriminate against others) and fill it out a certificate of completion.  Then she gets a Jr. Ranger pin in the shape of a badge with the name of the National Park site on it.  Most of the parks just have the badge, but a couple of places she went gave out patches a well.  One place gave out an entire goody bag with stickers, pencils, a toy buffalo, etc!  All for free!  We're going to have to revisit parks we've already gone to just so she can complete the Jr. Ranger badges!

A view of the crash site.

The crash site is marked by a large boulder.

After the site was cleared, the town planted wildflowers at the site.  It's so beautiful.

The path down to the Memorial in front of the crash site.

Kaitlyn being sworn in as Jr. Ranger.

After visiting the Memorial, we headed to our next stop in Louisville, KY.  Our hotel was amazing.  We had a corner executive suite.  The girls loved the view.  Kenzie loved playing in the curtains and bouncing on the bed!

Kenzie was fascinated by the water feature in the hotel lobby.

My Wonder Woman girls are ready to hit the road for our next stop...

Kenzie Update

Thursday was yet another trip to see Dr Rodan at Boston Children's Hospital.  As the appointment was at 830 we left the house early and drove down.

There is not much news at this point.  The Dr is fairly certain from the genetic test results that Kenzie is most likely being afflicted by a change in gene VPS13D.  There is not much known about this gene, but other genes  in the same family do affect movement.  A worldwide search has turned up at least 5 other candidates with variations in this gene and with symptoms similar to Kenzie.  There are a group of researchers currently working on and reportedly they are close to publishing a paper in the next six months.  Not exactly sure what this will mean for Kenzie yet.  To determine if Kenzie is definitely being affected by this gene will take some time.  Kenzie will need to have functional testing done, and I apologize but we really aren't sure yet what that entails but I believe it involves testing the gene from her blood.

Kenzie will also be seeing a new specialist on her next visit to Boston.  It is a Dr from the orthopedics department who specializes in cerebral palsy, which Kenzie does not have but has expertise with extra movements and will help make sure medications and physical hardware such as braces etc are on track. He will be part of a team including Dr Rodan that will be caring for Kenzie.

This past week we were also finally able to meet with a speech therapist for Kenzie here in Scarborough.  More of a meet and greet but starting next week Kenzie will have more thorough evaluations and speech therapy will begin.  The process has also been started through Child Devleopment Services which falls under the umbrella of the Department of Education here in Maine to get Kenzie evaluated to see if she qualifies for preschool that would assist her with her specific needs.  There is a place here in Scarborough called the Morrison Center where Kenzie is getting her speech therapy where we hope all of this will happen.  If it all goes well we will move her physical and occupational therapy there as well.  These services are designed to get Kenzie ready for school whether traditional or not.  Involves making an Individual Education Plan for her to specifically address her.  The teacher or counselor ratio varies greatly here depending on need and can even be one to one.

That is the most I can think of for now.  We will return to Boston on November 9 for two appointments.  With any luck we will spend the night before after or both down there because the travel can be wearing at times especially when getting Kenzie evaluated can be tiring as is!!!  Any questions shoot us an email or text....not always easy to explain all at once. ...Thanks !!!