August 25, 2008

We had such a fun weekend!!
Saturday night, I was invited by Susan (mom of Mikey's NICU buddies Max and Noah) for a girl's night out to celebrate her birthday. We went to Cheesecake Factory and were supposed to go to a chick flick movie, but instead we were talking all night, until they basically kicked us out!! We had a lot of fun!! I haven't been out in such a long time, especially since Michael was born!!
Robert was babysitting and had his family over. They all went out to dinner.

Sunday, it was Robert's birthday. We were invited to the "Kids Hear Now Foundation; Sensory Safari". This foundation is founded by Barton G. for children who are hearing impaired. Barton G. is a caterer and the event was held at his house in the Redlands where they keep some amazing animals that are older and not wanted anymore by Zoos and Circuses. There were Giraffes, Zebras, Monkeys, Parrots, Lamas. It was absolutely AMAZING!!! After we parked the car, we were picked up by a hay ride to take us to the event.

The event was co-hosted by Michael, the 13 year old boy who came to our house once to meet our Michael and explain us about life with hearing loss. He is such a cutie!!! And he has come a long way for a boy with a cochlear implant and a hearing aid.

Kathy, our auditory verbal therapist was waiting at the entrance to welcome everybody (there were more than 200 people at the event!!). We walked around, saw the beautiful animals, admired the amazing pool with a rock you could jump off!!! The food was amazing!!! There were pony rides, there was bungee jumping, slides, life music, etc. etc. Even the porter potties were amazing!!! I have never seen anything like this before!!! So we had an amazing day as you can see from the pictures below....

We were getting ready in the car to go to the Sensory Safari. Robert gave Michael my Diet Coke to hold on to and Michael didn't want to give it back to me. Look at his smirk :)

Robert and Michael at the Hay ride. It was pulled by 2 beautiful horses. I should have taken a picture of them...

Michael, myself and Kathy. Michael doesn't like to be outside in the sun and kept looking down

Kathy has been amazing!!! Children with hearing loss should be very lucky to have her as their auditory verbal therapist!!! Kathy has been convinced for a long time that Michael can hear better than his tests had shown.

This is one of the Giraffes at the event. Isn't it a beautiful Giraffe?

And friendly too, it let everybody touch it...

Michael rather looked down...

This was one of their beautiful pools. Kathy is still dry here. Moments later she jumped off those cliffs in the background (with her clothes on!!!!) She is so much fun!!!

So, this right here is a MAJOR MILESTONE at the Safari. Michael is eating his first solids!!!! As you can see in the pictures, he is chewing on a French Fry!!!!

He did gag a little, but kept going. He really liked it!!!

We are so proud of him!!!! After he ate this, we gave him some water out of a regular water bottle and he did well with that too. He is almost like a regular Toddler now :)

Mikey and Daddy hanging out. Michael is smiling, but refuses to look up because of the sun.

Michael is licking a cold cola can, to cool down a little

My little Giraffe is sticking out his tongue to the camera :)

And there is Momma Giraffe :)

It was so hot, that I took Michael in the ice cold pool, to cool off a little

Robert was feeding the Giraffe some ice cubes, just before we left the event.

So, we had a great day!! What a fun way to celebrate Robert's birthday!!! Michael's next ABR (hearing test with electrodes on his head) will be on September 16. Hopefully Kathy is right and Michael won't need hearing aids anymore :)