London/Berlin

Well, I haven't done all the pictures, time is short and editing takes a long time. So, I thought that I would at least get a few highlights of my journey. First is London, second Berlin. Hope you enjoy! Hopefully, I will have many more to show along my life. So many places to go, so little time.

Visiting Nana, Pop-Pop and Auntie Mee-Mee

Da Bears.

**Disclaimer: I am a bit tired and I read this blog over a couple of times - I think that it sounds coherent and logical. If not, I apologize. I think that all this driving and staring at a road all day will eventually drive a person to the brink of madness.....Bwaaaahaa haa haa, haaa haa haa....wait, what was I talking about?**

Yeah! Today was a fun day. We woke up 3 this morning just so we could make the extra stop to Chicago along our way to DC. We are so thankful we did. Chicago is a beautiful city. We can see why so many people call it their home. The architecture and parks were so beautiful I couldn't help but take a TON of photos, of which you are only seeing a teeny-tiny fraction of.

The first photo is for my baby sis....she is such a huge fan of Oprah I just had to stop by and take this photo for her! Sorry Aims, no Oprah. Although, if you give me an extra day I could always photoshop you and Oprah standing together in front of the sign. *wink*

I hope at one point to return so that I can ride the L train. We just didn't get the time to do it....sigh.

Here are the pictures of the Millennium Park. It was a great park with a huge bubble in the middle (fun!) - it was like a giganto sized droplet of mercury.

Okay, it is at this point I let my father down. There were THREE different Triple D's in this town and I didn't hit a single one of them! Sorry dad.....will you ever find it in your heart to forgive me? Instead, we hit one of the Food Networks suggestions for great pizza. We went to Giordano's for their famous stuffed pizza. We hit it at lunch so they had what they called mini-pizzas (aka personal pan sized). Paul had the spinach and I had the sausage. It was a simple pizza but pretty tasty. Paul and I gave it 3.5 out of 5 which would equal out to a "I'd make sure to hit this place at least every other month."

And poor Kiera, she didn't stand a chance on finishing her meal. Her meal is the pasta to the left of my pizza. They promised that this was the kid's sized pasta plate. It made me a little scared to see the size of that kid........

Sears Tower:

See ya tomorrow!

Iowa

Okay, so there were not many photos taken today but I have an excuse.....really! We were all tucked into bed last night when around 930pm Kiera just was not feeling so hot and was crying out in what we thought was pain. So, after debating for a couple of minutes we decided to head out the nearest children's hospital's emergency to get this nipped in the bud - forget the other place.....that was never going to pan out anyway.
We arrived at the emergency room expecting to sit down with all the other worried parents "patiently" waiting our turn to be called.....secretly, thinking, "My kid is much worse than that kid....We really should be before that family". But to our luck, we were the only ones there. It was so not busy that the front desk lady couldn't get the information in fast enough before the nurse came and got us. Unfortunately, because of the harsh treatment that Kiera received from the first clinic we visited in Salt Lake City she is now completely untrusting of doctors and screams bloodly murder if set down on the bed. This made looking her over an unique experience for the nurse who needed to get her vitals.
Not long after the nurse left the doctor came in like the tazmanian devil. I could barely answer his questions before being bombarded with another question or an "oh yes, I see" or a "okay, no, okay, I got it". I think that he was in our room for a total of 60 seconds before telling us in 2 seconds flat something along the lines of: he is sorry that she had a reaction, I will order a shot for her and some benedryl. Okay, let me know if you need anything else. Okay, have a good night. Oh, yes, follow up tomorrow with a doctor on her condition. Yup, yup good night. Whew! I felt a little hyped up and gittery by the time he left......
So, Kiera got her shot.....which we were a little frustrated by. Why couldn't they have just done that in the first place and saved us the horrible 10 days of admistering the yucky liquid to Kiera orally? Our best guess was money. It always comes down to the almighty dollar with hospitals. Sad. Anyway, Kiera had her shot, got some benedryl (with a bit of persuasion) and we headed back to the hotel and were back in bed by 12:30 - so you can guess that we didn't do our whole 3 am deal-e-o. Nope, we slept in until 7am! It was glorious!
On our way to Iowa City, we called into another children's hospital for a followup visit to our emergency visit that the doctor advised. (We are on a roll....if we keep this up not only will we visit all the Triple D's on the way but all the hospitals too.) So, we went into the new hospital and got to talking with the new doctor giving her the ENTIRE lowdown which I think took around 20 minutes to nail all the details down. After all that and a fax from the original hospital of the completed culture swabs it turns out that Kiera DID NOT have a bactierial infection at all! She has what they call Roseola. They say that all of Kiera's symptoms point to this and that this a very common thing for kids her age to get and that her rash will clear up in a few days and she will be as good as new. So, all that trouble for NOTHING. She didn't even need all those drugs that we were pumping into her! Poor Kiera.
Anyway, that is it. This part of the story is closed up and Kiera is on her way to a healthy weekend. So, as you can see we were awfully busy either sleeping in, driving or sitting in a doctor's office to visit any of the sights or take a ton of pictures. BUT....do not fret! I did manage to get some cute ones of Kiera at a rest stop. Enjoy and tomorrow's blog should be MUCH better - we are getting up at 3am and hope to be in Chicago by 7ish for an entire day of sightseeing! Maybe I'll stop by a see Oprah! :) Good night all!

Nebraska

Today was our long day for travel - 485 miles. For anyone who has traveled by car for any amount of time knows it feel more like triple the distance. So, our plan? We got up at 3am this morning and were in the car by 3:45 driving away. It would have been 3:30 but they screwed up our billing..... By the time Kiera woke up for the day we were already 1/2 way to our destination. We only had to stop twice - once for Kiera to eat her oatmeal and the other time for a mid-morning snack and pee time. All in all it was a great plan even though we were dog tired. It worked so well we are going to do it tomorrow. We figured, heck, at least by the time we hit DC and we actually get to sleep in, 6am will feel like a luxury!
We only had one episode (which is still on-going, btw) today with poor little Kiera. She started to have an allergic reaction (totally takes after her mommy) to the medication that they were giving her - hives and diarea. So, that puppy is in the garbage and on the list of allergies for Kiera. Paul went around and around with the all the "assistants" in the hospital trying to get them to get a doctor to prescribe a different medication for her so that she didn't go back down hill and get sick again. Well, that didn't work - at least not yet anyway - we got two call backs, both different people, both asking if we could come in at 1pm for a followup visit, even though we told them initially that we were in Nebraska and that would make it a bit difficult to make the appt. The next two calls were Paul trying to get a hold of someone to help K out, but he continued to get the run around....now it is past 5pm in Utah and "the pharmacy is closed but it doesn't matter because the doctor went home early anyway". YUCK! So, that story is to be continued. Tune in tomorrow when we find out if Paul will ever find a kind soul to help him out, if Kiera will get her medication, if Bo and Hope can make it through their tangled love triangle and if Victor will wake up from his coma in time to stop the wedding of the woman he loves...... anyway.....

Here's Kiera-bug and me playin' on the bed!

Okay, so here we are onto another Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. This one is called BrewBurgers and in the heart of Omaha. I was not as excited about this one as I was the other place we could have gone to but this one was closer and we had a baby that was just not into more driving.
The story is pretty much like many of the other Triple D's, he was uprooted from Canada to Omaha and missed his hometown's brisket sandwiches. So, he opened up his own place. Paul ordered the brisket sandwich (the DDD choice) and I ordered the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. We say - save your money! The service was great and the staff was friendly but the food left something to be desired. I think that if you love sports (I think that there were over a dozen tv's in that little place with all the different sports stuff going on) and love beer, you'd be set....that way you could get a little tipsy and be distracted by all the shiny tvs enough that the food might taste good.
Paul & I gave it the same rating: 2 out of 5: "What?!?! I wasted my daily caloric intake on this place?"

Wyoming

Today was blissfully uneventful. Kiera was feeling better and we got a bit more sleep last night than normal. The only thing that we could do was take pictures of was the scenery as we passed it by.....we didn't stop too much as we were traveling 450 miles today and Kiera was being a doll and sleeping most of the day!

Paul doing our daily car wash. This way we save money in the long run - $3 a day for a car wash instead of $500+ for a new paint job because bug juice burned its way into and through our current paint job.
This is just from today's drive! YUCK!

No triple D in Wyoming so we had the tried and true Chili's. Can't go wrong there...automatic 4 out of 5! :)

See you tomorrow!

Utah

Miles traveled: 348
States "visited": 2
Hospital visits: 1
Triple D's hit: 1
Memories of long lost restaurants: 1
Sounds like an eventful day if you ask me!

At the beginning of the day, we asked Kiera, "Where should we go today?".....here's her response:

Here's the support I received from my family as I slaved away driving the whole 348 miles:

We stopped at Twin Falls, ID to give Kiera a rest. We decided to take it easy because she was not feeling well so we just found a mall and let her play for an hour.

We stopped again just outside of Salt Lake City at a rest area again because Kiera's temperature was rising again and she needed some fresh cool air. It was at this point we realized that she was going to HAVE to see a doctor. We was just not herself....actually, she hadn't really been her normal cheerful self for the entire trip but it was getting worse. The picture below is the ONLY one of her and me where she wasn't crying or on my chest just wimpering from feeling ill. So, we called up the local clinic and got an appointment at 4pm.....it was 1:30. Guess it was time to waste time.

The beautiful scenery we gathered in while waiting for Kiera's appointment:

This one made me miss Seattle so much!

So, since we were into killing time - we headed into town and found the Mormon Temple. Honestly, it was a lot smaller than I thought that it was going to be. Just like the picture below you think that it is monsterous.....I think that the "It's a small world" ride in DisneyWorld was bigger.....

Well, we were starving so we headed over to the next Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.....Moochies. This restaurant actually started as a pottery store. Actually, the pottery is still sold, it is EVERYWHERE. Even on the celing! So, the owner of the pottery store's wife, is from Philadephia, and if memory serves me right, she was bored and missed her Phillycheese steak sandwiches from back home. So, what does any normal person do when they miss their home town food, well, open up your own restaurant...duh!
Both Paul and I ordered the Philly, although, I hear that the Meatball sub is to die for. He got his plain: just the cheese and sliced steak. I got all the trimmin's: cheese, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, and grilled bell peppers. It was DELICIOUS! It was the best Philly Cheesesteak that I had ever tasted, the steak was sliced so perfectly thin..... Paul said the same but we gave different ratings....how weird!
So, our ratings are as follows:
Christy: 4 out of 5 "If I lived here, I would be a regular"
Paul: 3 out of 5 "If someone offered to buy me dinner here, I wouldn't object"

So, the story that I am sure all of you have been waiting for: Kiera's doctor visit. Just to calm all fears: she is just fine, turns out that she has a bacterial infection and just needs to be on antibiotics for the next 10 days....That's a first for Kiera, she was drug free for so long.
Anyway, Kiera started out with a temperature Saturday night. It calmed down a bit on Sunday and she seemed to perk right back up so at first we thought that maybe another tooth was breaking through. The temperature flared back up Sunday night, we took her temp: 100.9. Hmmmm...We called up her doctor to see what was going on because there were NO other symptoms with her fever. They told us to monitor it for tonight and if it was still going strong by Monday afternoon to see a doctor. Well, it was and we did. Turns out that poor baby K had a temperature of 102.8 and had lost TWO POUNDS from not eating the past two days. (docs: that was normal b/c of the sickies....just as long as she was getting enough water, me:check.) They did the normal tests and if you've had kiddos you know that they DO NOT like being messed with when they are feeling bad. The first two tests were swabs: one in the back of the throat and one up the nose. Two tests: one for influenza, one for strepp throat; both negative. On to the next tests - the doc needed to find the reason for the fever seeing that the first two norms were negative. So, poor Kiera, was poked and proded again - this time a blood and urine sample. Let's just say that I couldn't hold her down while they were doing these tests because I was a wreck: sitting on my little blue chair, hair disheveled and weeping "dramatically" because I couldn't make it go all away for Kiera. Turns out she just has a simple bacterial infection and antibiotics will cure it! HOORAY!

Okay, so we were off to our hotel when we realized we shut the place down, it was late and we were hungry for dinner. Kiera was a happy girl now with drugs swimming through her little body helping her "fight the man", so we drove through a little place called Fazoli's. Paul picked this place saying it had the best food and we just had to eat there. The last time he ate there was when his family lived in Indiana for 6 months back in 1995 so you can see why I was a little skeptical. Surely, a fast food joint can't stay that good for 14 years....boy was I wrong. For those who are able to hit this fast food joint - DO! The food was the farthest from "fast food" tasting and I would bet some of the best Italian food I've ever had. I mean, come on, who doesn't love a salad that comes with salami and pepperchinis? Paul had the Lasagna and I had the Chicken Parm. DELICIOUS and honestly, we could have fed three more people with the amount of food they give you! So, even though this wasn't a Triple D, Paul and I still gave it a rating:
Paul: 4 out of 5, "If I lived here, I would be a regular"
Christy: 4 out of 5, "If I lived here, I would be a regular"

Okay! That was quite a post! Thanks for sticking it out - see you tomorrow night! :)