The Harrison Family: June 2018 - End of school

June is the official end of the school year! I am so glad this one is over! I can finally say we have finished preschool and are moving into real school for everyone! This year in school was pretty tough - especially for Carter so I am beyond grateful that we survived. Things were much better in Kindergarten but now we have to make the tough decisions as to what happens next year. For now we will enjoy the completion of school and celebrate the kids successes!

I took Riley to see her first professional ballet - a good friend of mine had given me tickets to Swan Lake. I was not sure how Riley would like the no speaking and silence of the ballet but she had a blast. During all intermissions she was dancing up and down the isles.

Carter has asked to start baseball - so we registered him for summer baseball.. he is ready and enjoyed buying his baseball gear.

I noticed that Riley's right ear had a different odor so I decided to take her in to see the Dr. Mom intuition was right - she had an infection - and we cultured the infection and the results told us it was MRSA again. Devastated we called the infectious disease Dr and worked with our ENT to put together a plan to take on this infection. They gave us a course of antibiotics and drops that we used religiously. The Dr's continued to monitor her progress and were pleased with how her infection responded to the medicine. My regular ENT was on vacation so at this point we had to see a backup. We got the all clear from both doctors prior to going on our Alaska trip. With this crazy infection we had to end Riley's swimming a little early this year. She was super bummed because she was having a great season but her health is far more important. At this point - all focus is on Alaska anyway!

My babies ready to swim!

Carter and Coach Abby - his favorite Jr Coach

Rileys backstroke

Carter mans freestyle

We had planned our Alaska Cruise two years ago so it has felt like an eternity for it to actually come! We were all super ready for a fun family vacation. Some family friends - the Eastman family came with us on the trip. The Eastmans have a daughter Regan that is the same age as Riley and a son Jackson that is a year younger than Carter. We started our trip with a flight to Seattle Washington. The kids were great on the flight and we took an Uber from the airport to the hotel. My luck our Uber driver was awful and drove horrid and had both kids throwing up on me in the back. WELCOME TO VACATION MOM!

This trip was super busy and packed with lots of fun family adventures. Our trip started in Seattle, Washington. We were hit with lots of rain but that did not stop our crew! We enjoyed time at parks - the farmers market, the space needle, children museum and an amazing Duck Tour!

Riley and the kids don't see many homeless people in the suburbs of Texas. Riley almost jumped on this poor homeless man.. she had no clue there was a man under the bag

The original Starbucks

Seattle is a very liberal city. We enjoyed a nice family breakfast at Biscuit Bitch - a local eatery that frequently shouted the word Bitch in a variety of contexts.

We took a trip from Seattle to Vancouver, Washington. We had first class train tickets and an amazing view of the beautiful west coast scenery

Adventures in Vancouver! Beautiful weather and lots of walking and visits to parks.

Suspension bridge

The start of our Disney Cruise-line adventure - The magic begins! Our cruise was 7 days that departed from Vancouver Canada and stopped in Tracy Arm, Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan. We had two at sea days to enjoy all the amazing activities the cruise boat has to offer. I won't give commentary on each picture but this was a trip of a lifetime with beautiful scenery and amazing adventures. We enjoyed hikes, dogsledding, whale watching, glaciers, and much more. We saw all the amazing wildlife we wanted to see bears, bald eagles, sea lions, and whales. This trip exceeded all our expectations and was much needed family getaway.