Another annual trip to Scottish Rite

Many of you know that our oldest daughter Rachael was an inch from death for about three weeks in December 2005/January 2006. She was in the ICU at Scottish Rite with a sudden and severe case of a rare blood disease called Hemolytic Anemia.

Many of you also know that 1) She is completely back to normal now; and 2) Every year in January we go back to visit the ICU, to bring lunch and talk with other families in the waiting room.

We went a few weeks ago, and here are the latest photos.

This is Rachael and Rebecca in the hallway between the actual PICU and the PICU waiting room. The big doors behind them lead to the "sleep room," where we spent many nights -- and, often, parts of the day, because we were up half the night.



This is the ICU, taken from the hallway. Her old room was the glass doors looking straight ahead.

I don't have much to say about this other than what I've already said here and here. So please go read those as well.

World of Coca-Cola trip

About a week ago I decided we needed to break out of our routine and do something fun and different.

When you're homeschooling, the term used for that is a "Field Trip."

The local children's museum was having a Curious George exhibit, and we decided to go first thing Friday morning.

I printed out directions. I packed a lunch. I got the kids excited.

Then on Friday morning, Robert said, "I just realized ... it's flu season ... the children's musuem is going to be a huge germfest. I don't think you should go."

And so much sobbing and shrieking and sulking and angry faces were heard and seen over breakfast.

However, I had a Good Mom Moment, and was able to think on my feet and come up with a Plan B:

We would visit the World of Coca-Cola Museum.

Even better -- we would ride MARTA to get there!




It turned out to be quite fun. Embarrassingly, I have only ridden MARTA once or twice before, and I rarely go downtown, so it was an experience for me as well. We arrived at one station, and then went home via a different station, so we got to pretend we were City People and did a fair amount of walking. We ate our lunch in the Olympic Park, near the fountain. It was fun.

Oh yeah, and then there was the Coke Museum ...

It was not bad. The kids enjoyed things like seeing the Coke Bear, the 4-D movie (well, it scared Benjamin, but the girls liked it), and the gift shop ... oh, and of course tasting all the different Cokes.

My favorite part (what a surprise) was watching all the commercials. Rebecca eventually -- and literally -- dragged me out of there.

And when flu season is over, we'll make plans to go to the children's museum.