Well, as mentioned in my last post, our vacation started out looking like this:
But, with the hard work of Patrick’s doctors and some finagling of logistics, we finally made it to California on Wednesday night and spent a long and restless night dealing with a little boy with a very sick tummy far away from home.
Thursday morning things looked better though. Sure, Patrick’s belly had drained over half a liter while he slept and he still looked a bit green at the sight or smell of anything he might be asked to eat. But, as long as you didn’t ask him to eat and kept his belly empty, he did pretty well.
We started out the morning with a walk to the pier for breakfast. The woman at the hotel desk recommended Polly’s on the Pier, and we’re awfully glad she did. Not only was the food yummy, but the setting was a lot of fun, too. The restaurant was, in fact, on a pier, along with a souvenier shop. And all along the edge of the pier were men lined up with fishing poles watching for fish below and then dropping in their line.
Before long, they were joined by a great big pelican who fished in pretty much the same way. Just sat lazily watching for fish, and then dived in if he thought he’d get lucky.
But this pelican was smart. See, some of the fishermen, if they caught a fish, would just offer it to the pelican. Want a fun sight? Watch an 8 year old girl feed a fish to a pelican. Did you know they’ll hold it in their bill (the pelican holds the fish, not the girl) and let the fish just flop around for a while before swallowing? Not a bad breakfast show.
After breakfast, we stopped back in the hotel to finish packing. We stopped to check in with the Oley Conference organizers and let them know we’d made it after all. (After all, this tube-feeding conference had been our motivation for going to California.) Patrick had a great time flirting with other conference attendees while we waited for the hotel staff to find his TPN in the fridge.
Then, while they did a walk-a-thon, we went back and wandered the pier. We wandered through a yacht club and watched some sea lions and sailboats in the harbor for a while. Patrick learned to do a pretty good sea lion impression.
We’d decided to stick around for the Oley picnic that afternoon and meet some of the people I know from our support group. At first, we wondered if it was worth the wait. We just didn’t really know anyone. But before long, one of the organizers caught on that we were there and took to entertaining Patrick.
He got his face painted to match Daddy’s beard, which thrilled him so much he still talks about it.
Then, they sent the wandering magician to entertain him. Gotta say, I was impressed. The magician had Patrick just giggling. No small feat, in my opinion.
Then, when we said we really wanted to get to Disney, they insisted that we eat the free lunch before we left. So, we stayed and mingled a bit longer while Patrick got spoiled out of his mind.
We made it out at last at 1, later than expected, but happy nonetheless.
And, about an hour later, we found ourselves arriving at Magic Way on the Disneyland Resort. (But you’ll have to wait to hear about that tomorrow, cuz I’m too sleepy to keep blogging tonight.)
Patrick Hoopes 