6th Anniversary Trip/Babymoon 2015

Monica and I just happened to have a 3 day weekend off AT THE SAME TIME! It's a phenomenon that never occurs in the Parks household. We usually have opposite days off. It just happened to be our 6th wedding anniversary weekend too! We decided we needed to take a trip somewhere... anywhere... just us. We've been so insanely busy lately with trying to get our house ready to sell (another story for another post) we haven't had any time together. I've been getting off work and spending hours at our house before heading home to my in-laws. (Oh yea, I forgot to mention we moved out of our house and in with Monica's parents.) by the time I'm done with treatments and dinner it's time to go to bed. It's been crazy. Legit crazy, lol. We needed to get away and forget about the stress of fixing a house. Not to mention Baby #3 will be here in 4 weeks! 

My parents agreed to keep the kiddos for the weekend and we were off! We booked a train to Chicago very cheap and booked a hotel on the way. We were right on the Magnificent Mile! We slept in both days and did a lot of walking! A lot! I'm glad Monica didn't go into labor, lol! We saw some sights, did some shopping, some eating and just enjoyed being with each other! Eating meals without trying to feed reluctant toddlers, going to bed without fighting reluctant toddlers, sleeping in without hyper early bird toddlers telling us to "wake up." It was nice! We really missed the boys but it was a nice getaway. 

One of my favorite parts was probably our dinner at Jake Melnicks. It was a small tavern that had awesome buffalo wings (if you know me you know I love buffalo wings) and a dish called Street fries. They were AWESOME (said in a heavenly voice as if being sung by angels)!!! It was a pile of French fries topped with smoked pulled pork, nacho cheese, sriracha sauce and jalapeños! They were FIRE!! I almost went back for them again. 

We had so much fun and it was a great stress reliever trip! Now back to the grind. Here's some pics from our trip:

This is called a Polaris Slingshot. Awesome car! That's the first time I ever saw one in person. 

Getting all artsy and stuff :)

Cystic Fibrosis: Improving Outlook?

This month I had the pleasure of traveling to Las Vegas, NV to speak at the national respiratory conference, the AARC Congress. I was invited to speak about Cystic Fibrosis. My presentation was the title of this post. Cystic Fibrosis: An Improving Outlook? 

I gave a brief recap of the history of CF, medications, and the CFF (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation). I talked about the advancements being made in lung transplantation and how survival continues to climb post-op. Most importantly I talked about the advancements that have been made the past several years regarding Kalydeco, and other correctors and potentiators of the CFTR protein. The presentation was very well received and even Monica said she learned quite a bit! It was extremely rewarding on a personal level as it always is anytime I'm given the opportunity to speak to others about CF. I had some good questions and met several new people as well. I love speaking at these conferences! I wish I could make a living from it, lol! Minus the constant traveling that would be required of course. :)

Monica and I made it a couples trip as we always do anytime I'm invited to speak somewhere for a few days. It was our first time to Las Vegas. It was also our first trip without the boys. It's hard to believe that in almost 2 years we've never been apart from them for more than 24 hours. We handled it pretty good. They handled it great! They could have cared less, lol! When we were leaving they just kept waving and saying bye as if to say, "Get out of here already!" We did a lot of FaceTime calls with my parents and in-laws. Thank goodness for FaceTime!

We stayed at the Mandalay Bay. We were pretty impressed with it. It is huge! I expected a little more out of the room, but I guess it is just a hotel. :) I was expecting a little more of of Las Vegas in general because of all the hype regarding it. It was very neat though. Everything is very big and extravagant! We went to the Shark Reef aquarium at the Mandalay Bay, went into a bunch of shops, including the M&M store, the Hershey's Chocolate store, and the Coke store. As I said, everything is huge. Most of the stores had several stories. We saw the Blue Man Group, who I've wanted to see for years! They were GREAT!!! Highly recommend seeing them. We walked the strip a lot (about 8 miles a day). We walked through the Bellagio and saw the conservatory there. It was very neat and smelled so good with all the fresh flowers. We watched the fountain show at the Bellagio (only portions at a time) and it was pretty awesome. We got some desserts from Carlos' bakery in the Venitian. He has a bakery there and a restaurant, Buddy V's. We also ate at Caesars Palace's buffet. It was amazing!!! We ate A LOT! All you could eat snow crab legs! We probably ate about 5-6 plates between the two of us, of just crab legs! 

Overall it was a great trip, but we were ready to head home and see our boys! Here's a few photos from our trip:

Feeling good + More Florida Pics

I have been feeling really good as of late! It's so awesome! I'm not coughing near as much when I lay down at night to sleep and can chase the boys around the house, go up flights of stairs at work, etc. without getting super winded and hacking up a lung. I'm actually feeling really good despite slacking on my exercise. I think it is due in large part to taking better quality treatments. Oh and prayer. :) I'm told there are a lot of the cornerstones at our church who have been praying for me. I believe that prayer works wonders!

I've been making sure to sit up straight and keep good posture during treatments. I have a tendency to slouch and roll my shoulders forward really bad when I'm sitting at the computer. This helps me breathe deeper, plus I'm making a more conscious effort to breathe deep. I've also been taking the time during and after treatments to hack up as much stuff as I can. The boys usually join me in the bathroom for "coughing/spitting time." They both just stand and watch, lol. At first they kept getting serious/concerned looks on their faces. I made sure to keep looking over smiling and laughing to assure them daddy is ok. Now they come to know it as routine. Jeriah often will stand close to the toilet (not too close cuz toilets are yucky) and try to spit into it. He leans his head back, then throws it forward as he "spits." Sometimes he actually does spit on the floor, lol. I've been feeling really good lately and hope it continues!!!

Here are some more pics of our trip to Florida from my sister-in-law's fancy camera!

Satellite Beach, Florida

We took a family trip at the end of May to Satellite Beach, Florida. It was the boys' second second trip to the beach. The first time they were a month and a half old at Gulf Shores, AL. They're two spoiled boys! It was a great trip! We spent a lot of time on the beach. We swam, boogie-boarded, and played in the sand. The men all went on a deep sea fishing trip that ended up being a flop. Our captain did more time fishing off the back of the boat, than finding us fish to catch. We spent a decent amount of time shore fishing. I bought a new 15 foot pole and a big reel for shore fishing in the ocean. Too bad I didn't catch anything, lol. My brother-in-law managed to reel in a 5-6 foot nurse shark though. It was awesome!

The boys were very tentative of the ocean. It took them a couple days to warm up to it. After they got used to it, they would walk out into them (only up to their knees) and play in it. They loved the sand! They had a lot of fun playing in it. We had a couple canopies that we set up and the boys spent a lot of time playing under them in the sand. Monica and her mom made the boys and our niece a make shift pool by digging a hole, putting a shower curtain inside the hole and filling it with water. It worked great and they loved it!

As many CFer's have noted, I felt like I was able to breathe so much easier there. Missouri is a very humid state. Our summers are hot! Temps in the 90's - 100's with anywhere from 60-80% humidity. Beach air is so much easier to breathe! It's a lot easier to clear secretions too! They've already proven that with studies in Australia (that's how we got hypertonic saline treatments). Not to mention playing in the crashing waves is one heck of an airway clearance treatment! Works twice as good as the vest! The real question is... When are we moving to a beach Monica?? ;)

Here's some pics from our trip! Enjoy!