Happy New Years!

Happy New Years from our family to yours! Savannah did not make it to midnight. She was up late last night but couldn't quite make it tonight.

I did keep last year's resolution and exercised more. I completed two half marathons, two 10k's, and eight 5k races in 2013. Not too bad for my first year of running. I want to continue running in 2014 with my goal to complete at least three half marathons and at least four 5ks. We will see how that one pans out since it so hard for me to get up that early in the morning!

My main resolution in 2014 is to work on my clutter and get more organized. I am working on a craft room and hope to have it completed by February. After that I want to start selling on Etsy and Ebay. That should help get rid of some of the clutter!

Cheers! Hope you have a great new year!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

I know I am a little late but Merry Christmas! We had a great time this Christmas and spent the day with family. Savannah loved opening all of her presents and has been especially excited about a play veterinarian kit from her Aunt, Uncle and cousins. She has not stopped playing with it since she brought it home and it has to go everywhere with her!

Savannah's gift to each of her grandparents.

Next up will be New Years! Will Savannah (and her parents!) stay up until midnight? What will this year's resolution be? Stay tuned!

Christmas Spirit

We are starting to get into the Christmas Spirit around here. We have decorated the house, painted new ornaments, and decorated gingerbread houses.

 

We also made a visit to the San Diego Zoo for their annual Jungle Bells celebration last night. We walked around and enjoyed all the of the great light displays, watched some of the nocturnal animals and rode on the Skyfari ride. Savannah also checked on each and every one of her goat friends to make sure they were all okay from the last time we visited. 

 At the zoo she also met Santa for for the first time. She couldn't wait and ran to him and gave him a big hug! She was so excited. She then proceeded to tell Santa that she wanted a doggy and kitty for Christmas. When told he doesn't give live animals she told him she wanted a teddy bear. I think she was in awe of the moment because in the weeks leading up to this she had told us she wanted a cake from Santa. I don't know why a cake but that is what she has told everyone who asked in the last few weeks.

She was on the naughty list!

After the zoo we headed to train and took a lap on it and then headed home. The whole trip to the zoo was perfect and we can't wait to do it again next year! I hope it can become one of our family traditions.

Train ride for two!

More speech therapy!

We had another evaluation for Savannah's speech issues this week. This time it was through our HMO so we could have it officially documented in her medical files. I think it was longest forty five minutes ever. Savannah was tired and she would not focus for any longer than a minute or two. Eventually the evaluator was able to complete the testing.

Holding her new froggy friend.

We were told when we booked the appointment that if she did qualify that there was a long waiting list and it would be at least 6-8 weeks until she would be able to get on the schedule for actual therapy visits. Well... she definitely still needs therapy and that the evaluator wanted to take her case and work with Savannah directly. The very next day we got the call to schedule her visits. Apparently her delay is significant enough to bump her to the front of the line! She will now be going to speech therapy through the HMO every Tuesday morning starting Jan 14th. So now she will have speech therapy three days a week through the HMO and her school district.

Savannah's idea of decorating the tree!

Enjoying another California winter!

Savannah's Speech

I thought I would post a short video of Savannah talking for those who don't know what hyper-nasal speech sounds like. Just ignore the fact that she is obsessed with Buffalo Wild Wings!

Genetics follow-up

We met with our geneticist again last Monday. We spoke about Savannah's speech problems at length and she agreed that it is something that needs further evaluation from the cleft team soon. So she bumped up her yearly clinic appointment from late May 2014 to Feb 20, 2014. That way all the team members can look at her again and decide the best route to fix her speech issues. The geneticist is very concerned with her hyper-nasal voice and the fact that it has not improved with the speech therapy she has been getting. She gave us more referrals for a speech therapist in hopes that we could expand on what she is receiving with the school district now.

Our next appointment? Dec 12th. We are finally getting a speech evaluation done by our HMO provider after fighting denial letters for a year!