Casa Loma Castle - Day 1

In the morning, we woke up to have breakfast included at the Hilton Homewood Suites hotel at 8am EST... (5am PST).  We were so so so tired but can't forgo the free breakfast for 5 people.  It was a really nice spread of fruits, pastry, pancake, egg, hash browns, oatmeal with juice and coffee.  

We bought the Toronto Citypass which included 5 attractions:  Casa Loma castle, CN Tower, Ripley's Aquarium, Royal Ontario Museum and Ontario Science Centre.  After breakfast, our first stop was checking out the Casa Loma Castle.  We found free parking a 10-minute walk away.  This place was huge and the stories about the castle were very interesting.  I didn't think we'd stay that long but we were there for 2 hours.  

After a long day of walking around, the kiddies enjoyed some time in the hotel pool, swimming and splashing around.  It wasn't busy so they had the pool to themselves.  

Toronto Here we go!

It's been over 2 years since our last family trip via airplane.  We are very excited about the trip as we've never been to Toronto before and even better, the 3 kiddies get to skip a week of school!  C-O-O-L!

Check in at the airport was fast and without complications.  Before we knew it, we were flying over the bright clouds and enjoying view from up above.  We arrived into Toronto at 10:30pm EST.  

Due to staffing issues at Toronto Pearson Airport, we had to wait for 45 minutes in the airplane before being unloaded at a dock.  Then after docking, we waited another hour for our luggage.  By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was past midnight.  Phewf.  Made it safe and sound.  

 

Rental Suite Revamp

 

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since we moved into this house.  It looks as good now as it did 10 years ago.  We continuously upkeep the house repairing and replacing items as needed.  

Our tenant downstairs recently moved out so we took the opportunity to really clean up the suite.  We repainted the entire unit, changed the bathroom faucet, toilet, caulked the bathroom shower and fixed all little nicks on the base board mouldings.  All the appliances were pulled out and cleaned in and out.  The suite looks almost new!  Thanks Daddy for all your hard work!

Endoscopy All Done

We’ve been waiting for 2 months to have an endoscopy done, to hopefully find out if there is anything wrong with Josh’s digestive tract.  He’s had stomach issues since end of December and actual dysphagia since March 1.  

This time, the endoscopy with biopsy was completed without much delay (it was canceled last month).  We were informed that everything looks fine so far but the biopsy results will take a couple of weeks. I am happy to know that Josh is healthy even though we don’t know what is causing him to not swallow solid food.  We will continue to work on this issue. 

Happy Mother’s Day!

I woke up this morning, with a surprise on Mother’s Day.  Each year, I look forward to the crafts that the kiddies take home from school.  Take a look:

Julia made this beautiful flower garden with birds.  Josh made the picture frame, flower and wrote a letter.  I feel so blessed.

It was a wonderful day.  I loved all the little details and how each gift was so thoughtful.  Richard made pancakes and egg for breakfast.  If only we had bacon…  for next year:  

Wishing all the Mom’s out there a superb and awesome weekend.

Barium Swallow Study and Endoscopy Wait

It’s been almost 2 months of blending food for Josh now.  Josh has been steadily losing weight since before his appendicitis in December.  He was 61.5lbs on December 29.  And today, he weighs only 53.2lbs.  ☹️    We've been increasing his calories by giving him Pediasure daily and ice cream.  (This he enjoys a lot). 

This week, he has a barium swallow study and endoscopy scheduled, 2 days in a row.   Which meant, Josh had to fast for 2 days straight.   

The barium swallow study is a procedure where he drinks a syrup drink (dye) while lying flat on a machine.  The machine watches the flow of the dye while it travels down the throat and upper digestive tract.  We were informed that Josh’s anatomy is working perfectly fine.  Yay!

Next, Josh arrived at the hospital and was all prepped to go for his endoscopy at 3:30pm.  After waiting for 2 hours, we were told due to emergent surgeries that had priority, he wasn’t going to have surgery that day and had to be rescheduled.  

I was very disappointed because we were heading to Toronto in May and I really wanted to find out the reason for Josh’s dysphagia.  What else can we do but wait?

New Elliptical Machine

Take a look at this beauty.  Due to the pandemic, we’ve been trying to keep our weight under control.  With working from home, driving to work (versus taking transit) and just not going out at all, we’ve steadily been gaining weight (except me…)

This new elliptical machine now lives in our previous toy room.  SOOOO, all the toys are now sitting in our living room.  🤨.    Let’s see in a month’s time, if anyone will still be using it.  Sure hope so!

ENT and Infrared Radiolgy

For Josh’s dysphagia, we met with the ENT specialist on March 9, to check the ear, neck throat areas for abnormalities.  Through the nose, they put a camera into Josh’s nose and pushed it up the nose and down his throat.  Sounds like an easy thing to do but this was done without any medicine or pain killers.  Poor baby was in so much pain and was crying through the entire process.

Josh couldn’t sit still so the first attempt failed.  Eeeks.  They called in a nurse to hold him down and tried again.  The second time worked fine but not until Josh was screaming.  😱 I was horrified.  At that point, I’d rather feed him blended food forever and not have him go through that again.

On March 11, Josh did an infrared radiology scan of his abdominal area.  Below is the fancy looking screenshots that were taken.  No clue what they mean but we were told everything looks normal.