Big Adventures for the Beaudettes!

Thanks for Visiting!

Our little family of four headed out west for a visit to Seattle Children's Hospital.  Our four day trip was filled with lots of adventures, and only a little bit of whining. 

Saturday we drove to Olympia, Washington with a few stops along the way.  Our first stop was in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to get out and run around in the park.

We spent the night in Olympia,Washington order to get up Sunday morning and have a wonderful breakfast with one of Irelyn's primary nurses, Cam.  We absolutely love Cam and I think she has taken a liking to us also:)  She was so happy to see Irelyn doing so well and gave her lots of loves during our visit.

After breakfast we headed up north to Seattle to visit the zoo, the main attraction for all those under 40 lbs.  Brooklynn loved the penguins, Dad loved the elk (real exciting to us Montanans:), Mom loved the gorillas, and Irelyn loved the most exotic attraction...other little kids.  She is definitely taking after Brooklynn and turning into a little social butterfly.

Monday was a long day of doctors appointments at the hospital.  Irelyn's first appointment was for a research study that she is a part of to determine if babies that have been put on the ECMO machine show any developmental delays.  I think she did exceptional but we won't have the official results for a couple of weeks.  Her second appointment was an ultrasound on her neck to check the vein and artery that the ECMO cannulas were inserted into.  Both are closed unfortunately, but the head cardio guy didn't think this should cause her any problems.  After that busy morning and afternoon we were excited to get to have dinner with two other nurses that cared for Irelyn during her hospital stay.  Kiersten and Maggie met us for some great pizza and a lot of catching up.  They also gave Irelyn lots of love and were happy to see how well she was doing.

Maggie and Irelyn 

Kiersten and Irelyn

To all of our nurses, you were most definitely the highlight of our trip.  We value our friendships with each of you and can't wait until we get to see you again.  To tell you in person how much we appreciate the love Irelyn got while she was recovering was so important to us.  We missed Patti as she was off on her own adventure, that I believe involved horses and mountains, crazy Patti:)

And a little good-bye shot from Irelyn.