Back at Home!

After a 3 hour delay with our flight, we finally made it back home around 11:30 pm tonight.

Home tomorrow!

Sydney saw Dr. Reinisch today. Everything looked good. We fly home tomorrow. This should complete her ear reconstruction surgeries. Check back frequently as we will post pictures as her ears heal. Likewise, we will continue to post information regarding other events and milestones.

We would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support as Sydney completes this journey. A very special thanks to Dr. Reinisch and his staff. We cannot begin to express enough gratitude for what he did for Sydney. Our family is very blessed.

Legoland pictures

Alan and the kids at the Legoland entrance after a long day of fun.


Ian and a Bionicle guy...I think.


I forget the name of this Lego Coaster, but it was fun.


Sydney loves this type of bouncy ride that takes you up and drops you over and over.


Lego dragon.


Ian and Lego Elvis.


For Grandma Richardson they even had a US Food Service truck made of Legos.


Mini land was full of miniature towns made of Legos. There was Washington DC, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, New Orleans, and more. You can see New York in the background. The sign in front of this display said that if you stacked all of the Legos in this New York on top of each other it would be over 7 1/2 miles tall!! Each display also had some kind of animation with it. It was really amazing.


Sydney driving her legomobile.


A Volvo made of legos.


The 3 little pigs playing some music at the end of the storybook ride.


The story book ride. The troll coming out of the water, and Prince Charming in the background.


Mommy and Syd on the safari ride at Legoland. All of the jungle animals were made of legos.



Lego dinosaur. The lego man on top shot water into another display.


Outside the Legoland California entrance.


A lego family on their way to Legoland too.

Sea World pictures

Atlantis water ride/roller coaster. Ian and mommy had fun riding this ride.


Ian and Sydney in front of the Clydesdale exhibit at Sea World.


Alan and Ian on Oscar's Rockin' Eel ride.


Riding Elmo's flying fish.


Sydney and Ian in Abbey's spinning stars.


The Shamu show "Believe". It was incredible.

Back at the hotel and doing fine.

We made it back to the hotel about a 1/2 hour ago. Sydney is eating some Cheetos and is watching High School Musical 3. She says she feels "good", and is even singing and wiggling to HSM3 songs. She woke up more quickly in the recovery room than she had in the past. Within 10 minutes of my entry to the recovery room she was eating a popsicle and drinking juice. We were gone from the hospital within an hour. I took a picture to show her the earrings and she said "WHAT? I have them in right now?" It was so cute because she still had a sleepy, "out of it" kind of voice. Her tummy doesn't seem to be bothering her right now at all. Her ears are very swollen and she has some yellow foam sutured to the back of both ears. This is to keep them out while they heal a little bit. She looks awfully cute right now with her little earrings...swollen ears and all. We'll try to post some pictures from the last few days soon. They didn't want to load earlier.

We have earrings!!!!!

Dr. Reinisch just came out of the operating room, and said the surgery went well. He lifted her right ear (which was completely flat to her head) and put a wedge of medpor(the implant) to make her ear project more. He then covered the back side of her ear with a skin graft from her tummy. He lifted her left ear and put a skin graft behind it as well. He "fiddled" with the skin to make more of an ear lobe on that side, and he pierced her ears!!! She will be so excited. I can't wait for her to see them. She does not have any drains, cups, or netting this time. She also does not have a pain pump for her tummy. I'm sure she will have some discomfort from that. He said the skin was tight, and a little difficult to close after he took the skin for the graft.

At the hospital

We had to awaken by 4:30 AM and were here at the hospital by 5:45 AM. Sydney has already been called back. Brooke is back with her. Ian is being very good and being very patient. Please pray for Sydney. We will post frequent updates throughout the day

Fun at Legoland!

Monday, we went to Legoland. Everyone had a great time. The park was only open until 5 PM, so it was hard to see everything

Fun at Seaworld!

Sunday, we went to Seaworld. It was fun, but I think the kids will enjoy Legoland more. Sorry, I tried to upload photos right now, but something seems to be not working

We made it to LA!

Well, we made it back to LA today for stage 2 reconstruction of each ear. Dr. Reinisch was kind enough to meet us at his office this afternoon for pre-op pictures. He is not sure he will be able to pierce Sydney's ears and, thus, she may not be able to wear earrings. Even though this is slightly disappointing, we certainly feel fortunate with how far she has come. Surgery is scheduled on Tuesday. That will leave us a few days for some fun. Tomorrow we plan to go to Sea World and Monday, Legoland. Please pray for Sydney as she embarks on this next step in her journey.