Our trip was amazing!! (Last month was so hard, it was a nice breath of air!) It was about 2-3 days before we left I could see Tyler's "change" starting to happen!! We went to PA & can you believe we/I got to experience a whole 5 days of no arguing, fighting, screaming, etc.... He & Garrett were like complete angels & we had such a nice time together!!!
We did have a great time! The boys had 2 days of solid testing. Garrett got to go back with us to participate as one of their control studies. This trip focused a lot on the interactive MRI that was quite neat to watch & see what happened! We are suppose to be getting a CD of some of the pics - so I'll upload some when that arrives.
Each night we'd go out for about 2 hours to sight see & find food! It was quite interesting & the culture back east compared to good ol' WY is interesting in it's own.
Some things that are greatly different in PA compared to here we found were:
- During the week - in downtown PA - everyone is either in nice suit coats, pants, ladies in blazer jackets, skirts or dresses (aaah) ... or they had a hospital uniform or scrubs on. NO BALL CAPS either! LOTS Of dresses, summer dresses, leggins.. interesting!
- On the weekends is when you saw more casual dress of jeans & t-shirts or random tops & some ball caps.
- Not much layering of clothes/shirts goes on back east & no flip flops.
- The light switches are all different. They don't have the nosey knob that sticks out on them... it is more like just a bump. Works the same way as ours - just different.
- NO POP MACHINES or Juice, candy, etc. anywhere. Unless you were at a tourist site like the aquarium. I assume due to heath, but also for purposes of litter. So a man that was there for the study with his son was recommended to hit the "WaWa" market down the street - he could get a "cold one" there... so when Tyler was about to go for his MRI & was so tired.. I thought it might be best to go get him a caffeinated drink.. to our surprize there were about 8 fridges for drinks & only 1 small one had soft drinks.... So we even found in many restaurants (nice ones) they don't serve pop... only water, alcohol, or Ice tea/coffee.
- It was interesting that even water fountains weren't very apparent unless it was a tourist attraction... even at the college & hospital we were visiting.
- Houses are all stacked upward & skinny. That the "uppity" area is only 3 blocks away from the slums. NEVER VISIT SOUTH STREET unless you are in a tall tourist bus & know that nobody will get you!! :)
- You don't see homeless, mentally ill people on the weekends in the evenings like you do during the week.
- The streets seemed pretty quite after about 8pm during the week - But on the weekend, the streets got busy about 8pm & people were all over the streets still at 4am!! Weird!
- On Friday about 6pm people started coming out of the woodwork & shops close down (I think due to the overpopulation & need to control their inventory.) Then it is jumping the rest of the weekend. You could tell there were lots more tourists on the weekend too as many had maps like we did!! ;)
- Lots of people walk everywhere & we enjoyed it!
- Most people won't look at you & if they do - they don't smile. The ones that do - I assumed they weren't from the area either. If you approach someone for directions - most are scared of you. But 1 nice lady saw us looking at the buildings pointing at our map & she spent an hour with us telling us of all the sites to see & reminded me of my Grandma Lynn.
- They have gorgeous architecture in the city for what we saw & there were murals on buildings everywhere.
Once we were done with testing - we spent all day Saturday touring PA, historical sites, & went over to NJ to the Aquarium, then back to PA & road the Duck tour to see more of PA - quicker.. that was a interesting experience & also got to go out on the Delaware river int he tour!!
Travels there cut it close as our plane had to be de-iced & our flight was just about 1.45 behind.. . luckily the roads hadn't been shut down going to RS & we were able to leave. Once we got to Denver we ran to our next plane & had to get on (without going potty) as they were closing the doors!! The taxi ride went great - found our location & hotel wonderfully, everyone we did talk to was so kind & friendly. Then our time together ended up just being a wonderful vacation!!
*Things I learned that are pretty common considering physical characteristics with our Ty & his Syndrome & others with the same syndrome:
- Low frontal hairline, Bitemporal narrowing, High arched palate, full lips, Hypertelorism, Asymmetric Facies, wide spaced nipples, 5th digit clinodactyly, resting & intentional tremors in hands/arms, He would grow to be tall & has grown 6.5" & 22lbs. this past year & isn't done growing yet.
(Garrett is at 5.8" & 171lbs.)
I look forward to all the reports we will start receiving from the testing over the next couple months.
I enjoyed being there! 75* for most of the week till Sat it was a little cooler in the morning & at night - but still wonderful!! I really could have stayed!
Hopefully we will get to go back next year. They had mentioned many times they'd like to use Brady in the future too!! :)
1 comment:
I love the "WaWa"
Post a Comment