ICON Park: A Race Against Time

 After the Sanford Zoo with my parents on Thursday, we drove to the touristy area of Orlando near the Convention Center to Icon Park. We had a yummy late lunch around 3:45 at Yardhouse. We shared onion rings and I tried the Margherita pizza with Happy Hour pricing. Gasp at myself for not taking a "table of food" photo. 

The biggest problem during our day trip, which was only more of me blowing a potential medical worry out of proportion, since nothing actually happened.. but we (or maybe it was just me, and not Michael?) were concerned that Emma’s battery pack would run out. They last about six hours. We unplugged the ventilator from the wall in her bedroom and began using the battery power around 11:15am and left the house at 11:30am. So the mental countdown then gave us until 5:15pm at the longest before we needed to either have her sprinting full time (which is more of a decision that she and her lungs make) or be back in the car with the ventilator plugged into the cigarette lighter/ charging port. Each battery pack lasts three hours, and we have two packs. A total of ten power dots; eight green, two orange, each representing 30 precious minutes. The ventilator does have another 15 minutes worth of internal battery after that, but will alarm every single minute to remind you that it needs to be plugged in very soon. 

I was worried that we wouldn't be able to do The Wheel/ Orlando Eye, whichever you prefer to call it, at all, but after doing the math and my dad looking up online that the "in air" time is only 18 minutes compared to the 45 minutes that Michael remembered it as, and seeing that Emma still had two green and two orange battery lights left (about an hour of time remaining), we felt it was safe to go. Pheeew! Oh, and I need to mention, that the reason we were adding this to our plans was because at work we got an email saying first responders and their families (up to four people) get to ride for free during the month of November, so we snatched to opportunity while we were all together! I had a bunch of reminders to bring my work ID as proof of employment and also brought the printed flyer from my email just incase, which did come in handy later in the day. And I really wanted Emma to ride the Orlando Eye again, because the last time we did it with her, during the Little People of America Convention, over two years ago, she was asleep the whole time! I'm very glad she was awake this time. Lots to see. 

This photo of Michael and Emma with the Day Light Savings 4:30 sunset makes me think of the lyrics for the song "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. This is exactly what I want to give Emma. I want to show Emma the world. I want to give her more than just a bunch of toys in the living room. I'm in a "zoo mood" and already talking about taking her to the Tampa Zoo in a few months because I don't think Michael and I have ever been there either, aside from the light show thing a handful of summers ago. 

I thought it was really funny when we went to the beach with my friend Lindsey, and afterwards at dinner, she was watching Emma who was making all of her usual faces, including this mixed look of confusion and disgust. She asked if Emma was okay, and I laughed because she makes that face all the time. I assured Lindsey that she was fine. She does it for a few seconds and then she makes a normal face again.

I like her two faces in these photos.. "Ready for it?.. No hands!!"

  

  The first responders flyer also said we could get a free train ride and the train was smaller than I remembered. This was where my printed flyer came in handy because they hadn't heard of the promotion like the Orlando Eye employees had. I suppose the train isn't as popular, but they gladly honored it. 

  My dad didn't ride, but still stood next to the train with his mask on for a family photo with the train company's camera (the one where they ask you to pay $20 for a copy at the end, just like they did on the Orlando Eye and we said no thank you to that). But before we left, the manager who took the picture had it printed while we had been riding around for five minutes, handed the picture to my mom and said, "I want you to have this." Most likely because of Emma and her ventilator and everything. It was so sweet and my mom almost started crying as we walked away. In my head I was thinking, "yeah it was really nice, but calm down", yet here I am tearing up while writing about it! In this crazy world, especially with everything going on this year specifically, a lot seems to be going wrong right now, but there is still a lot of good too, we might just need to look a little harder to see it. 

   I complain a lot in general, which I should not, but I would definitely not call 2020 the worst year ever for us. We don't have a worst year. I would probably say "the worst thing" that happened this year, which is still very minor, and we are extremely lucky that nobody in our family has gotten the virus.. although technically my mom feels certain we all (me, my mom, dad and younger brother) got it after our cruise to the Bahamas at the end of January, which is highly possible, but our doctors told us it was the flu at the time, and obviously we all got better from it after a week.. anyway, Michael and I only had to cancel our Gainesville trip in March (where Emma was going to finally meet her cousins, Peyton and Helena, so she still hasn't been able to meet them yet) and we also couldn't go on our annual North Georgia mountain trip in April, both due to Corona Virus shut downs. Other than that our year was mostly the same. Since Emma came home in May 2018, our life has kind of been a mini-quarantine anyway. :) 

Lastly ~ Here are the battery pictures: this was taken after her doctor appointment yesterday. We weren't gone as long then so there are more dots filled. Below, you can see where Emma's batteries usually stay plugged into the wall when they are not being used. I think after the train ride, when we got back to the car, there was one green and both of the orange dots left.