Since we found out about Andrew's heart over ten years ago, this has been our home away from home. This hospital is one of the best. There was no question where we would be going for Andrew's surgeries and procedures. It used to be about a 2 hour drive for us. And now? Well. Let's just say it's now in our neck of the woods...
And they just built a brand new children's hospital. The timing is uncanny.
Andrew making his mark on the new hospital!
They had an open house a few weeks ago and handed out scavenger hunts with stickers of the symbols and the kids had to find all of the symbols on the map. Andrew and Kerigan were very excited about this.
We met up with some other heart friends and the kids all had a blast together exploring!
It was so fun to run into a lot of heart families this day!
They found the canoe!
And the sun! Isn't the view behind them so pretty? We were up pretty high!
Our favorite place was the healing garden. Patients can take walks here and it is so bright and cheery. Plus it overlooks Kinnick stadium.
So you can basically watch the football games from the hospital! Pretty cool. You may remember from this post when I posted this picture:
That is the view of the hospital from the stadium- pretty cool!
Us in the healing garden
They gave us a tour of all the different areas- this was the NICU. Andrew couldn't believe he ever fit in one of these!
They had characters! And ice cream! #winwin
We always have to get a picture with Andrew and Curious George. He's always been our little monkey since day one!
It takes a lot for me to post this picture, let alone stand by these characters- Ha! I'm forever a Cyclone, but might as well face it that we live in Hawkeye country now!
On the way out they found another symbol!
After the tour we had lunch with our friends Mandy and Kenny and Emily & Grace. We used to live in the same town and have missed them since we moved! Kerigan was pumped to eat using chopsticks! #firsttimer
So while we hope we don't have to hang out here too much, we're thankful it's here. These amazing doctors and nurses have gotten Andrew to where he is today. It's a pretty special place.
Just a couple of other random catch up pictures from my phone...
This was cracking me up. It was election night. Andrew had had Taekwondo and Kerigan had gymnastics, they were both so tired and we wouldn't let them change the channel on the TV so this is what they looked like. Ha!
Speaking of gymnastics, my girl got moved from the 5/6 year old class to the 7+ class. She's improving so much and learning so many things! I'm so proud of her!
She's so busy every once in a while she just crashes- ha!
Daddy's team made the state championship so we all wore our shirts to school the Friday before the game!
Ga Ga came to spend the night and we had a Finding Dory movie night!
This girl got sick in the morning and had to stay home from school. So she decided to dress up and cut out sight words. Ha! Not sure how sick she really was but we weren't taking any chances!
Then Ga Ga brought them this super cute book about how to catch Santa. Which brought on a whole new set of thoughts and questions from the kids.. how does Santa get down the chimney? How does he deliver presents to so many kids in one night? Etc, etc. Thanks Ga Ga! :)
#mamahadtothinkfast
