July 3, 2007

Hello everyone! We're back from Portugal now, and what a wonderful week we had. Charlie had an amazing time, and is now a dab hand at saying 'Obrigado', which means 'thank you' in Portuguese!

We did wonder how he'd cope on the aeroplane, as we had been worried that his oxygen saturations may drop once we were in the air, but as per normal, our little superstar came through like a trouper, and loved every minute of the flight and stayed nice and pink throughout!

He even managed to wangle himself a trip to the flight deck to meet the captain, and was amazed by all the buttons the pilots had to push. (We just about managed to restrain him from pushing a few himself!)

The weather in Portugal was terrific - high twenties/low thirties all week, and Charlie really loved the heat. It was so lovely to see him running around in just his trunks, or shorts and t-shirt, without having to make sure he was warm enough. (Maybe we should emigrate to Florida?!)

The pool was another big hit - we did wonder how he would cope, as the water wasn't heated at all, but he wore his shortie wetsuit and stayed in the pool all day long. We had a job to get him out at mealtimes!

We were truly amazed by his stamina - he seemed to be the only child who didn't need a siesta, and just kept going and going.

He became more and more confident in the water as the week went on, and is now happy to put his face in the water, so we're going to start taking him to the local pool. Hopefully his wetsuit will let him swim without becoming too cold.

He ate really well the whole time we were there, and tried loads of new foods - he particularly liked all the Portuguese fish specialities, so we'll be hitting the fishmonger now we're home to keep up the good work!

We had a pretty relaxing week really - most days we just stayed by the pool or went to the beach, but Charlie really enjoyed a day at Zoomarine - the Portuguese equivalent of SeaWorld (although on a considerably smaller scale!). He's mad about sharks at the moment, so was over the moon to come face to face with a few of them, along with some performing dolphins and seals.

We've had a manic couple of days since we came back on Saturday, as we went up to Stafford the next morning for a Little Hearts Matter summer party. It was great to catch up with all of Charlie's heart friends and their parents.

By the way, for those of you who've been thinking of Charlie's friend Danny, who's just had his Fontan surgery, I'm really pleased to let you all know that the surgery went really well and Danny recovered brilliantly, without any complications and was back home about 10 days post-op. Wonderful news.

Charlie went back to playschool today, where it was sports day! He came out covered in stickers for taking part in the races - apparently his favourites were the bunny-hop race, the spider race (??) and the 'walking backwards slowly' race! He also had lots of fun doing show and tell about his holiday with Herman the playschool teddy bear (whom we managed to return safely, thank goodness!!).

Not much more news really - except that we're having a conservatory and some new windows put on the house over the next few weeks, and Charlie's almost hysterical with excitement at the prospect of having 'real builders' with cement mixers in his garden!

I'm attaching a selection of pics of Charlie on holiday.

As always, please feel free to leave us a message if you've dropped by - Charlie likes to know which of his friends have been visiting!