Florida: The End

It was not my idea of a dream vacation. Three trips to urgent care, pneumonia, croup and bronchitis sort of ruined my idea of a good time, but thankfully that's not what my kids remember. They loved our vacation. And truthfully we all had fun (even me). Our main purpose for heading to Florida was to go to a wedding. Just the boys ended up going, which I felt bad about, but they certainly were handsome!

I hung out with the sick kiddos and I've decided that breathing treatments might be one of my least favorite things to do in this world.  McKenna is just all drama about it and Will actually shakes his head back and forth trying to get away from the nebulizer. It's rather funny.

The next morning we all said "goodbye" to the beach. I cried as I stood out on the balcony for the last time looking out a the ocean. I just felt sad that it wasn't all that I had hoped it would be. I had worked and planned and dreamed for months planning this trip. But that's just life.

We drove straight home. It was a good trip, despite the 17 hours it took. I would have been nice if McKenna would have watched a movie, but we didn't watch one movie the entire ride home. I know, insane. Around 2am everyone woke up. So we stopped and took a potty break and got everyone a doughnut and started watching out the window for snow. It was actually really fun to have all of us awake in the middle of the night knowing we were almost home and it was so fun (and totally bizarre) to come home to snow.

I just love this cute little face! He was so handsome heading to the wedding. Right before he left I told him not to let any girls dance with him and he rolled his eyes and then gave me this panicked look!

We've already decided that Florida is in our future. Not sure when, but we'll be back and this time there will be no pneumonia!

Florida: My Favorite Videos!

I love the first video because it was "my view" while we were at the beach! Watching my three sweet kiddos each have their own fun on the beach! When you watch the last video you'll totally understand why it's one of my favorites!! McKenna just loved the ocean!

Siblings

Just look at how much Will loves McKenna. He looks like this all the time when he looks at her. She calls him "William." Like every single time she says his name, it's "William." And she always walks up to him and starts banging on him. I guess that's her way of showing love. Drives me crazy, but he loves it. And he loves her so much!!!!!!!!!!

Florida: Day 5

Ryan and Christian had a great time on the beach jumping waves, building sand castles and boogie boarding. They even tried skim boarding, but Christian thought that was a little tricky! I was hanging out with a sick McKenna all day. Thankfully she never really acted too sick. No fever, she just couldn't breath that great. Same with Will. He was happy the entire time, he just sounded awful! It could have been worse.

That evening I took Will and Christian on a walk on the beach to look for shells. It was probably my most favorite part of our vacation. When you get Christian by himself, he just talks and talks and I feel like I really get to connect with his heart.

The beach was totally empty with the exception of just us. That was fun and we found some really great shells. Christian was so cute...he kept finding purple shells or pinkish shells for McKenna.

Florida: Day 4.....the saga

 I'm not sure who loved the waves more...McKenna or Ryan! I could actually hear them laughing all the way from the balcony of our condo. McKenna loved going out in the "big Kahuna" with her daddy.

 Christian loved it too! He kept telling me over and over again..."the waves were even over daddy's head. He had to jump or we would have gone under." This was very impressive to him.

 I love this picture!

This guy LOVED his boogie board. And when he wasn't down on the beach catching a wave, he would sit on the balcony and scope out good spots to boogie board. He is obsessed with boogie boarding. If you want to hear about it, just stop by sometime. He'll be sure to tell you ALL ABOUT IT!!

Day four was my first visit to the lovely Urgent Care center of New Smyrna Beach. Will got some steroids to help with his croup. On the evening of day four McKenna was having massive coughing fits and Ryan looked at me and said "I think you took the wrong kid to Urgent Care." So the next day (day 5) I took McKenna. She was diagnosed with pneumonia. The doctor looked at me and said "Are you guys on vacation?" When I replied "yes" he said..."Well, I'm going to give her everything I can to try to keep her out of the hospital, but if she doesn't stop wheezing in 24 hours you need to take her to the ER."  Her oxygen stats weren't great, so it was concerning. So McKenna got a shot of Rocephin (which she later had a reaction too! very scary. She was screaming about her throat hurting and being tight.) She was put on an oral antibiotic and an oral steroid. And she had two different breathing treatments to do. Oh my word I was SO STRESSED OUT! McKenna is not great with taking medicine...we've been doing a lot of bribing. And she wears her swimming goggles when she gets breathing treatments because she can't stand it when the "steam" goes in her eyes...which it wouldn't if she would just do it right...but you know....
Unfortunately, that was not our last visit to Urgent Care....
to be continued...
this sounds like the worst vacay ever doesn't it???

Florida: Day 3

Day Three was the beginning of the downwards spiral of our vacation. Will had croup. So the two of us stayed up in the condo and watched the rest of the gang play on the beach from the balcony. By the afternoon he was feeling a little better, so we headed down to hang out with the big kids by the pool. McKenna practiced some ballet and Christian tried to climb a palm tree :)

Florida: Day 2

 I love New Smyrna Beach, FL because it isn't commercialized like so many other beaches.

Okay, so I actually love it and hate it.

I love getting to teach my kids to keep the light off on the balcony so that the sea turtle babies don't get confused by the light and head away from the beach instead of heading to the ocean when they hatch from their eggs. The beach is completely dark at night and signs are posted everywhere telling you to keep the beach dark at night for this reason.

I hate having to drive for 10 minutes just to get to the nearest fast food place or drug store. I know, I know...the hardships of life.

I've been wanting my kids to have a truly authentic Florida experience. So today (Monday: Day 2) I packed us all up and we drove out to Merritt Island (home of the Canaveral National Seashore where they launch the space shuttle). We drove through a wildlife refuge for hours looking for alligators. I actually did see an alligator, but I'm the only one who saw it and the kids were totally unimpressed by all the birds we saw. ((sigh)) So I don't think we're going to try to do anymore educational things.

 Flying kites ended up being way more fun than hunting alligators!

This little giggle monster loves the freezing cold w@ter!

This just melts my heart.

I adore my boys!

A Castle for Scuba Steve

Can you spot Scuba Steve?? He's a random bath toy that made the trip to Florida with us. Ryan, Christian & McKenna spent hours building castles for him to live in. This was McKenna's favorite thing about the beach...she loved the sand.

There's Scuba Steve :)

Our Trip: Day 1

Back in the 80's my family would vacation at my aunt's house in New Smyrna Beach, FL! I have the best childhood memories of our vacations there. So when I found out we would be going to a wedding in Orlando this fall my brain started scheming. October is a super cheap time to go to Florida and the weather is still rather warm so we decided to take the whole family and head to the beach for a week. This ended up being a terrible plan since Christian had just gotten out of the hospital. He had just missed a ton of school and then McKenna started throwing up the day before we were supposed to leave. But it was paid for, so we were going!

I didn't blog about it while we were there because I didn't really want to announce to the whole world that our house was sitting empty for 10 days. So all the drama of Will having croup and McKenna having pneumonia was actually taking place while we were on vacay in Florida. Good times! I'm literally spent just as much time sitting in Urgent Care as I did sitting on the beach. Needless to say it was not an ideal vacation. We didn't get to do some of the fun things we had planned like Disney World. And only Ryan and Christian even went to the wedding. ((Sigh)). But, what can you do??

I'm not even going to blog about the 17 hours it took to get to the beach. It's worth forgetting. Enough said.

We finally did arrive at 3:00am on Saturday, October 22nd. The entire family was awake and bouncing off the walls. I guess it didn't help that even after I got everyone settled into bed, I got them back up to sit out on the balcony and look at the moon reflecting off the ocean waves. I was beyond exhausted but there's nothing like sitting with your three babies watching for shooting stars and talking about what a big God we serve who could make such a big sky and a big ocean.

Will didn't get the memo that you're supposed to sleep in on vacation! We woke up to a gorgeous sunny day and the boys and I hung out on the couch and watched the waves while we waited for everyone else to get up.

The last time McKenna was at the "real" beach was when she was 6 months old, so this was huge for her. When daddy took her out in the waves for the first time she couldn't stop giggling at the top of her lungs. Christian was laughing and laughing too. Later Ryan said, "that might have been better than Christmas morning last year." And Christmas morning last year was pretty great.

We found a jelly fish. And collected lots of shells.

Christian practiced writing all the words he knows in the sand.

Ryan taught him to boogie board. It's his new favorite "sport."

The kids learned to identify brown pelicans, sandpipers and seagulls.

Perfection.

I love making memories with these two!

The Last of the Beach Pictures

We spent a beautiful weekend on the beach in OC, Md.
I never realized how awesome the zoom is on my camera until I was standing here ^ looking at Ryan and Christian. Do you see them?

And I was able to zoom all the way in to get this picture. Okay, so it's not a great picture, but I was impressed, considering how far away I was.

Christian loved the pirate ship slide.

And then there was this water slide. Christian would tell you that it's bigger than our house. It's not, but it sure seemed that way to him :)

Whee!!

Then it was off to the beach for some sandy fun!

Hurricane Bill was right off the east coast during the time we were at the beach. The beach had actually just reopened after being closed because of rough surf and rip tides, so we were extra careful with Christian. The water was really rough. Ryan only really went in one time! It was a surfer's dream come true, but I stuck to the sand.

Are you noticing the tongue yet? He sticks it out every time he's really into something or excited. I wonder if this habit is going to continue? I'm not so sure I like it.

My sweet boy.

And you know McKenna loved it.

Christian buried McKenna in the sand.

She didn't seem to mind. She was pretty fascinated with the sand.

And then this grumpy girl showed up.

And it didn't take long for her to fall fast asleep in my arms for about 2 hours!

What a delight to watch my little girl sleep to the sound of the crashing waves!

I can't wait to go back next year!