What a difference 24 hours makes!

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!

Count Down!

We've been keeping a secret! We spent the month of October counting down to something super fun! Ryan and I basically lost any semblance of common sense that we had and submitted our baby, three year old and six year old to 18 (almost consecutive) hours in the car. And I can't wait to tell you about it, but you're going to have a wait just a little bit longer.

Helping PopPop

My dad came over the other day to change the oil in our mower (because we need help like that) and the sweetest little scene unfolded. McKenna was out in the garage with him and the next thing I knew she was knocking on the door asking for some tools. The Handy Manny hammer only entertained her for a short time. She wanted some real tools and she sat on the floor of the garage fixing her four wheeler while PopPop worked on the mower.

Christian soon got in the action and both of my parents were busy teaching the kids to use "real" tools. I'm sure PopPop loved the help!

Yummy!

 Look at those little teeth!! Isn't he just the yummiest thing?? I guess we forgot to tell him that he's supposed to act miserable when he's sick. And thankfully he hasn't caught onto the fact that he's supposed to hate medicine like his brother and sister!! He's just a delight...ALL. THE. TIME!!

McKenna and Christian have both started to get mad at him. Whenever they're upset and sobbing about something, he thinks it's funny. ha! McKenna was screaming her head off about having to do a "breathing treat" and Will thought it was so funny. He was sitting there smiling and laughing at her and the next thing I knew I heard her say "Stop it Will. It's NOT funny. You're not allowed to laugh at me." Oh what a hoot!

We had a good day today. Everyone is a little grouchy, but feeling better! whew. I feel like I'm giving someone a breathing treatment all day long. But I've decided that we'll just get it all over with now and be healthy the rest of the year! We were healthy for the entire winter last year, so it is possible. When I had Will last March and took him into the pediatrician's office for the first time the nurses were so surprised that I had a new baby. They didn't even know I was pregnant because we hadn't been to the doctor for months and months. Here's praying we can get on a healthy kick for awhile!

Can't catch a break

I know you're probably starting to wonder, but "yes" we do wash our hands. And we take vitamins everyday. And we do cover our mouths when we cough (we'll most of the time anyway). We drink orange juice and get plenty of sleep....but lately.....you wouldn't know it!

It was just a week ago that I was sitting in the pediatrician's office with McKenna. She had a bad cough and was throwing up. The doctor was worried about the throwing up, I was worried about the cough. I reminded him that Christian had a cough and was throwing up and it progressed and he ended up with pneumonia. He assured me that she DID NOT need an antibiotic and he sent us home with no medicine. I had a bad feeling about that. I know all about "policy" and the fear of over prescribing antibiotics, but I also know about having a kid in the hospital and how McKenna has a history of asthma and pneumonia.

Fast forward to today....I sat in the doctor's office and wanted to stomp my foot and have a little tantrum when he told me that McKenna has pneumonia. It's bad. She got a Rocephin shot and is now on two different breathing treatments, an oral steroid and an oral antibiotic. You can just imagine how fun it is to give her all that medicine.

Am I crazy or do you think that it wouldn't be all that out of the question to go ahead and give my coughing, croupy little 7 month old an antibiotic?? I sure do hope I'm wrong.

Weary....would be a good word to describe how I feel right now. Keeping 2 Cor. 4:17 in mind these days.

2 Corinthians 4:17



For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.