Update on Life and a Beach Trip

I think I left things off last time the night before our latest trip to the ENT for Harrison. We went last Thursday morning to figure out our next plan of action. After being sick last week while I was out of town, he was feeling somewhat better by Thursday and the ear that has been giving him all the trouble was dry as a bone. We were somewhat optimistic. However, that quickly went out the window when we were told it was his other ear that was infected this time (he hasn't had any problems out of this ear). We knew at that moment that something had to be done. So now, we are awaiting surgery on the 17th (possibly the 10th) where Harrison will get his third set of tubes, this time with antibiotic packing, AND, he will also be getting a pic line put in his arm which will run all the way to his heart and he will be administered antibiotics through an IV for 10 days. We will spend a night in the hospital and then be dealing with a home health nurse after that. I'm sure that there will be more to discuss when the time comes (like how in the world is he going to be ok with an IV in his arm for 10 days????). Pray for us. I keep telling us it could be far worse. He is just SO unhappy 90% of the time which makes life pretty difficult right now because we have no way of making him feel better. It has been a real test of patience these past few weeks. I'm ready for him to feel better and be the happy little boy that I know he really is! I feel so bad for him--I wish we could trade places!

 

That is not all that happened last week though! It gets worse and I'm almost embarrassed to put this on the blog, but hey, this blog is about the good AND the bad! We have had a birds nest right by our back door for quite some time now. We've been through a couple of sets of baby birds in the nest and the boys have enjoyed watching them grow! And, just last week, Joel had to help a baby bird that had fallen out of the nest get safely back to it. Anyway, birds nests near your house are a bad idea! Trust me! We started itching last week and by Friday, we realized we had a big, big, problem. The issue with having a birds nest nearby is that it is FULL of bird mites that will take over your house, especially in your bed! So, $800 later, we are free of bird mites and our house is as clean as it has ever been. Phew!  

 

To put the icing on the cake, my grandfather got put in the hospital last Friday and will be having surgery in the morning. He is 95 and is ready to go, but we are not ready for him to leave yet! So, say a prayer for that too, that if tomorrow is the day, that he goes peacefully, and if not, that the surgery will make him feel better and give him some more time with us!

 

You can see why I was pretty thrilled to be heading back to the beach on Saturday to spend some time with the boys and my sweet sister! I could not wait to get away from everything (although we knew we might have to come home for Granddaddy at any point, but there was nothing we could do in the meantime to make it better, so we went anyway). The plan was for the guys to meet us down there on Wednesday, and then we would all come home today. Well, as with everything else lately, it did not go as planned. We did have a really fun few days at the beach though. The weather was a bit iffy at first, but then we had two really great days before it got really bad! Hudson was great the whole time, but Harrison, who now is battling an infection in both ears, was really fussy. However, they slept great down there and most days, Carrie was up before us so that was really nice! We ate good and had so much fun swimming. I attempted to take the boys down to the beach one day, and that ended up being a royal disaster, so we opted to wait until Daddy got down there to try that again (but that never happened!).

 

After a 7 hour ride down to the beach (EVERYONE was headed down there for the week it seemed!), we let the boys get their energy out in Seaside and ate dinner at the food trucks. Yum!

 

 

My dad has some of his art in one of the art galleries in Seaside, so on Monday night we went down to Seaside to find his art (the gallery was closed though!). We ended up eating dinner at Great Southern and then watched James and the Giant Peach in the amphitheater. It was so fun!

Hudson being sweet and feeding his brother ice cream!

The sunset was so pretty that night! It was one of those nights that we came back to the condo and the boys played in the courtyard until after dark!

Hudson is 100% swimming now. He is jumping off the side and swimming back. He's diving down to get rings. He even learned how to do a cannonball this week! It was so fun to just be able to watch him go! I'm pretty amazed at how far he has come since our trip down there a month ago.

Harrison did a lot better at the pool too, although he hated putting on his puddle jumper. The only person that could get it on him was Hudson!

Of course we made another stop by the Alys Beach splash pad. Hudson rode his bike down there and I strolled Harrison.

The weather did not look great for Wednesday through the weekend, but we still hoped that it would just be scattered like it always is down there. We could not have been more wrong. It was a complete wash out. Unfortunately, the boys did drive down there Wednesday and we ended up coming home on Thursday! Two days of staying inside with little kiddos is not exactly pleasant! They were getting major cabin fever. On Thursday, Joel and I bit the bullet and we went swimming in the rain! We should have won an award for that. :) It was freezing!

Sand Cliffs has a big 4th of July celebration and it was completely rained out, but we wore our t-shirts and took a picture anyway! Sadly, we saw no fireworks and did not get to redeem ourselves with the egg toss on the 4th! Boo!

It has actually worked out that we came home early. We got to see Granddaddy yesterday at the hospital, and even got in a visit with Mama Jean. Dad took us out to dinner last night and we are having family over to our house tonight for dinner. We've had a good weekend, but I'm sick of the rain and pretty ready to get back to our routine next week! I know there are going to be two little boys that are going to have a really sad goodbye to their aunt and uncle tomorrow. We hope they will come back soon!