We went down to Orange Beach for our annual week long family beach vacation at the beginning of September. We always stay for the first part of the week by ourselves. My parents and my sister and her family always join us later in the week. Well, this trip was the most eventful one yet!!!!
Carlton, the boys and I left on Sunday morning headed to the beach. This was Judson's first long trip in the car. He did amazingly well! Never hardly heard a peep out of him unless he got hungry! We had a wonderful trip on the way down! Once we got there we unpacked and settled in our condo. I then left Carlton and the boys and headed to get groceries for the week. When I got back Carlton and John Turner went down to the beach and set up our tent for the week. Judson and I just unpacked and organized things.
The next morning we were all up early and ready to head to the beach to play! Here the boys are snuggling after breakfast.
Carlton and John Turner slathered themselves in sunscreen and headed out to the beach right after breakfast. Judson and I stayed up in the condo for him to finish his nap. John Turner was super excited the first morning!
Once Judson woke up and ate, we headed down to see what the big boys were up to. They were busy building sandcastles, collecting seashells and, John Turner's favorite thing, covering Daddy
in sand!! John Turner has never been a real fan of the beach. He would much rather be at the pool all day just like me! This year he did like the beach a little more. He and Daddy spent quite a few hours out there this year. He loved walking on the beach and searching for shells.
And this is pretty much what Judson thought about the beach the whole time we were there!!
We just hung out on the beach or at the pool all day Monday. Tuesday just happened to be John Turner's birthday! We started it off with a big birthday breakfast with cinnamon rolls and of course, 3 candles!!! We all sang happy birthday and let him blow out his candles. This is the second year that John Turner has gotten to celebrate his birthday at the beach! We then spent the day playing on the beach and at the pool.
Since it was his birthday, John Turner got to choose a special place to have his birthday dinner. He chose the Hang Out! We have taken him here several times and he loves it! We had a wonderful table overlooking the ocean. After the delicious meal, he played and played and had the best time!
On Wednesday, my parents came down. John Turner was very excited about Gran and Grandpa being with him at the beach. He couldn't wait to show them everything he had been doing. Once they arrived John Turner had them at the beach and pool in no time.
That night my parents kept the boys and let Carlton and me go out for dinner all by ourselves. What a treat!! We went to Cobalt and enjoyed it very much! Date night sure makes a girl happy!
This night things became pretty scary for us. Judson was already in bed when we got home. about 11:00 that night he woke up crying. He normally doesn't wake up at that time, but we thought maybe he was hungry. We fed him a little and put him back to bed. A couple of hours later he was up screaming again. I knew something was wrong at this point because this is not like him. Carlton picked him up and said he thought that Judson was running a fever. Crazy us forgot to bring a thermometer with us! Carlton leaves and runs to the store. When he return and we take his temp it is already over 101 degrees. This scared me since he was only 7 weeks old at the time. We decided to call our pediatrician at home and see what she thought we needed to do. After talking to her we decided to head to the ER. We took him to a small ER near Foley. After blood work, urinalysis and a long wait. They decided that he had a urinary tract infection and needed antibiotics. We called our pediatrician and told her what they had said. She disagreed and told us not to take the antibiotics. She said that if fever went high again to take him to Mobile to Children's Hospital. His fever was down at this point so we headed back to the condo and wait.
That afternoon we took his temp and it was over 104 degrees!!! We then grabbed our things and rushed him to Mobile to Children's Hospital ER. They admitted him quickly and begin the blood work and urinalysis process again. Once we arrived there, my nerves just seemed to calm down. Our nurses and doctors there were so amazing and made us feel so at ease! They really took care of my sweet baby!
The blood work came back and showed that he had a viral infection. There was absolutely nothing we could do but give Tylenol every 4 hours for the fever. This was a relief! Not knowing what could be wrong with your child is so scary. Seeing him go through those procedures at 7 weeks was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do!
When we finally got back to the condo, we all three slept the rest of the day!
The next day Judson was feeling back to normal again. He even got to have some pool time with big brother!
My sister and her family arrived during all of this craziness. I have hardly any pics of our beach trip at the end of the week. I think I was just so exhausted and relieved over everything that pictures just weren't on my mind!
The last night we were there we all went to eat at LuLu's. This is a tradition in my family! Here's the only family picture of us all four together during the entire trip!
The kids had a blast at LuLu's! They were all so well behaved and we had a great dinner!
Whew! What a beach trip this was!!!!!!
