Emergency room take one..

It's been a long time since I've been in an emergency room, so it came as a bit of a surprise when I had to make TWO trips in one week!!

The first trip was for Ethan.

He and a couple of the brothers went up to Concord to a place called the Speedpark at Concord Mills. They did some go carts, games and a trampoline bungee jump. You'd think he would have learned after his last outing on a trampoline, which ended in torn ligaments and crutches for weeks.

Evidently, the bungee jump is attached to a trampoline so you can jump while in the harness to be able to do flips. Ethan was doing a double back flip. As he was coming out of it, his shins bashed the edge of the trampoline and completely split it open. I wasn't there, but the rest of the story went a little something like this. Ethan reached down and realized that his legs were bleeding. He lifted up his pant legs and one of the workers told him to, "Cover that up!" They asked the workers to get a first aid kit and then came with a little thing called a boo-boo bag. It consisted for a little sanitizing wipe and a couple of little bandaids. The guy had no idea what in the world he was doing so Ethan told him not to touch him. He asked them to go get paper towels and tape so he could bandage himself up. They got him the stuff and they went to an urgent care.

He called me and said he was going to the ER. I immediately assumed he was lying and then quickly realized he was telling the truth. His brother was driving him there as we were speaking. I told him I would meet him there.

Shannon and I drove together to meet them and when we got there, Jared was wheeling him in, in a wheelchair. We got him checked in and waited. Went into the triage room, then waited. Got sent back out to the waiting room, then waited. They took him back to get x-rays to make sure nothing was broken, brought him back out and we waited. They took us back two more times, before someone finally said, "Do you have a laceration?" Are you kidding me? That's why we are here!! Even after that, there was another hour or so of waiting until we were finally taken back to a room.

The doctor was a great guy, who we talked to the entire time. He answered all of our random questions about his job and what he was doing, and was a great sport.

The next couple pictures are a little more graphic.

We finished up just shy of 2:00am and had 18 stitches. We were both exhausted, but we had to get some sleep because we had a trip to the beach in just a few, short hours. 

Ahoy! Baby shower

My sister-in-law Mariah is pregnant with her first and it's a little girl! Because she lives in Texas, I decided, while everyone was in town, we would throw her a surprise baby shower.

We got her out of the house for the day by sending her down to Vanessa's house to "help her with the boys." We also had all of the sisters and their mom go out for dinner. It worked perfectly! Shannon and I stayed back and put the thing whole thing together. 

My sister-in-law Jessica made the adorable cake!

The food turned out great, and it was a total success with 19 people in attendance! She was totally surprised and came out with a pretty good haul! Congratulations Mariah, we can't wait to meet that sweet little girl soon!

Family pictures

While everyone was in town, we decided it would be a good idea to get an updated family picture. We didn't really want to pay anyone to take them, so I took on the job. With the help of a tripod, a borrowed camera with an awesome lens, and some amazingly kind people walking by, we were able to get this shot.

It may not be a "perfect picture" but I think it turned out great for not even being behind the camera.

Family pool day

At the end of August, all of Ethan's family came into town for a little family reunion. Ethan's sister Vanessa lives right down the road from their neighborhood pool, so one day we decided to take it over for a couple hours. The weather was beautiful and the water was great which constitutes a win in my book!