Happy birthday

To me! I was able to spend my 26th with this cute girl on a girls weekend in Florida last week and it was one for the books!

Edisto Beach

We made it to Edisto Beach later than expected because of the ER visit, but we were able to hang out with the family one of the houses for a few hours before all of the kids were done and ready for bed. It was ok though, because we had a whole day at the beach ahead of us the next day. 

There's not a whole lot better than a beautiful day at the beach.

Even though Ethan and Nixon couldn't get in the water, they were able to find other things to do on the beach.

 Some of the Group

Jonny, Mariah, Grandma Nuni, and Jessica

Emmett was Ethan's little helper

Ethan and Mike

Sweet little Colton

Colton and Nixon

Ethan and Jared taking their boys for a walk

Deacon and Mason

Shannon, Jessica and Vanessa

While the littlest ones were down for a nap, we went to a little inlet to find some crabs. I just have to say the beaches here are BEAUTIFUL! They look like they've been taken right out of a Nicholas Sparks movie! (I guess that's because that's where all of his movies are filmed.)

There were crabs everywhere! There were holes all over the place with piles of balled up mud next to them where they had dug down and would poke out there heads, check to see if the coast was clear, and would pop back down because they saw us. They were quick little buggers too!

We found a couple larger holes and happened to find this guy in one of them. It was pretty big compared to the other tiny little ones we had been seeing.

This view was truly picturesque. 

We had an amazing day, and although we only had the one day, it was one to remember. 

Emergency room take two..

The second trip was for Nixon.

We were just about to finish up packing for our trip down to the beach, when I went to get the stuff for my bathroom bag. All of a sudden I hear Ethan say, "Oh no." He said Nixon had tripped and hit the bed frame. Then I hear, "Oh no. Kaytlin get in here!" I run into the room and there's blood all over. I run to get paper towels, but then realize I'm going to need something more, so I grab a towel. We got it as cleaned up as much as we could and called our urgent care to let them know we were on our way.

When we got to the urgent care, they told us there was nothing they could do, so they sent us down to the pediatric emergency department. After this second trip to an urgent care, I've decided, unless it's a tiny cut that needs a bandaid, they're kind of useless.

We made our way down to the ER and they checked us in. They put him in this little gown that was so adorable.

He was in good spirits, so we decided to let him walk around the room a little bit. It was the CUTEST thing I've ever seen. 

I've never been in an ER with a child before, and I don't know if it is a common practice, but while they were putting on the liquid stitches, they had a Child Life Specialist, which is a fancy way of saying someone who tries to distract the child from what's really going on and to keep it the least traumatic that they can. She had a little spinning light up toy which worked great until the sting. Poor guy, as if the pain of smacking his face wasn't enough, evidently the burn of the stitches was pretty bad too. 

The doctor finished up and we were able to calm him down, and give him a little fruit bar. This is the face of a little boy who decided to take on a mean metal bed frame. I wish I could say the frame lost. 

We finished up the paperwork and was on our way. He had had such a rough morning, that all he wanted was some snuggles from his dad.

As I had mentioned before, we were packing up for a trip to the beach and after two trips to the ER, we debated scrapping the whole thing. We figured we could either stay home, figuratively licking our literal wounds, while the whole family was at the beach, or we could join them. It didn't take long to agree we would still go. It may have been a few hours later than planned, but we were going to go to Edisto Beach with the whole family and make it a great trip! And so we did. 

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.