From Sickness to Sunshine: Our last 13 Days

Two weeks ago, Foster woke up from his nap with puke everywhere. As far as common illnesses go with little ones, stomach viruses are the worst in my opinion. Especially when it makes its way through all three kids and manages to knock me down, too. 

Ugh. It was a rough week battling this bug. It wasn't your typical 24 hour virus, it lingered. Chris was working, and I was cleaning up after 3 sick kids while running a fever and not eating much. This led to a few melt downs where, I admit, I had to hide away in my room to shed some tears and pretty much lose my mind out of the sight of my poor, aching little ones. 

I was nursing Foster in the night to both comfort him and keep him hydrated, interrupting some much needed sleep. 

One day I just had to get out of the house. I loaded up the kids in their pjs, puke buckets in hand, and went for a drive. It seemed like a great idea, and for the most part it did a fine job restoring a small ounce of my sanity. Until, that is, I picked a windy road where my 5 year old, one prone to car sickness on a healthy day, had to use her bucket...oops. 

Then Thursday morning came: fevers gone, faces smiling, siblings bickering...ahhhh, back to normal. 

After disinfecting my house, washing every piece of clothing: every sheet and pillow case and stuffed animal, and mopping every moppable surface, we packed up the car and hit the road! 

Chris was already in California for a work conference, so I took the kids to visit our best friends in Orange County. Perhaps driving 7 hours with 3 kids 5 and under after the exhausting week I had was a bit over zealous. But all in all the trip went well, aside from Harper getting the nosebleed from hell while driving down the 10. (That was a 25 minute delay that was not anticipated).

The kids played together, we went to the beach, we had milkshakes on the pier, Foster ate sand, we all ate Chic-fil-a, we went to several McDougall family functions (we claimed them as our California family a long time ago and they accepted us graciously!), and we worked on negotiations for the arranged marriage of our second children. Brennan & Kinley McDougall...it just sounds good, doesn't it?

It was a good little getaway. Chris joined us on Saturday after his conference was over and today he's driving us home. We're all together, we're all healthy, and we're all refreshed from these few days in sunny California.