What a Spring Break!

Avi Grace with Uncle Billy, Great Memaw and Uncle Bobby
 
Avi Grace playing with Nana on the porch swing 
Avi Katz, Avi Grace and Me 

Vickie and Greta 
Jack and Emily Playing in the bath tub! 

Jack and Emily kissing! 
Waiting out the carbon monoxide scare and visiting the fire department. 
Avi Grace playing in the cabin 

Well, I'm not really sure where to start. Our spring break was very eventful. On Sunday Nana Gayle came to visit from Texas. She kept Avi Grace for several days while I ran errands and tried to get us ready to leave on our trip. On that Monday, my grandmother and 2 uncles came to visit. Uncle Bobby had not seen Avi Grace yet, so it was fun to play with him. To start our trip off, on Tuesday afternoon, Avi Grace woke up with a slight fever. She didn't really have any other symptoms. We watched her and gave her tylenol for the fever. She slept well that night, so I wasn't too concerned about her. We got ready to leave for our trip on Wednesday morning. Avi Grace seemed to be feeling okay. So, we headed off to Birmingham to visit our friends at Children's Hospital and left our luggage with our friends to be packed in their vehicles. At Children's, we got to visit so many of the friends we made while Austin was in the hospital. We got to see Greta, Vickie, Jenny, and Angela--all nurses who took care of Austin in the NICU. We also visited with several dialysis nurses and Linda in the lactation center (we hate we missed Patty!). Avi Grace finally got to meet her namesake, Dr. Avi Katz, the nephrologist who took care of Austin. It was so great to see him and catch up. We've been wanting to make a trip to Children's for a while now, and this was the perfect time to be able to do it.

By mid afternoon on this day, Avi Grace wasn't feeling all that well. But, our friends the Adkersons and the Fountains picked us up at Children's to head on to Georgia. Avi Grace did okay on the trip...one melt down, but we made it. We got to our cabin at about 9:30 or 10 p.m. We were all tired! The cabin was very nice, though. On Thursday, the girls went to the grocery store and we spent the afternoon playing outside and wandering around downtown Blue Ridge. On Friday, the girls got to go to the outlet mall in Dawsonville, Georgia. Very nice mall, by the way! Drew kept Avi Grace all day by himself (and the other guys and kids) for the first time. He did a great job, and I was very proud of him.

On Friday night, we had some drama. About 30 minutes after dinner, the carbon monoxide detectors in the cabin started going off. It kind of freaked us out. We opened the windows to air things out, and they quit going off. However, right after we closed everything, they started going off again. We called the owners of the cabin, and they basically told us there was nothing they could do (they live in Atlanta), so we called 911, which is what the detectors said to do if they were flashing 4 times...and they were. The Fannin County Fire Chief, Chief Thomas, and several others from the fire department came to the cabin and when they first came in he detected a good bit of carbon monoxide, so we got the kids up and out in the sprinkling rain so they would not be exposed to the carbon monoxide any more than they already had been. Finally someone from the gas company came and realized that the gas tank outside was too low and that is why the gas from the stove and the furnace were not burning properly, thus producing carbon monoxide. So we really did have carbon monoxide in the cabin, but the gas company came back and filled the tank up, and we were okay again--AFTER we spent about 2 and a half hours with the fire department and the gas company!!!! It was MISERABLE! Thank goodness for the carbon monoxide detectors--if your house has any gas appliances or heat, you should definitely get one for your safety!

On Saturday most of us hung around the cabin and Blue Ridge, but Drew and Jonathan (Drew's brother who lives in Atlanta) hiked up to Springer Mountain on the Applachian Trail. I think that was probably the 2nd or 3rd time Drew had done that particular hike, but he was dying to hike. It was pouring down rain and hailing that day, but they went anyway! MEN! The rest of us went to the Blue Ridge Fire Department to let the kiddos see the fire trucks. Chief Thomas had invited us to come by when he was at the cabin the night before! Jack and Emily had a great time together on our trip! As you can see from the pictures, we might just have a litle romance budding!!

On Sunday, we headed back home. Avi Grace was a super girl on the way home, thankfully. She was very fussy while we were gone. I am sure she just didn't feel well and she was in an unfamiliar environment. She has developed a fairly bad cough since we got home, which is concerning. She has her 6 month checkup on Friday, so if she is not better by then, it will be a sick baby visit along with a well baby visit!

On top of everything, I started running fever on Saturday afternoon. I am still running fever now. I think I have the flu. I am VERY miserable. I wasn't looking forward to going back to work yesterday, but I would much rather be at work than feeling like I am feeling now. Please, I hope it goes away soon! I haven't felt this badly in a long time, in fact; I can't remember the last time I felt like this. I feel just well enough to sit up right now and type this blog post!

So, we had an eventful spring break. I think I have summed everything up in a not so short way. Sorry this is so long!