Home Sweet Home

It feels so nice to be home again! Well, for the most part. Our trip down to Florida went very smooth. Jack did great and it wasn't "too" exhausting. The way home was a little different. We left Florida this past Friday, and had planned on arriving back in Omaha on Sunday. But Jack developed a heavy cough and was extremely unhappy in his car seat, and he let us know about it. After making it almost all the way through the early part of Atlanta's rush hour, Jack's barking cough and screaming was so bad that we decided to drive five miles back into Atlanta to take him to the Children's Hospital ER. They told us he had an ear infection and croup and gave us some meds and we hung out in Atlanta for a while waiting for the rush hour to die down. We left Atlanta at about 7:00 and it still took about 40 minutes to make our way out of the traffic and we made it to Nashville at about 11:30 that night.

The next day we planned to stop in Columbia, MO, then we decided to keep going to Kansas City. At that point we figured Jack would get much better rest at home, so we finished the haul by coming all the way back to Omaha from Nashville on day 2. Almost 23 hours in two days! Jack sure hung in there! Unfortunately though, all the driving, screaming, and lack of sleep made the croup even worse. He wasn't breathing very well on Sunday and seemed pretty miserable, and by the time we took him in first thing Monday morning, he was in pretty bad shape. His ears were even worse (the antibiotic wasn't working), his throat was red, and he was wheezing. They gave him an antibiotic shot, along with a new antibiotic, and another dose of the steroid to help open up his airway. The good news is that he is doing much better today! His breathing is better, his fever is gone, and he is sleeping better. He still doesn't feel great, but he should be feeling much better in a couple days. So far, every time we have traveled with Jack, he gets sick. Toward the end of our time in Florida, we were talking about how great it was that we hadn't had to take Jack to the doctor all summer ... I guess we spoke too soon!

Jack spending some time with the rest of the kids. He really enjoyed the kids and we had a great babysitter.

We were able to enjoy an evening at Magic Kingdom thanks to Disney giving our staff team complimentary tickets.

Giving the wheel a try at one of our Chik-fil-a stops on the way home.

Jack with his best friend Ali. Too bad she lives in New Mexico.

So thankful for the DVD player in the van. I think we have memorized Charlotte's Web. I got a good laugh out of Templeton.

On our way home through Georgia. It was hot and humid.