Ella Kate and John David Jr.: Perdido Beach, ER, and Mommy's 29th Birthday

It has only been a little over a week since I updated the blog but so much has happened I do not even know where to start. Let's see, Sunday after the 4th of July we headed down to Perdido Key beach for a convention that Dave's company was attending. All started out well on Sunday morning. We rented a nice SUV so that we would have plenty of room for the trip loaded up Ella Kate with her new big girl car seat and off we went. Ella Kate was the perfect angel during the trip - which we now know was a little to good to be true. It was about a 7 hour drive from ATL to Perdido Key. We left at 10am ATL time which is EK's nap time. She fell asleep almost instantly and slept for 3hours. When she woke up we stopped and ate lunch and she still seemed to be just fine. She did not eat alot for lunch but with Ella Kate sometimes she is a great eater and other times she is not. We got back in the car and Ella Kate played for another hour or so and then fell back to sleep for about another 3 hours. Dave and I thought we were the luckiest people ever b/c we had just made a 7 hour car ride to the beach with a 1 year old with no crying. But..... As soon as we got Ella Kate out of her car seat at the hotel I noticed that she was a little wobbly walking. Now Ella Kate has been walking for several months and is a pretty steady walker so it was not like her to wobble so much. I thought well maybe it is b/c she was in the car for so long so I just let her walk and stretch her legs and kept an eye on her. We checked into the hotel and by the time we got up to the room where the bell hop was unloading our bags she was still acting pretty funny and looking really droppy. She felt a little hot so I took her temp and sure enough she had a fever. This is the first time that Ella Kate has ever had a temp or been sick so Dave and I essentially did everything wrong. I thought that maybe we should get her some dinner b/c it was her supper time so I changed her into something cool and we went to the restaurant downstairs in the hotel. By the time we sat down at the restaurant and the waitress brought our drinks Ella Kate was looking hotter and very lethargic. I was still holding her and we were afraid she was going to faint on us. It scared us to death. I immediately ran her upstairs and gave her a cold bath (which I now know was totally wrong - sorry EK) and then we took her temp again. Her temp kept going up and she was so very lethargic that we decided to take her to the ER which was 40 mins away. The second thing I did which I now know is a big NO NO was to give her milk in a sippy cup. Yep she threw that right back up on me about 20 mins into the car ride to the ER so I thought she was getting even sicker. To wrap up this long story we ended up spending 5 hours in the ER to find out that EK had some kind of a 24 hour virus. By the time we left the hospital the fever was gone and she was back to her normal playful self. We both learned alot about fevers and how pitiful babies act when they are sick. Hopefully next time we will do things a little better. It was so very scary and we were so glad to have our happy baby back again.
After the Sunday trauma the rest of the beach vacation was great. That Tuesday was my 29th birthday and Dave and Ella Kate did so good helping me celebrate. They had a flowers delivered to the hotel room and then took me to dinner at Lambert's afterwards. Lamberts is such a fun restaurant that is known for "throwing rolls." We had to wait about 30+ mins for a table but it was perfect b/c Ella Kate had a blast playing with the other kids on the play trains they have in front of the restaurant.
This past weekend LeLe and Papa John watched EK for the day on Saturday and Dave and I had a day to ourselves with the boat on the lake. It was so much fun!! We water skied and tubed the day away. Well Dave water skied - I still can't get up :( But I am an expert tuber :)

The beautiful flowers Dave and Ella Kate had delivered to our hotel room for my birthday.