Myrtle beach part 2

After the cheer competition, we headed to Broadway at the Beach.  It's a total money trap, but nice for all the reasons that it is a trap.  There's so much for kids to do there. They have some dinosaurs, which are very popular.  All you can do is climb on them, but the kids love to do just that.  

The girls discovered that they could pick up the little pieces of food dropped by others and feed it to the birds.  The birds would practically take it right out of your hand.

After the cheer events had wrapped up, Jayden and Layla and their cousins met us at Broadway.  We decided to head to the aquarium.  

Which is always a hit.  And a VERY reasonable price for active duty and veterans, families included.  

The girls ran around, oohing and ahhing the sharks, eels, turtles and fish.  

Jayden and Hannah played with some crabs.  

After exploring the aquarium for a few hours, Jayden said good bye.  She had to go take team photo's.  Then our family went back in to watch the mermaid show.  A neat addition to the aquarium, and the show is free.  David had scooped it out and figured how to get the girls right in front during the mermaid meet and great.  

It's a dark photo, but there's our girls with the mermaids.  

Myrtle Beach

A few weeks ago my very best friend, Kelly, who now lives in Chicagoland, traveled to Myrtle Beach because of a cheerleading competition her daughter was involved in.  As soon as I found out, I knew we'd be driving down to see her.  I mean it's 13 to Chicago, and 2 to Myrtle!  Plus, it's been almost a year and a half since I've seen her, and I miss her so very much.  

Moving on, the hotel had numerous indoor pools.  We got there late afternoon on Friday.  The girls were restless so I took them down to the pool while David and Joshua hung out in the room.  Kelly had driven through the night from Chicago to Myrtle Beach, so they were still drifting in and out of consciousness.  

This little 1 foot pool was perfect for Riley.  

She even figured out how to climb out on her own.  

We bounced back and forth between these two pools for about an hour.  

You can see Riley climbing her way out in the corner of this picture.

When I went back up to the room, David took the girls down to the beach to walk around for a little.  Kelly came by and we chatted for a little while.  I also got information for the cheer competition the next morning.  

So early Saturday morning, we all headed over to watch the competition.. 

David got us in and out without paying $20 a person!!!  Yikes, right.  When the guy asked David where our wristbands were, David said "Do we have to have those if we're just spectating?"  And the teenager at the door said, no, go ahead and go in.  

We're pretty sure the guy went home and looked up the definition to "spectating" only to realize that he shouldn't have let us in!  I mean, what else would anyone be doing there?!?

And to avoid a crazy long post, the remaining photo's will be in tomorrow's blog.

Spreading the infection, err love

Right before we went to Chicago, for that last visit, I got strep throat (during finals at school : /).  I was diagnosed on Wednesday and we left for Chicago on Friday.  On Saturday, I noticed Hannah acting not quite herself.  During dinner, in Greektown, she wanted to sit on my lap and she wasn't her usual peppy and entertaining self.  I kept asking her about her throat, because I was afraid maybe she was getting sick too.  Sunday, in the middle of the night because my kids cannot get a fever at 10 am on Monday, Hannah got a fever close to 104.  I called the on call doctor at her pediatrician's office and after explaining our situation she agreed that Hannah likely had strep too and she would prescribe something over the phone for me.  This was such a relief!  And saved me from paying for an ER visit.  I had medicine in her by 9 am Sunday.  I felt confident that she would feel better by Monday, so we could go home on time.  

Monday morning her fever was still at 104.  I was in a bit of a pickle because Amy and Tom were leaving and I didn't have anywhere to stay but I didn't want to subject Hannah to a 6 hour drive to Carbondale when she felt so bad.  Kelly graciously opened her house up to us, which is remarkable considering her daughter, Jayden, gets sick pretty easily.  

We outfitted the house, and the girls, as best we could, to keep the germs from spreading.  And the girls played happily together while Hannah recuperated.  

We ended up taking Hannah back to the doctor, because her lymph nodes were not going down and her fever remained the same.  

All this did not detour the girls from acting like girls.  Even Layla got in on the action.  

Riley enjoyed this game of peek a boo.  

Our wonderful precautions did not keep Jayden from getting sick.  Poor Jay, she got a vomiting bug and then strep.  Regardless of the circumstances, it was fun to spend some time with Kelly and the girls.  The odd thing is that in the end, Hannah did not have strep throat, based on the send off culture they did.  Don't know what she had, other than a nasty infection that settled in her throat.