Stone Harbor

On Monday night (after a long day of Koen recuperating from lack of sleep due to his croup episode), Doug's mom called. We chatted about Koen and then regarding some details about our upcoming Melder Family getaway to Stone Harbor. Doug and I have been planning on this time away with family for months and have really been looking forward to it. As I bid goodbye to Doug's mom on the phone I said, "Well, we'll see you in a little over a week." Doug's mom came back with, "well, no, we'll see you on Wednesday." My stomach knotted, flip-flopped and dropped. I said, "no, the week before Thanksgiving, right?" And Mom said, "no, this week, on Wednesday." My mind raced and I said, "well, we'll be there!," said a few more well-wishes and reassurances and quickly got off the phone. "Doug, you won't believe this..."

So, yes, somehow the dates got mixed up and we thought the vacation together was the week before Thanksgiving, when it really was set for the prior week. The next 36 hours after that phone call can easily be described as OVERDRIVE.

Doug cancelled and rescheduled at least 15 appointments. I rearranged our personal schedules and also took care of the few things I had planned for the boys and I. As a planner, I thrive on the adventure of a challenging task like getting the house and family prepared for a major expedition in mere hours. That evening I started several lists (oh, how the checking off of those lists in such a short time felt so good!): what to pack, e-mails to write, work to-do's, phone calls to make, groceries to get, etc.

On Tuesday morning before the ENT appointment, I took Koen to nursery school for an hour before we had to bring him to the doctor. During that time, Tavin and I went to Trader Joe's for our groceries. Tavin enjoyed being the only child along and got to ride in the front of the carriage. He got a lot of glances and "cuteness" compliments. Why wouldn't he? Such a cutie!

We stopped by the house to drop off the groceries in the fridge and then headed to get Koen and take him to the ENT (see "What a Week!" post). After that trauma, we headed back home. I've forgotten to mention, but amidst all of this craziness, we had an electrical outage in our 2nd and 3rd floors that oddly only affects a few outlets and lights, but still is frustrating (especially at night in our closet). So, on Tuesday on top of the errand running and doctor's visit, we also have our good friend, Jay, over working on our electrical problem. He was a huge help months ago when we had to re-wire much of the upper floors. So, when this problem happened and we couldn't figure it out, we gave him a call. Turns out that it is quite a conundrum even for a certified electrician (I figured because it happened before my Dad left and he couldn't figure it out and Dad seems to figure almost everything out!). I got the boys in bed for their naps and Jay was still working. He actually snuck into Tavin's room a few times (oops, I think eventually that did wake him up, although I was impressed that he slept through the first visit or two). Of course, during the Tuesday naptimes, I was frantically packing, planning, cleaning and prepping. We were expecting good friends for dinner that night that we felt we couldn't cancel, so I was getting ready for that too.

Anyways, after the boys' naps, I fed them dinner, Doug got home and helped with bedtimes and we got them to bed. Unfortunately, during the day, the cause of Koen's croup made itself known. Koen was coughing, sneezing and getting a runny nose. A nasty virus had been stirring. Ugh.

Doug and I had a nice evening entertaing our friends for dinner and we were so glad we had kept those plans despite the looming busyness to get our family out the door and our jobs under control so that we could get away for a few days. The moment we said goodbye, we shifted back into overdrive to do some more packing and then headed to bed.

On Wednesday morning it was apparent that Koen was seriously not feeling well. Doug and I began second-guessing our decision to make this trip happen. We decided to hold leaving that afternoon after his last meeting loosely depending on how Koen was doing. I had to cancel our plans to go to the Tiny Tots Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performance that morning due to Koen being so under the weather. That did allow me some more time to get ready for our trip though.

As the day moved on, Doug and I decided to just go for it and get the boys out of here as soon as we could. It's a 7 hour or so drive to Stone Harbor, NJ from here and we left at 4pm (Doug was super appreciative for all that I had gotten prepared and ready for him to throw in the car when he got home, I have to say I felt very proud that we pulled this all off on such short notice!).

We were nervous about Koen in the car since he doesn't normally sleep in there, but both boys (as usual) exceeded our expectations. Koen watched DVD's, ate snacks and even slept on and off for the last leg of the trip. Tavin did awesome and napped, ate his dinner, napped again, was up for a little bit and then slept the last 3 hours. It was exceptional under the circumstances. Doug and I did well on the trip except for an unfortuante dinner at Sbarro on the Turnpike. I can't stand most fast food and Sbarro is now on the top of my "yuck" list. The garlic was overwhelming, the crust was thick and heavy and it was cold. Ugh. Thankfully I had a side salad that made me feel slightly better about the experience. Not to mention that I thankfully had remembered to pack my 70% Dark Chocolate from Trader Joe's (I try not to leave home without it). The chocolate combatted the garlic pretty well by the time we greeted the family.

It was great to be greeted by Doug's brothers, their significant others and his parents (and a few cousins - some were in bed already). It made us feel so glad we had made the trip despite Koen's health and the rush to bring it altogether.

The boys and Doug and I all slept in the same room. They did so awesome with it! That first night we just got them ready for bed (minus bath) and laid them down at the same time and they never made a peep. I was particularly proud of Koen because he was quiet and didn't bother Tavin on purpose at all. I was amazed!

Koen was up with his cough in the night, so I didn't sleep well. So when morning came and Tavin woke up early I merely rolled over and pointed at Doug and he got up, scooped up Tavin and took him out of the room. Koen and I continued to sleep. A nice treat! Koen actually slept until 9am that morning. I got up around 8am to feed Tavin. Doug and Tavin started a little trend that morning for the remainder of our stay. Each morning they spent from about 6:45am until 8am snuggling on the couch greeting those that got up, watching SportsCenter and drinking coffee. So sweet!
So on Thursday, we played it pretty low key in the morning. We just caught up with family and let Koen and Tavin get acclimated. For lunch, Doug biked with Koen and I walked with Tavin to a little pizza shop in Stone Harbor. The house we stayed at was a short walk to the little main street shops as well as to the beach. Perfect! Lunch was fun just enjoying being with our boys on vacation.
That afternoon when we got the boys down for their naps, Doug and I had some alone time and walked on the beach and walked through the town to check it out. I just can't say how good it is for my soul to be at the ocean. I just loved our time on the beach. Doug knows this about me and totally encouraged me to take any chance I had to get out to the sand and the waves while we were there. I think I had 5 walks on the beach in the 2 and 1/2 days we were there. Love it! Here's a picture from our first walk, I look happy. =) While we were there Koen got progressively better although he even still has a substantial cough. As he improved he enjoyed some time with Nana on the beach, bike rides with Daddy, playing with cousins and coloring (in the lines!) in his new coloring book.

Doug did an awesome job helping out with the kids over the few days while also anticipating and preparing for his big weekend (he preached 4 times today). He didn't catch much extra rest (although we were both surprised at how much sleep we did get while sleeping in the same room with our little boys, they were amazing!). Here's Doug catching about 30 seconds of peace amidst the chaos of cousins, kids, brothers and well, me. =)

On Friday, I think my favorite part of the day was my time out walking with Doug on the beach in the afternoon. My best friend and the ocean are a fabulous combination for a vacation moment. We happened to run into Doug's brother Scott and his wife, Jen with their kids on our walk, so we got a few pictures.

Unfortunately, on Friday it became obvious that Tavin was catching what Koen was working through as well. They both coughed through the night. Thankfully, they didn't wake one another up really, but I certainly did not sleep well. Tavin was obviously not himself on Saturday morning. I took my final walk on the beach as Doug packed up the car. I pushed Tavin in the carriage and he totally fell asleep. It was so sweet. I figured that that would make our morning time in the car terrible as I thought it would mess up our chances of him taking a nap in the car in the first few hours of our journey. I was so wrong. Tavin was so sick that he actually slept the entire 6 and 1/2 hour car ride back to Pittsburgh except for about 30 mins. to eat lunch and a 15 min. or so rest stop. You can see that he was not feeling good in this picture where he is catching some time to snuggle with Doug (while I ate ice cream Doug treated Koen and I to at that stop). Koen did great on the way home as well. He mostly watched DVD's. At the end of the trip he "read" books to us. He memorizes his favorite books word-for-word and can totally repeat them to us. We just loved it! It entertained us the last half hour.

Well, we got home a little before 5pm. Doug dropped us and all our stuff off and then took off for church to run-through his sermon a few times. The boys did well, but poor Tavin was not feeling well and Koen was bouncing off the wall with energy. I got them their dinner and right afterward I picked Tavin up and he absolutley puked all over me and the floor. I totally lost it. I didn't know what to do with Koen, I was covered in filth as was the kitchen floor and Tavin. I needed to bathe Tavin and get him to bed. I was completely afraid he had pneumonia again (his cough was really bad, he was lethargic, feverish and now vomiting, very reminiscent of our June bout of pneumonia). I called my friend, Megan, crying and asking for help. Of course, she graciously came to my aid. She helped me with the boys and it was such an answer to prayer! Thank you, Megan. We now know that Tavin definitely has an ear infection which we are treating with amoxycillin (which he totally puked up the first time we gave it to him, but today he has been doing much better). I'm hoping that is all he has, but his cough and his fever have continued today although he has had a lot more energy at times and a little bit of an appetite which has been encouraging.

Well, thanks for reading through all of that. Future posts will be back to my short, quick standard deliverable. This took me way too long, but just so much had gone on the last few days!