Christmas in Kentucky '09

I feel like December has been one giant, unending Christmas party, but that's a good thing of course. We traveled to Kentucky for party days 18-21. Jake's family has basically vacated their childhood town, but his mom, sister, brother, aunt, and uncle all convened in Madisonville to be together. With children and us married-ins, it makes for a large group! The highlight for my children is split between time wrestling and breaking things with their cousins and staying with our family friends, the Pinkertons.

The daily adventures in M'ville were rather uneventful except that Dita (Abulita) stayed at a hotel with a POOL. Who doesn't want to go swimming in December? Me, for one, but thankfully Jake is super dad with super tolerance for such off-season fun.

My grandmother recently passed away in Ohio, but her interment was in Indiana. Since I was only an hour from the cemetery, I offered to be sure she was properly buried. Morbid, but it was actually necessary since no other family was able to travel to verify. Why-O-Why would city planners name 2 cemetery's 20 miles apart the SAME name? I guess map quest AND google boycotted this, too, and both sent me to the wrong one. My sidekick, Christy, and I stalked the wrong one for about an hour before my dad asks enough landmark questions by phone to realize we'd messed up. It was literally a 4 hour road trip, but may Grandma Allen be at peace in her verified final resting place.

After eating for 36 hours straight it felt, we loaded up our exhausted children for home. Now comes the fun stuff. Dosen had developed a seriously yucky cough over our Kentucky stay, and that usually evolves into wheezing controlled by our trusty nebulizer. Said trusty was tucked safely in our closet at home. Lesson learned the hard way.

I vapo-rubbed him down and got a good dose of honey and hot water in, but the farther we drove, the worse he sounded. We were about 3.5 hours from home, but Jake and I thought we could surely make it there for a breathing treatment. WRONG. Dosen is one tough kid, but he got so short of breath that he totally panicked. I could see him laboring really hard to breathe. He wanted to cough and wanted to cry, but neither would come out. He turned some crazy colors, and held on to me for dear life. Jake, Luke, and mama knew we were in trouble. Jake called 911 for the first time in his 34 years of life, and the dispatcher got us headed toward a hospital that would normally take about 15-20 mins to get to. Not this time!

Treatment story short, I knew exactly what needed to happen, and thankfully my plan and the ER's plan coincided perfectly. If you are ever driving through Clarksville, TN and need emergency care, the one on exit 4 ROCKS. We were in and out of that place in 1.5 hours. That might be an ER record, right? Dosen was good as new, and armed with a fancy new (super expensive) stocking stuffed with enough car-friendly toys to make it home. Whew, what an ordeal!

Trip home included:

1. McDonalds
2. Starbucks
3. Emergency Room
4. Traffic jam that left us sided by a trailer with 2 camels, a donkey, and a rooster
   
5. Cheddars
6. Super Target (with a Starbucks)
7. Friends house to pick up Christmas gift
8. Red box movie return
9. Pharmacy
10. HOME
    

So, I'm feeling extra, extra blessed to be safely at home enjoying my family as we head into days 22-25. Merry Christmas to you and your family, too!

Upon trying to upload photos for this post, my camera/computer ate them. How is this possible? 2 weeks worth of snapshots are neither on my computer nor on my camera. Very, very sad.