My flight was late in the afternoon so I stayed home with Carissa that day, and Pa came over since Carissa really wasn’t up to a car ride over to his house. They enjoyed popsicles on the couch and multiple movies until Daddy got home.
Well, later that evening, Carissa’s fever spiked to over 103, and she was acting very lethargic – to the point of being close to unresponsive. Travis made the call to take her into the ER.
Remember that I am on a flight to California – this is all happening unbeknownst to me. Once my plane landed, I called Travis’s cell – no answer. Called the house – no answer. “No big deal”, I think to myself, “Travis is likely giving Carissa a bath or maybe she’s feeling better and they went out to dinner.”
I get my rental car and make a stop off at Target. (No, I’m not that obsessed with Target that I have to visit everywhere. I had forgotten my cell phone charger and was looking for a solution.) While there, I called my family again, and Travis finally answered his phone.
Trav: “Hello?”
Jonda: “How’s it going? How’s Carissa feeling?”
Trav: “Let me let you talk to her….”
Carissa: “Hey Momma!”
Jonda: “Hey sweet-pea, how are you feeling?”
Carissa: “I’m fine, I’m at the hospital!”
Jonda (sputtering and speechless): “WHAT?!” *attempting to get it together* You are? Um, ok, um, can I talk back to Daddy, please?”
Jonda to Travis: “SHE’S IN THE HOSPITAL?! WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL? WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SOMETHING? IS SHE OK??? I’M ON MY WAY BACK TO THE AIRPORT TO FIND A WAY BACK HOME! WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SOMETHING?”
Note to all you Daddies and future Daddies out there: When your baby is taken to the hospital, YOU tell Momma, NOT the baby!
My poor little girl had x-rays done, blood drawn, was pricked, poked, prodded, and was this close to have a catheter before it was all said and done. They got the fever under control, all the tests came back normal, and it was likely just a virus, and the fever was trying to fight it off. Praise God!
During all this though, I’m freaking out in my hotel room, calling every few minutes for an update when of course there isn’t one, looking online for the next flight that would get me in the vicinity of Houston…. In the end, it was likely better that I wasn’t there. My worry and concern would have filtered down to Carissa and just made her worry. She thought it was all a big game – her tummy had pictures taken, she got new bracelets, Pa played piggy over and over, she had juice, etc.
Now that it is over (she went swimming at Pa’s today and talked her Daddy into dinner at Incredible Pizza), I just can’t help but remember how so very fortunate we are. Some people’s babies spend much more time in hospital beds for much more serious issues then we went through this week.
We are so overwhelmingly blessed in our little girl. She is so smart, kind, beautiful, caring, inquisitive, loving, and most of all – she is healthy and strong.
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Wow, did Travis ever go overboard on my birthday! What Travis didn’t say in his post, is that all of this was all a huge surprise for me! He only told me to pack for the weekend like I was going camping – not “tent-camping” he quickly clarified as my eyes narrowed, more like cabin-camping. I did have a pretty good idea that it was going to be a beach or a lake house because I knew he wouldn’t make me drive all that far by myself!
I was packed and ready to go when Travis called at about 4pm on Friday, hugely stressed and just plain PO’d. He explained that the rental people double-booked the house, and he and Veronica were seriously scrambling to find an alternate. I won’t go into details, but they were successful!
After meeting up in Angleton, Travis treated me to a delicious dinner at Red Snapper Inn in Surfside before having me follow him over to a huge yellow beach house. I think it might have been able to sleep up to 30 people! It was right down the street from the jetties so we decided to take a sunset stroll before unpacking all of our junk.
After our walk, we came back to the house and Travis asked me if I wanted to go ahead and open a few of my presents. Silly question! I opened up the awesome Margaritaville machine, and Travis quickly began experimenting. We enjoyed some frozen, fruity drinks complete with tiny umbrella on the back deck of house while looking out at the huge full moon.
Travis made me turn in early that night because we had to be ‘somewhere’ early the next morning. He woke me up at 6am (ug), and we loaded up into the car. We pulled into the Target parking lot at about 7:15ish when I told him “Um, I don’t think that Target opens until 8?” His quick grimace revealed that this was another small quirk in his master plan…
He parked the car, told me to wait right there, and the door opened a few seconds later and Pat jumped in. “What are you doing here?” I asked very confused. “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies!” she answered with a sneaky grin. We drove off, and she stopped off at Starbucks for a coffee – whew, just what I needed!
After coffee, we got back into the car, and she drove across the street and parked at Massage Envy. Yup, the early morning wake-up call was starting to look a little better! She and Travis swapped cars again (he was giving out the instructions for the Amazing Race and snagged Carissa from my parents was the reason for the swap), but I got to sneak in a quick kissy from my daughter before Trav and I went into the massage place for a couples massage. And whoopee, was that a nice treat! I *heart* massages!
After the massage, we went over to a nail salon for a pedi/mani that I desperately needed along with an eyebrow wax! On our way out the door, guess who was walking in – my sweetie pie was walking in with Grammy. Apparently, Grammy had asked her what she wanted to do, and she answered “Well…. We could go get my toenails done too!”
Next on the list was a trip to my mecca (Target) to get the things that we didn’t think about for the beach house (um, toilet paper?). We then went over to Whataburger for a quick bite to eat before going to see Julie and Julia. The movie was really good – especially the “Julia” parts! Meryl Streep was amazing!
We then headed on back down to enjoy the beach house before my birthday party “officially” kicked off. I had planned to shower and get a little dressed up before people started arriving, but we had just barely pulled up when my mom and dad got there along with Uncle Ben and Mark. Shower was scrapped, the Margaritaville was put back into service, and we got the party started!
What a day! Thanks so much to the Amazing Race contestants – the cakes and appetizers were delicious and all the presents were perfect (even the lifesavers Mom!). Thanks also to all of our wonderful friends and family who made the drive out to Surfside to celebrate the fifth anniversary of my 25th birthday!
And some HUGE props to my wonderful husband for pulling all this together! I still can’t believe he did all this! Travis – You are my lobster and my deviled eggs! I love you the most!
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Well, it was inevitable... we all knew it would eventually happen. Jonda has turned 25.
Of course, this is only her fifth time to turn 25, so I'm not exactly sure that it's a huge surprise to anyone. However, since it was the five year anniversary of her 25th birthday, we decided to celebrate it... sandy style.
We rented a beach house from Beach House Associates in Surfside,TX. While I won't go into a big rant of why these people currently suck like the smell of an old greyhound bus exhaust cloud, I will say that despite the fact that they charged my credit card and issued a confirmation email with reservation number, they double booked the house, and we had to be put into another beach house... and contact everyone the night before her birthday party to let them know of the changes.
All that behind us, we had an amazing time. Why did we have an amazing time? Because of three reasons...
1. Amazing people put it together.
2. Amazing people showed up.
3. Jonda got an amazing margarita machine for her birthday.
Let's look at number one shall we? "Amazing people put it together..."
Five teams competed in "The Amazing Birthday Race."
;)
These individuals built birthday banners, cooked appetizers, shopped for presents, and baked birthday cakes... ALL DAY LONG. All day you say? Yes, all day! I even had Dee out of bed and at Target before 8:00 a.m. You want to see some of the action shots of their hard work? Here you go (note each files is about 2MB in size):
Super Awesomes
Surf-N-Turf
Wild Cherries
The Cruisers
The Nautical Themed Pashmina Afghans
Not only did they do all of this all day long, but they also used their bear-like strength, teeth, and deep growls to tear and rip apart at duct tape and industrial strength packaging for packs of bubble gum and tic-tacs. The rest of us... we were entertained. We could not have asked for more from these amazing people. And I personally, am indebted to each of you for helping to make Jonda's birthday such a good one.
Another person that I need to thank is my mother... while she wasn't able to participate in the Amazing Birthday Race, she assisted in another important task: watching Carissa Ann. Together, they went birthday shopping, got a pedicure, and made their own birthday cake for mommy (which would have won first place btw).
;)
On to number two... short and sweet... Jonda has amazing family and friends. We're blessed, and that is all there is to say about that... It's easy to have a great party when you're surrounded by great people.
Which brings us to point number three... it's also easy to have a great party when you have a margarita machine and a beach house! I think this one was a pretty good hit at the party.
For all those that made it out, we appreciate the opportunity to visit and have fun with you, thanks for coming. To those that helped put on the party, many thanks for everything you did, and to Jonda... Happy Birthday Beautiful... 30 is the new 25... and I'll always love you no matter how old you are...
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This has really been the ‘Summer of Movies’ at our house this year. Travis made a comment the other day that we’ve watched more movies in the past few months than we have the entire ten years we’ve been watching movies together. I don’t think it is quite that extreme (remember when we used to do the rent five, get one free game at Blockbuster in college? We’d seriously rent five 99-cent movies and then use the free credit on a video game rental that was generally in the $5-$6 range – ah those were the days….) But he does have a point – we seriously haven’t watched this many non-kiddie movies in a LONG time!
We have seen in the movie theater (in no particular order because I don’t feel like thinking chronologically): Star Trek, Wolverine, Up, Ice Age 3, Transformers 2, Harry Potter 6, The Proposal, and The Ugly Truth.
We did miss some though that we intended on seeing in the theater – like Angels & Demons. I’m not sure how/why we missed that one because it is based on one of Trav’s favorite books. The Hangover was also supposed to be really funny, and we didn’t catch it. We also missed I Love You, Beth Cooper which was directed by the guy that did Mrs. Doubtfire and Adventures in Babysitting (Chris Columbus). I’ll have to remember to also add both of these to our Netflix queue later this year….
Speaking of…. Since we got the new TV and blu-ray player, Travis signed us back up for Netflix. We’ve watched: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Gran Torino, Ray, John Q, The Pursuit of Happyness, Million Dollar Baby, Underworld: Evolution, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Live Free or Die Hard, The Bank Job, and The Bucket List.
Our Blu-ray player also has an extra awesome feature that lets you watch on-demand movies “free” from Netflix (“free” with our paid subscription). I watched the entire Tudors: Season 2 while Travis was out of town, and we have enjoyed Hancock, 21, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and some kiddie movies for C through the Blu-ray player sans disk.
But wait, there’s more! We also watched all five of the previous Harry Potters to fully prepare for the awesomeness of the sixth, along with the first Underworld so we would have a clue of what was going on in the other two we got from Netflix.
If I think about it and have time, I’ll give a short review of some…
PS – MY SWEETPEA COMES HOME TO HER MOMMA ON THURSDAY! I am in dire need of her magic kisses!!
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So sorry that we’ve been a little MIA lately here on TravisAndJonda.com… Maybe I was thinking that my mom’s summer break applied to me too? Have I mentioned that having a spring break, summer break, Thanksgiving break, and Christmas break is a very attractive incentive to me to become a teacher? Attractive enough to deal with a pack of snot-nosed kids all day? Well… maybe not. But, wait! I do that already at my current job (heeheehee), but I do admit that I am compensated a little better!
Here is a snapshot of what we’ve been up to…. Trav’s dad retired from Dow and had a fun party, we went on a fabulous trip to Disney that Travis has covered in detail, we called out Allstate to inspect our roof (again – no response on that yet), we dog-sat Shasta and went to the lake for the weekend of the 4th, Beth got married three times, Carissa is now on an extended road-trip to Illinois with her Grammy and Pawpaw, and my mom and dad are being Eskimos (but on a big boat, not in an igloo).
Oh, and we also cleaned out a bunch of junk and had the wonderful people at Salvation Army come pick it up, attended Claire’s birthday at Monument Inn, Mark’s birthday at BJ’s, hosted a poker tournament for Relay for Life (where our little team of five raised the most money!), did another round of swim lessons, went to Schlitterbaun in Galveston, painted a new room for C, put together some Ikea furniture for C’s new room, painted some rice krispie sharks, Trav learned how to play red dog from the master, saw an extreme lightning show that kept Beth and Marco hostage at Ellington, and booked a ski trip for January.
There are so many stories and details to share over our latest adventures! I’ll try to do a better job at updating regularly again!
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