I am not even sure where to start here. Andy and I have been wanting to take the kids to the beach this summer for a while. It was the only thing I had wanted for my birthday. Then he went to work in a an office and it looked like that wasn’t going to happen.
Then suddenly we received some of the worst news ever. I do not even know how to put this into words on a blog post. It is something much better shared in person but I know that isn’t an option for all of us. Andy’s best friend of 15 years. A man he had shared many experiences with, lived with, Andy was his best man a few years back, name Shaun. We love Shaun so much and his wife. They were blessed to have a baby girl just after Andrew was born and another about 6 months after Paul T. Well, a little over a week ago we got the very tragic news that their new baby girl died suddenly of SIDS, the mysterious crib death. My throat swells just typing this. I cannot begin to imagine what they are going through.
Needless to say we had to see them. They announced the memorial services in Beaumont for last weekend and we spent all of last week getting ready to go. Got hotel room, rental vehicle, what to pack! I’ve never traveled with little kids so I brought everything we own I think.
It was a very emotional trip. Our friends had moved away when they were pregnant with their first girl to Florida so we’d never met either child and haven’t seen them in over 3 years. We were so happy to see them and meet their beautiful daughter, and so sad to see them under these circumstances. No parent should ever have to go through such a thing.
Andy and I decided that since we were going to be only a couple of hours from the beach we would drive over there for our last day and spend an hour. Andrew loves digging so much right now and we knew he’d really dig the sand on the beach.
We actually were closer to a beach than we thought and went to a crappy one on Saturday for a bit between the funeral and going to dinner with our friends. It was not a nice beach. Had tons of busted shells and Paul T wanted to eat everything! But there was some digging sand for Andrew and we got to test the waters so to speak. The place we stopped was actually torn up by the big hurricane last summer. There used to be a wall right where we were and we saw some reminents of it along the shore. The place we went Sunday was in Galveston and much nicer and cleaner. I wish we could have stayed more than an hour. but now we know and will plan the trip for that and can get to the beach more often.
Andrew loved it! So did Paul T. I wish I could have taken more pics and vids of them playing together in the sand. I didn’t want to get sand all in my camera. It was so cute though! We dug big holes and Andrew filled them with water and Paul T would sit in them!
I’m not afraid to admit I was anxious about the trip. Aside from the tragic thing we were going to be facing, our baby does not like long car trips and I wasn’t sure how Andrew would do with it either. Then there was the sleeping in a strange room and eating without a real table and just everything you know. I had no idea what it would be like with a 2 and a half year old and a baby! But I’ll tell ya, it went great! Our kids are so awesome! Paul still doesn’t like long car rides but the rental we got had a bench back seat so I could sit back there with them and nurse PT in his seat and play with Andrew when needed. We spent so much time driving not just to get there but all around while there that I am in no hurry to get them back in those seats!
They slept OK. The bed was small for all of us and it was different so Paul woke more than usual but getting them to sleep wasn’t as hard as we’d thought it would be. And they didn’t sleep in the car as much as we thought they would. Andrew especially seemed very interested ion where we were going.
I have so much more I’d like to tell about the journey, but time is limited around here. I will just say our kids surprised us with their excellent behavior. Well, we knew they were good kids but we didn’t know how good until we put them to the test! It went so well in fact that we plan to take another short trip as soon as this one is paid off.
Andy got an iphone btw and started a folder for pics from it on our picasa album. There are some pics fromt he trip there as well as some fron around here before we left. He will be updating it ocassionally as he takes pics:
Pictures from the Phone!
To Shaun and Jex, we love you and your family and our hearts and thoughts are with you as you learn to live after this tragic event in your lives.