St. George 2008

This past week we went down to St. George for a little vacation with Dan's family. The weather was perfect (70's). Ma and Pa Doney rented a vacation home in the Sunbrook Golf Course. It was a nice home with 3 bathrooms (sorry Nanna's Cottage in Palmyra, this one wins the prize - Doney family joke). Dan and I got the master bedroom with the 3 kids. The king sized bed was comfy and helped because we had Gavin sleep between us every night and somehow he always ended up horizontally. We got there late Wednesday night. We had hoped the kids would have fallen asleep on the way and then we could quietly take them in the house and then they'd stay asleep all night. WRONG! None of them fell asleep until around 10:00 pm and that is when we were in Cedar City (an hour away from St. George). Then when we got there, they all woke up because they were so excited to see the house and see Dan's family. So we ended up going to bed after midnight.

Thursday, we drove to Snow Canyon and played in the Sand Dunes. Dan's brothers had all sorts of races and pretty much had sand in all their nooks and cranny's. It was pretty funny though. Of course Lindsay and Zane had to join in too. I'm still finding sand in bags, shoes and clothes. Gavin had a cough that had turned into Croup through the night so he was pretty miserable and didn't want to do much. After Snow Canyon, we stopped by the house to get our swimming stuff and headed to the Sand Hollow Aquatic Center (the SHAC). It's an indoor pool with a water slide. It was a lot of fun. That night we went to Applebee's for dinner and Gavin was still not getting better. Later, after giving him a blessing and putting him to bed, we went to check on him and his breathing was sounding really bad, so we decided to take him to the hospital. Lindsay and Zane were asleep, so Ma and Pa stayed with them. We got to the hospital a little after 10:30 pm and they did a little check up on him (temperature, oxygen level, etc...) then we sat in the waiting room for an hour. Gavin was doing a little better because we had taken him outside and the cold air had helped open up his chest a little. Then they put us in a room and said the doctor would be in. Well, I didn't think that meant an hour later! After 45 minutes of sitting in the room with Gavin screaming, then sleeping, then screaming, I went out to find someone. They said we were next to be seen. Well, about 15-20 minutes later, the doctor came in, checked him and said we needed to do some breeathing treaments on him and he would send someone in to do that. That took another 10-15 minutes before they came back. I was so irratated that they weren't being faster considering that this was a baby having a hard time breathing. They did the breathing treatment, which Gavin HATED! He screamed and kicked and fought! Dan and I both had to hold him down. Then a while later they did another one. It was sad to watch my baby being put through this. Then a while after that, some nurse and some nurse guy came him in to give him a shot of a steroid and they apologized that all of this had taken so long. I don't remember exactly the reason (I was so tired I wasn't fully paying attention) but something to the fact that we should have been seen a long time ago and the doctors kinda screwed up on not coming to us sooner. Ya I think so? I thought a pediactric respritory problem would take a higher priority. And I guess it was supposed to be. I would have made a bigger deal about it, but Gavin really was breathing ok while we waited those 2 hours to be seen. Anyways, they gave us a prescription of a steroid to give him for 2 more days that we went and got at Walgreens on the way home and it was 3:00 am by the time we got back to the house. What a LONG night!

Friday, we slept in a little because of the events of the night before, then we packed lunches and headed to Zions National Park. There we hiked to the Emerald Pools. I'm not a hiker (unless it is a paved road, with very small hills, preferably at Disneyland) but I did it and without complaining too. Gavin was still not feeling good and was grumpy some of the time. Zane and Gavin both rode in backpacks which made it a lot easier. Zane said, "I like hiking. It's easy." Ya, because you've been carried the whole way, son! Funny kid. Lindsay hiked all the way up and back, with little complaining. A few times she kept threatening that she was NOT going to take another step. But we made and it was very pretty up there. Afterwards, we ate a picnic lunch and Dan and I headed back to St. George with the kids, while the others stayed to hike some more. We were exhausted and Gavin was too. But he screamed the whole way home (almost an hour and a half) because we didn't bring his binky! I thought I was going to lose my mind!!!!! He FINALLY fell asleep just as we pulled into the golf course neighborhood, of course! That was at about 6:00 pm and he slept until 10:30pm. Then we changed him, fed him, gave him his medicine and he slept until 9:00 the next morning. We got a good night sleep that night!

Saturday, we packed up and did an Easter egg hunt throughout the house. Then on the way home, we stopped by a campground near Hurricaen and did a wienie roast (Doney Easter tradition) and the kids played in a little stream. We also roasted Peeps, which tasted really yummy. We made it home around 6:00 pm all in one piece. It really was a fun trip (minus the Croup) and we enjoyed spending time with Dan's family. Thanks for the memories and thanks for being so patient with us and our 3 kids! (We missed you Sis, Zach, Carter & Austin and Travis!)