Getting Back

We had a wonderful time at the family reunion. Words can't really express how fun it was! We have lots of memories that will last forever!! Although I wouldn't really classify it as a "vacation".... it was definitely a lot of fun! (I've decided that "vacation" doesn't include your children. Having all the little ones around is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work!)

Here are a few more pictures....

Trying to get a picture with Grandma and all her great Grandchildren. 

They weren't really cooperating. 

Now trying to get a picture with Mom and Dad and all of their Grandchildren. Again, the kids weren't really cooperating. (see video below). I love the sign that Dad made. It's a running joke that we are going to drop off our kids with them, all at the same time, and the parents are going on a long vacation. 

The last night us "Nagel kids" took a few pictures down by the ocean. 

Us with our spouses. It was windy!

Skipping on the beach.

The jumping shot

The Original Nagel Clan

The Extended Nagel Clan

 All of us crazy Hiliger Offspring. With a group like this, the week was definitely fun!

We opted to leave the reunion Friday night instead of early Saturday morning. So we left around 6pm, which put us at Mom's house at 3am. Those last few hours were rough! Lee drove the whole way because in the car he would rather me deal with the kids. Around 1am I could hardly keep my eyes open. I asked him how he was doing and he was exhausted too. So being the navigator, I knew I had to keep him awake instead of fall asleep (which is what I wanted to do). But I just couldn't keep my eyes open! So I'd ask him long ended questions, mostly political type, and I'd snooze during the answer. That was probably wrong of me, but it worked. We were very happy to pull into Mom's driveway! Until I went to unlock the front door and walked through a huge spider web! Ewwwwww!! There's nothing like a web in the face at 3am!

We thought we were in little Mexico at one point.
This is right before you cross into North Carolina.
This picture doesn't do it justice- the entire place was lit up like Vegas!

Sunday early morning was eventful! First, Will woke up at 1am making a weird noise and basically having the same symptoms as I previously blogged about. It was quite strange. Then the next morning, around 7:30am, we were eating breakfast and Will fell over- into a seizure!! Oh my goodness- it was the scariest thing!! I had seizures as a child so thankfully we were at my mom's and she knew what to do. We rushed him to the ER and they did a series of tests. It was determined that it was febrile (which is caused by a sudden spike or decline in body temperature). They wanted us to see our local pediatrician on Monday morning. Poor Will!!

So we drove back to MS and thankfully that was fairly uneventful. Will slept the entire way and Amy slept most of the way. Monday morning I took Will to his doctor's office. They did some more blood work and his White Blood Cell count had dropped even lower. Normal is a 6/7.... Sunday, at the ER, his was a 4, but yesterday it was a 1.9! The doctor said that typically meant it was a viral infection and she wants to recheck those numbers again this Thursday. Having such a low WBC count means you are more susceptible to other illnesses, so we just have to be careful with him until those numbers are up. The poor thing has looked completely miserable for the past few days- and understandably so!

While at the doctor's office, Will had a major diaper blowout. I'm talking up the back, leaking, oh it was awful! And to make matters worse, I didn't have a diaper. AND the doctors office didn't have one. So... I had to get creative and fashion one out of a blanket I'd happened to bring in.

He had a few more blowouts throughout the night and today he seems to be doing a lot better. Hopefully all those diaper changes were cleaning out infections! For 2 days, he only wanted to be held and he would only nurse. Which was hard because I'm trying to wean the boy- and instead of being at once a day I was back up to several times a day... every few hours! I told Lee I felt like I had a newborn again- and I'm just not mentally ready for newborn mode again! So I was really glad when he looked quite happy this morning and more like 'himself.'

So since we've been home, we've just been tending to Will. We trying to put things away in between times we are holding him. Since he's now susceptible to seizures we have to be really careful of fevers and not let them get too high. Which means round the clock Motrin/Tylenol doses. But at least we know what causes the seizures and we can be more careful with sickness.

As long as Will is better we will be heading to TN this weekend to look for a house. We are really excited about that and really anxious to know where we are going. Then it's back here for the final packing and off to our new home! The next few weeks should be very busy and fun!!