Pre-Christmas Trip

Well, there is plenty to update about considering I have not updated for a few weeks. I'm going to do it in a series of blogs because that's easiest for me.

We left for NH on Thursday, December 13th around 3:30pm with the intention of traveling through the night and arriving at my parents' house on Friday around lunch time. Drew had a phone interview to do at 2:30 Friday, so we were hoping to be at my brother's house so he could use the phone there. Thursday night we stopped for dinner somewhere in North Carolina. The girls were fine but Sophia's forehead felt a bit warm. She had a temp of 101. We had a feeling maybe we should turn around and go home and cancel the trip, but instead we decided to continue on. The girls did not fall asleep until after 10pm. Just before midnight we were in Virginia and Sophia woke up screaming bloody murder and completely incoherent/unconsolable. We decided to stop at a hotel for the night. During the night, she woke up two more times just acting crazy. Her temp continued to rise, being brought down by medicine for a few hours at a time. We got little sleep, but continued on our way the next morning. During breakfast, Sophia seemed to be feeling better. When it got to be almost 2:30, we were stuck in traffic due to an accident on the highway in NY state. We were right by a rest area, so we pulled over so that Drew could have his phone interview without losing cellphone service. I sat in the back of the van on the floor between the girls' seats and read to them in a whisper so as not to interfere with Drew's call. The girls were great, but I felt Sophia's forehead again and she was burning up! The temp under her arm was 103.6 and she was lethargic. I was very worried so we took her to the nearest hospital to have her checked. They found a VERY red throat so they gave us a prescription for amoxicillin and we were on our way. It was pretty late, so we stopped at Drew's parents' house for the night and didn't make it to Peterborough until noontime on SATURDAY! What a crazy trip and it had just begun! That night was my brother's Christmas party and we attended for a few hours with the girls. While there, Drew realized he had left all his clothes, toiletries, etc, at his parents' house in MA. So, at 8pm we left Peterborough with the girls in pjs and drove back to MA to grab his stuff. We would have just stayed over except there was a major storm coming that night around midnight so we had to drive back to Peterborough in order to have Christmas with my family the next day. The girls fell asleep as soon as we started driving to MA, but Sophia woke when we got there and was hysterical again, and threw up all over her carseat and pajamas because she was crying so hard. We still had an hour and 45 minutes to drive to get back to clean clothes and bed! This trip was quickly turning into a night mare. Sophia was miserable the next few days. We took her to my old pediatric office for a follow-up on Monday and the doctor said she'd never seen such a young child with such a red throat....that was three days after being on antibiotics! Stella had a fever that day as well (turned out to just be teething, thank goodness) so both girls were very crabby! Tuesday we left Peterborough to go to Dover to pick up our Christmas stuff and visit for a few hours. That night we drove back to Drew's parents' house for the rest of our trip. There was another snow storm coming Wednesday night, and we left Friday night. We drove through the night and the girls slept the whole night. We got home about 12:30 Saturday, just in time for naps! We all slept until 4pm! We set up the Christmas tree and unpacked and settled in. We are hoping to NEVER make that trip again until it's time to move. We've made the trip three times with two little ones...now it's everyone's turn to visit us!