I left Monday around 11, and it was sad, and everyone cried. Pretty typical for my family. :o) I had such a good time with my mom and dad. They keep saying thank you to me for coming, but I loved being there!! I got to Sarah's mom's house around 5 or so. We had an incredible dinner and started loading up the car. Sarah and I both, had accumulated about twice as much as we came with. Books, clothes (I had to buy winter clothes while I was there), pumpkins, grains and mince meat (don't ask). Anyway, we got it all in the car, and still had room for the kids...much to Granny's chagrin.
We got up early Tuesday morning and hit the road. Bradey was coughing a little bit, but no fever, no problem, right? We had a wonderful lunch with Therese, Callie and Kyle Cooper. They were stationed here and PCS'd about 2 years ago. We arrived at out hotel around 2:30 and that's when things started going downhill.
First of all, the bathroom was filthy. We'll just leave it at that. Housekeeping came...problem solved. Turned on the air, it smelled like fish factory...turned it off, and opened the windows. We found a Coldstone and had ice cream on the University of Alabama's campus. Went to Wal-Mart with 4 children who couldn't decide what to eat, and who didn't want to be at Wal-Mart. We came back to the hotel and tried to get organized (one of the things I loved about traveling with Sarah is that we both want to organize the car and the room as soon as we get there). We finally got the kids settled down, thanks to Mason reading to the younger ones. Savannah actually fell asleep in a pack-n-play with me and Emily in the same room watching TV, something I never thought possible, and Emily fell asleep. OK, whew. About 2:30, Bradey started coughing so bad, I was hurting. I knew his throat had to be so raw. Sarah gave him a breathing treatment, but it didn't seem to help. We contemplated getting the kids up and getting home as soon as we could, but thankfully, our reason won out on that one.
So, the next morning, we get up, eat breakfast, get a 10% discount on our hotel room, and hit the road again. We stopped at Crackerbarrel to eat, and I promise our waitress was on something. She would look at us for about 5 seconds after we stopped talking, and then respond. Trust me, 5 seconds is a long time when someone is just staring at you. Our food was just so-so, and Savannah refused to eat one morsel. On top of all that, it was the most expensive meal of the trip, for some reason. Anyway, back on the road. Shreveport, LA, here we come.
We tried to find out if Barksdale Air Force Base had an emergency room as Bradey was sounding worse and worse. They didn't. Sarah called and got authorization to take him to the ER, but decided she didn't want to have him seen until we got home. OK, here's where it gets good.
We check in. Go to our room, and it is TINY. I can't even tell you how small it was. It has one full size bed (full size....not queen, double or anything else. We're talking about 6 more inches than a twin) and a pull out couch. We called the front desk and explained to them that we'd asked for a large suite. We were told that 2319 was the last room they had. Five minutes later, they called and said, that they had a bigger room, but it would cost us $2.50 more. Well, DUH! We go to this room that miraculously appeared and the only thing that was different was an oven and a table. The sleeping arrangements were the same...oh, except it had a pack-n-play. We decide to suck it up, and go to the commissary to get some food for the kids. We get back to the room, and I put the pizza in the oven, put the girls in the bathtub and start organizing. Sarah goes down stairs to get more stuff from the car. All of a sudden, I hear an EAR piercing beeping noise. I go out of the bathroom and the place is FILLED with smoke and the smoke detector is screeching like crazy. I quickly figure out that nothing is actually on fire, and turn off the oven. Yell for Mason to open the door and stand on the balcony (I knew if the poor guy had to stand in there with his asthma, we would be in trouble later). I yell for Emily to stay with Savannah in the tub, and run out to yell for Sarah, "I could use some help up here!!!"
I called the front desk - twice. OK, 25...yes, I said TWENTY FIVE minutes later, the fire department shows up. Yes, I said the fire department. He walked in, and jerked it out of the ceiling...wow, thanks. Mercifully, it stopped. The "motel" manager, Mr. Ed (I'm not kidding) meandered up and said, "Things going ok up here?" Come to find out the oven was covered in gunk from the previous tenants. The fireman were SO nice (even let me take their picture) and told the manager that we needed a different room. He said, "This is the last room we have!" Miraculously, 10 minutes later, we had a new room. Back to the small room, this time with no pack-n-play. I called Mr. Ed again, and asked for a roll away, a cot or something! He called back in 5 minutes, and said he could give us blankets and sheets, but our kids were going to have to sleep on the floor. I called my parents, and they said, "NO WAY". My very kind, compassionate parents said to look for a hotel off base. I called the front desk and told them we didn't need their blankets and sheets, my kids were not sleeping on the floor and I would be down shortly to check out. We called 12...yes twelve hotels off base, and they were all full. Nothing....absolutely nothing. As Sarah was graciously offering to sleep on the floor, the front desk called and said they "found" another room that they thought would work for us. Where all these rooms are coming from, I have no idea. Anyway, it was right next door to the room we were currently in, and Mr. Ed met us there with the key. This room had a queen bed, a roll away bed, a pack-n-play, a pull out couch and a pull out chair. They just appeared out of nowhere!!
Oh, have I mentioned that it's now 7:45, and our kids haven't eaten? We microwaved them the sad frozen pizza that had been carried around for 3 hours. They thought it was good, so who are we to argue? Mason, Emily and Savannah were asleep within 5 minutes of being put to bed. Bradey was given some cough medicine and seemed to be resting, so we went to bed. About 2:00, Bradey woke up coughing worse than before. He would cough, retract, cough retract, stop breathing, and start the process over again. Sarah bundled him up and took him outside, but it didn't help. So, I called the front desk and asked for the closest ER. Sarah took Bradey to the emergency room in the middle of downtown Bossier City at 2:30 am. She is so brave. They were great. She left the room at 2:30 and was home by 3:45. They gave him steroids and he was a new person. They determined he had an asthma attack brought on by croup.
We left Barksdale (hopefully never to return) this morning and arrived home at 2:45 this afternoon. We are so thankful to be home and praise the Lord for His goodness to us. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sarah and Tim for their willingness to help me out. I would also like to thank Brian for his understanding in my need to go. We were gone for 3 weeks, and I know it was hard on our husbands to be alone for that long. Here are some pics to go with the story. Sorry it's so long, but it needed to be logged in my "memory bank".
Here are all the kids at our first hotel. They loved staying at different places.
Sarah took all the kids to a grassy area to run off some energy while I filled the car up with gas.
We found a grassy knoll for the kids to eat some healthy food for dinner. WHY can't you find healthy food along the interstate?
Here are our kids with Kyle and Callie Cooper.
Therese, Kyle and Callie Cooper.
"Sason" was Savannah's babysitter the whole trip!!
Here are the kids with the firemen that yanked our smoke detector out of the ceiling.
Here's Mason eating microwaved frozen pizza.
