Raising four little cousins 3 and under is...exciting, overwhelming, hilarious...everything you might expect. Two years ago, when my sister and her family moved to their new home, we planned a trip to go down and help them, and it happened to be over her birthday. Both of our parents ended up with the flu a few days before our trip, and we didn't know if the trip would happen. Most of us made it down there, but it didn't quite go as planned. With a busted finger for me, we spent all of my sister's birthday in the ER, and our mom spent most of the trip trying to recover from the flu.
Last year we tried again. We were going to surprise Jenna for her birthday, and we had the plane tickets purchased ready to go. We had our *lies* planned of how we were getting there. We were going to redeem our trip from the year before! Then after spending all Saturday together before, my mom called Sunday afternoon to say she had just been diagnosed with the flu. My daughter, Annie, started her stent with it two days later. (Thankfully, Delta didn't want anyone with the flu on their planes, and they gave us full credit for the flights.)
So this was try number 3...and since all four of us in our house got the flu the week before and two of us got strep on top of the flu AND two of Jenna's kids in Atlanta also had strep...it was looking like a 3-strikes-and-you're-out kind of situation. However, with everyone on antibiotics for over 24 hours, we decided to give it a try...with very little hope of pulling off the surprise.
But...IT WORKED! Jenna's family was cleaning up supper when we happened upon her front porch with her completely unaware. Being so sick had given me the chance to finish my little sewing surprise of matching seer sucker outfits too! She has the most beautiful yard for pictures, and we love how they turned out.
Trips with family are always a blessing. They are exhausting and go way too fast, but the memories are what endures. The trip — however medicated it must be — is always worth fostering relationships among all our little people so that distance apart doesn't keep them from growing up together.
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