Life in Love: Florida Part One

We went to Indian Rocks Beach in Florida from April 26th to May 3rd this year as a "second annual" family trip! We had a really great time. There was definitely no lack of excitement--that's for sure!

When we arrived in Orlando, we made the drive to the condo to get all of our stuff situated and then headed to a great little restaurant called Marlin Darlin's for dinner. I took one picture that day and it was of my gorgeous girl.

The next day we went down to the beach for the morning. Audrey was NOT a fan to start off with. She pretty much refused to put her feet in the sand the entire first day and screamed her head off any time I tried to make her stand.

She was pretty happy playing with the sand from the safety of her sun tent.

This boy was beyond ready to get into the water. He was sooooo excited and loved it.

The next day we headed back to the beach again and started off the morning actually down at the beach. It was super windy, which made it a little cooler, and Parker wanted to go into the pool instead. We all eventually went up to the pool to hang out there. Parker and Audrey were jumping off of the side of the pool into our arms and having a blast when Parker jumped to Ryan once when he wasn't ready. Parker's chin hit the top of Ryan's head and busted open. It was bleeding and of course he was screaming, and it didn't take us long to determine that he probably would need stitches. (((alert::: gross picture coming up!)))

We went to an urgent care and saw a doctor who said he'd definitely need stitches but that he didn't recommend us having them done there because they didn't have the restraints necessary if they needed to tie him down. He recommended that we go to the Emergency Room, so we headed there. The hospital was very nice but we ended up waiting for around three hours before we were seen. It was crazy. When we were finally taken back, we saw a Physician's Assistant who got things rolling. She brought a topical anesthetic to try to numb the area a bit before she actually did the local injection. Parker went crazy and freaked out just over having the liquid-soaked cotton ball placed on his chin, so we knew they stitches themselves weren't going to go well. Two nurses had to come in to assist her. They had him stand up and put his hands to the side so they could "wrap him up in a blanket so he wouldn't get cold" aka restrain his arms. Then one nurse stood up at his head to hold his head still and the other stood down at Parker's legs and gently laid a pillow there to lean on to hold his legs down. Ryan and I stood right by his head so Ryan could hold the phone for him to "watch" and I rubbed his hair.

Hearing him scream and cry through that ordeal was the worst thing I've ever experienced. It truly seemed like the anesthesia didn't work all the way because every time she put the needle through his skin he re-clenched his teeth, cried harder and his poor little face turned blood red. It was so hard to watch that, but it was over pretty quickly. Here was the final result:

First-ever stitches........done.

The next day we re-visited the Sunken Gardens that we went to last year so we could renew our Botanical Gardens memberships. It's so beautiful there that we just had to take some pictures!