The Reardon Adventures: Road Trips

Wow! Where do I start? As most of you know, we had been planning on leaving Thursday, Feb. 5th for St. Louis for Miciah's wedding. Well Monday, Eden started throwing up and had a fever. Great... how were we supposed to make a long drive with a puking child? Well, she stopped for a day then started again on Wednesday. Not good!! My mom was planning on going with us to help out with the kids since we were both in the wedding so we told her to be at our house at 7am Thurs. morning so we could leave. Well, Eden was up half the night sick so needless to say neither of us got much sleep. We woke up thinking it was early like usual, but when we looked at the clock and saw that is was 8:30 we felt like Mr. & Mrs. McCallister from Home Alone... We yelled downstairs and sure enough my mom has been sitting on the couch since 7am waiting for us to get up!!

So... what a great way to start the trip! By the time we got up, got dressed,and got the rest of the car loaded it was 10 am. Our arrival time was quickly getting later and later!

Our first stop was at the local Panera in Springfield, IL. We were all so hungry so we sat down to eat and as soon as Eden was about to take a bite of her soup, she started throwing up in her Panera tray! That makes for some good eatin'! Praise God we made it to Panera though and it wasn't happening in the car. We got her all cleaned up and loaded back up and we were off again. We finally made it to Julie's (Uriah slept the whole way from Panera - 2 1/2 hours) and it didn't take Eden more than 10 minutes before she threw up again. Great!

Thursday night we had a nice relaxing dinner with the family and Friday morning we had a busy day decorating the reception hall and the church. The rehearsal dinner went smoothly and Saturday morning quickly arrived. The girls went to the salon to get our hair done and Eden and Jarrett went to the park. It was 65 degrees out so we couldn't pass up the opportunity.

It was now time for the wedding to start. I was a bridesmaid, Eden was a flower girl, and Jarrett was an usher. We kept telling her that when she got to the aisle she was going to throw her flowers out of her basket. So she had me to walk to and Jarrett behind her reminding her what to do. As the time drew near, Jarrett opened the doors for Eden to walk down the aisle. As she approached the aisle, she looked around and smiled. You could see the wheels turning in her head..." Is this where I start to throw my flowers?" She looked up with confidence and threw her whole entire flower basket down the aisle! It was hilarious! I think she was a little confused. She ran and got her basket and proceeded to throw the flowers down one by one!

Now for the car ride home... My mom and I both woke up feeling sick Sunday morning. The drive was going smoothly but as we approached Springfield, IL my mom started saying that she felt like she was going to throw up. She decided that she had to and asked Jarrett to pull over on the side of the road. We were now on the shoulder of I-55 and my mom opened the car door and started throwing up A LOT. I was sitting in the back between the two car seats and before I knew it I heard Jarrett yell, "CALL 911..." WHAT! He jumped out of the car and ran to my mom who was now laying in the embankment on the side of the road passed out. She blacked out and fell out of the car and down in the ditch on the highway. By this time Eden was crying, "Gigi fell... Where'd Gigi go??"... Uriah's screaming, ready to eat, and I'm climbing into the front seat to get outside to try and flag down some help. Im the mean time I was on the phone with 911 and they were sending some help. I wish I had my video camera to video how many people drove past after seeing a lady laying on the side of the road... We could have been on that show, "What Would You Do..." Anyway, a young Indian man ran up and informed us that he was a doctor... (a doctor at the same place where I had Uriah in the city... WEIRD)! He started taking my mom's vitals and him and Jarrett were talking to her trying to get her to come back. By this time the coolest woman truck driver pulled over and got down in the action with my mom... she was so sweet and 2 National Guardsmen pulled over in their massive Hummer.

The police and ambulance arrived and my mom refused to go to the hospital. She said she was fine... So we started on the road again with only 2 1/2 dreadful hours to go! So we made it home... NOT QUITE! We were 30 minutes from home and I started to get that feeling. Yeah... so the closet thing to me was a bucket of animal crackers from Trader Joe's so I quickly opened the lid and dumped the cookies out - mind you, Eden is now

crying that mommy dumped out all her cookies on the floor - now, I start puking LOTS. Jarrett is losing it about to puke as well since he pukes at the sound of someone else puking... Eden is mocking me making puke noises, and uriah is definitely ready to be out of his car seat. I'm sorry to say this but the smell was so horrible that when I finished, I

put the lid back on and threw it out the window. Please forgive me Lord! I'm sure the car behind us wasn't too happy!

Well, we made it home and I'm not planning on going on any road trips in the near future!!

Love to you all!

Blessings,

Erin