We Take a Vacation... or, This Week on "ER: Orange Beach"

Our family had a looooong summer, and we decided a few weeks back to retreat to the beach for a relaxing, quality-time vacation. We arrived in Orange Beach ready for fun fun FUN! The condo we were staying in had great amenities, with a kiddie pool, children's fountain, multiple hot tubs & pools, and a clean private beach.

You might remember this place when we went last April... it was the scene of Eli's Great Elevator Debacle. Since then, the condo has been remodeled and redecorated - it was SO nice.






Go to our Flickr page to see all the photos.



The weather was perfect and the water was clear. Not a jelly fish in sight.



We frolicked in the sand and surf in the morning, took long naps during the day, and dined at beachfront restaurants at night. We took a night walk on the beach to search for crabs with our flashlights. After the boys crashed we watched the debates or caught the Alabama-Georgia football game. And slept the sleep of the dead.

Finn and Eli loved the sand the best. Any time they could find a hole to dig or bury their feet they indulged. There was a sand bar just a few yards out from the shore and we would wade out to stand in the shallow water there. Hotwheel Hubs heard there was a stingray migration and we even saw a "flock" of them from the balcony of our condo.

On Sunday it was time to head back home. We stayed until the very last moment - housekeeping was knocking on the door - and decided to visit the outlet stores on the way out. We lunched at Lambert's Cafe and headed to the stores. Both boys needed Fall clothes badly. Eli has surpassed Finn's hand-me-downs and he's too big for his brother's Fall clothes from last year, so I was looking forward to finding some killer deals.

That's when it went bad.

We were shopping when it happened. I was looking through the clothes and the boys were occupying themselves nearby, not even horsing around too much. Hubs was standing right there and couldn't prevent it from happening. It was a complete freak accident...

Finn fell and cut his arm on a clothes rack - it literally flayed a 3 inch flap of skin down to the layer of fat over his muscle. Caleb scooped him and I got a wet wipe to help stop the bleeding and we hightailed it the front of the store to find out where the hospital was. At this point I had not seen the cut and thought it was something that could be patched up with some Neosporin and a bandaid, but HH knew we had to go to the ER. Finn cried, but had already stopped before we got to the car.

After a 45 minute wait a nurse took a look and dressed the cut. We waited another 45 minutes for the doctor to see Finn.


The doctor was concerned because of the weird shape of the cut and how there would be no blood supply to the skin if they sewed it up. He took a gamble and put in 13 stitches. I won't go into the details here, but that was one of the hardest things I've had to do as a mom to date. It took three of us to hold Finn down for an hour - two nurses and me and the doctor to do the stitches. By the time it was over he was soaked from sweat and tears and slobber. He thrashed and fought the whole hour.

It killed me.

The ER doctor told us he didn't think the stitches were viable, and we needed to be prepared to undergo reconstructive surgery over a series of months. As of yesterday, our pediatrician said they looked good and were healing well so far. So... there's a big chance Finn won't have to do a skin graph and that we'll get the stitches out next week.


Waiting for the doctor.


Eli offers sympathy...


I'll post more as things develop.

Is it me, or is this condo cursed for us?