Sunday, September 9, 2012

FLASHBACK -- Day 7 FLORIDA - Give Kids the World Resort / Atlantic Ocean

Sunday, September 11, 2011Today we thought we would head over to Give Kids the World resort that we stayed at last year on Ollie's Make*A*Wish trip in April 2010. Since Jaren didn't go with us last year, we thought we would show him around and get some ice cream at the ice cream shop! It was one of the best places we visited and we were happy that they welcomed us back for the morning. Thank you to all the volunteers who so freely and lovingly give their time down there for our families to make memories.


Ollie helping Jaren play a little video game while we were in the main office getting name tags.


Amberville train station and the main office building


Mayor Clayton mosaic


Henri Landwirth the wonderful man who came up with the idea of the resort for Make*A*Wish kids and their families.

Some of the cute designs of the houses we stayed in last year.


Old Elmer


Mayor Clayton's house


The Ice Cream Palace - where we stopped in for some ice cream.  This is where we got the inspiration to start our ice cream for breakfast tradition on the first day of school.


The Castle of Miracles

Ollie's star is on the wall near the center of the photo.  It really takes your breath away to see so many stars.  They added another part since we were there for his Make*A*Wish trip.



The Star Tower is new since last year.



Eden getting close to being pushed into the fountain!




Today was the first time any of us (Me, Ed or the kids) had seen the Atlantic Ocean. We weren't able to come last year on Ollie's Make*A*Wish trip because Ollie had such bad motion sickness that we didn't want to make the drive and make him miserable. We traveled down to Melbourne, where my two cousins live and they drove us to the beach. I was so excited to go to finally see the ocean! I don't think Ollie wanted to go at first, but the being the mean mom I am, I made him go and knew he'd like it once he got there. We got there in the late afternoon and stayed until sunset when a storm was starting to roll in.


Ed and Oliver walking to the beach.




First steps in the ocean...


What a view!


Interesting jellyfish on the beach. Evidently Oliver was sitting near one and accidentally rolled over onto one. No harm done. Whew!


Building a sandcastle with Jaren and Uncle Chad.


I LOVE this picture of Ollie and Bear.


Beauty and the beach...


Grandma and Ollie


Ed and my cousin, Talen.





Gorgeous sunset.


I thought this was so odd how the clouds made such a stark contrast in the sky. 

We went to a restaurant, Grills Seafood Deck and Tiki Bar, that had a great view of the ocean.  We got to spend a little more time with my cousins, Brett and Talen which was nice.


My older brothers, Bryan and Chad

While we were eating dessert, Oliver was eating some chocolate cake and started to complain of his stomach hurting and then his throat getting itchy.  Ed took him to the bathroom and he came out a few minutes later with his shirt off, COVERED in hives.  He was red and blotchy and said they just itched horribly.  We knew we had to get to the ER as quickly as we could.  We followed my cousins and sped to the nearest hospital, checking on Oliver constantly, asking him how his breathing was and how his throat felt.  We got to the ER and I freaked out even more because of how much the nurse was panicking.  We gave him his Epi Pen for the first time and realized we should have given it to him MUCH sooner.  I was realllllllly scared at this point.  The nurse was running around yelling at everyone in such a panic that it really was freaking me out.  By the time we got into the room his hives were SO BAD they were raised and morphing into one HUGE hive on his back.  I mean his ENTIRE back was COVERED in a raised area of skin.  His chest, his arms, legs, neck, face was all blotchy and covered in hives.  His ears... all over his ears was swollen, even in the upper part where you wouldn't think it could even become swollen was as large and thick as his ear lobe.  It was SO SCARY.  The pictures were taken to show our doctor when we got back home how bad it was, but they were taken when things started to get better so you can't see how bad it was in the beginning.  Yeah... allergic reactions are NOT something to mess around with.  I think it may have been cross contamination with a pecan or some other nut.  I tried emailing and phoning the restaurant to get an ingredient list of the items he ate so I could figure out what exactly to have him tested for, but they never got back to me... nice, huh?

My sweet boy...




After a long night in the ER, driving back to the hotel to get some sleep before heading back home the next morning.  What a way to end our trip.

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