Memorial Day Weekend and Ella's Birthday

We had planned on going to Virginia for Memorial Day weekend and Ella's birthday. We planned on leaving Thursday afternoon so that we would be there on Ella's actual birthday. Unfortunately things never seem to go as planned. Ella woke up with severe abdominal pain around 5 AM on Thursday. She also had a fever of 103. So of course we went to the doctor, who sent us for a CT scan. The radiologist informed us that she would need her appendix out. So we were admitted to the pediatric hospital. There we met with the pediatric surgeon who informed us that he wasn't convinced that she needed surgery after all. He wanted us to stay for observation. Poor girl. She was so brave through the IV's, the missed IV's, all the poking and prodding, and the weird machines. (I don't know how parents of seriously ill children do it. It's so hard to see you little ones in so much pain with nothing you can do. It is also amazing to see how resilient they can be) She got a little bit worse, but then a whole lot better. By the morning she was feeling much better. She was even in pretty good spirits for having her 4th birthday in the hospital. The staff was great though. They brought her a bunch of presents on her birthday and fun games to play. All she wanted to do though was go home so we could go to Virginia for her birthday. We were released in the evening on Friday and Ella was doing much better. By Saturday morning you couldn't tell anything was wrong with her. She just wanted to go to VA and have her birthday. After the past couple of days Scott and I just couldn't disappoint her. So Saturday morning we started packing and headed up to VA. We are awake EARLY so we were packed and on the road at 8.
We all had a great time in Virginia. Ella got to make her birthday cake with Grandma.Then she had a birthday party with all of her cousins that live in the area.


She opened presents and had cake.

The rest of the girls had a great time to. Here is Jane and Bailey having some one on one time.

Grandpa Marker has a fun toy airplane. The girls had a ton of fun racing it back and forth with him.

We also went to the pool in VA. The girls had a blast in the water as always. Jane is definitely a water baby. She isn't too fond of baths but loves pools. I think she likes the really cool water.




We made it home safe and sound and Ella seems out of the woods. They chalked it all up to a bad virus. We are thankful for a surgeon that wasn't so quick to cut. It wasn't fun to be in the hospital but we feel like the IV was definitely necessary and we would rather be safe then sorry.