The biggest and most important is that a couple of weeks ago we headed to Atlanta (from Friday through Sunday) for Annie and Alan's baby shower (Annie and Alan are Paul's sister and her husband, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law). We had a great weekend with the Gerrety family and also got to celebrate the upcoming birth of our first nephew, Max - Yippee!!!
That's a picture of Annie and Alan opening gifts. As you can see from the photo Annie is one of those ladies who is truly blessed in pregnancy, not only is she feeling great but she looks even better - what I mean is that if you see her from behind you can't even tell there's a 8 month old baby in her belly.
BUT, before our big trip to Atlanta (and during and after), Paul went through one crazy thing after another. It all started the Tuesday afternoon before we headed to Atlanta, Paul donating Platelets - a friend of a friend's baby was recently diagnosed with leukemia - and while I was on my way to stop by to see him on my way home from work he called to tell me to get there as soon as possible. I was just a couple of blocks away so I arrived shortly after and literally ran in to the building to see what was wrong - come to find out right before he called me they were pumping his blood back into his arm and his arm got a golf ball sized hematoma because they hadn't inserted the needle in his arm correctly. I didn't get any pictures of the actual hematoma (from what Paul said that's a good thing cause it was pretty gross looking) but I got a few pictures of what the aftermath looked like:
(look how sad he looks) 
Can you believe how bad his arm bruised??? If you look at the first picture you can see his elbow has a bandage on it and in the second picture if you look really closely you can see a big red mark on his elbow. That's the second crazy thing that happened to poor Paul.The day after donating (Wednesday) Paul was at work and he put his elbows on his desk and felt something funny on the elbow of the same arm that he had donated the platelets. He rolled up his sleeve only to find that he had a third degree burn caused from the heating pad that was under his elbow while he was donating platelets. He couldn't feel how hot it was getting because of the little amount of feeling that you have in your elbow. Can you believe it??? How crazy is that???
So next up on the crazy list, Thursday evening we decided to pick up some fresh Salmon (or so we thought) from The Fresh Market to cook up for dinner. In addition to the Salmon we got a bunch of other stuff, which ended up being way more than needed for 2 people, so I didn't end up eating any of the Salmon while Paul ate just about all of it.
Side Note: When we were prepping the fish we thought it smelled kinda fishy but Salmon is a fishy smelling fish so we didn't think much of it. After what happened early the next morning you can bet we'll be extra careful in the future.
So around 3:00 in the morning I woke up to Paul laying in bed next to me sweating like crazy and shivering from the chills - it scared me half to death because I knew exactly what it was and I also knew that the last time we got food poisoning it was together and we were so sick that neither of us could keep even water down for 2 full days. To say it was scary would be a total understatement.
Long story short, I woke Paul up and got him to the bathroom and he spent most of the rest of the early morning hours in and out of the bathroom - as a wife I felt so helpless because I kept asking Paul what I could do yet at the same time knowing that there was nothing I could do.
After a morning like that, in my mind there was no way we were leaving to go to Atlanta for the baby shower that day, if anything we could stay in Jax on Friday and leave for the shower on Saturday. But, Paul being the hard-headed man that he is he assured me that all would be well and he would bounce back in no time. Well, as I had assumed, after 5 stops over the course of what should have been a 5 hour drive and 10 hours later this is where Paul ended up:
Passed out at his sister's house with an I.V. in his arm pumping him full of nutrients (look how happy he looks). Thank the Lord that Annie is a Nurse Anesthatist because she truly was a saving grace for Paul that day.He managed to stay awake and lively for the shower the next night (Saturday) but he didn't fully bounce back until early the next week after we were back home in Jax - it really was so sad to see him that way and now you see what I mean when I say that Paul went through one crazy thing after another!
In happier news, Papa G just came and visited us last weekend with Daisy Mae and we had such a fun weekend, relaxing and spending time together.
(Paul and his dad visited Fernandina Beach with Daisy while I was at work on Friday)
(here's Paul and Daisy)
I want to say thanks to Papa G for everything, we really do love when you come to stay.
In more happy news, Paul and I are now the proud owners of a brand new car.
Here's our old car, a 2 door civic:
And here's our new car, a shiny new black 4 door civic:
Well, I think that's enough rambling for one entry.Until next time,
XOXOXO
Suzy Q
