Have I bragged about how incredibly kind, sweet and thoughtful my husband is lately? A few weeks ago Aaron suggested I should go on a retreat—a chance to get away, recharge, and do some things I enjoy. He told me to invite a friend, and he would book us a cozy, comfortable spot in Northern Michigan.
We made plans. My good friend, Kylee, and I were going to head to Traverse City for the weekend with our nursing babies. We had a beachfront condo reserved on the East Arm of the Grand Traverse Bay. The weather forecast was outstanding. We both had long lists of things we were looking forward to talking about.
But the plans changed.
If you look at this picture of Savannah’s arm, you’ll see why:
We had an outbreak of Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease among our friends at church in August. I thought we had avoided it, and after hearing of no new outbreaks for over a month, I forgot about it. Madeline ran a temperature between 103 and 104 on Monday and Tuesday of last week, and Savannah was between 102 and 103. The high fever should have been one red flag, but it didn’t occur to me that it could be HFM until I couldn’t get Savannah’s odd-looking diaper rash to clear up. HFM typically starts with sores in the mouth and then progressing to sores on the hands and feet, sometimes the arms and legs, and rarely the face. Madeline’s sores were pretty much isolated to her mouth, but most of Savannah’s body was covered. For as bad at the sores looked, thankfully they didn’t seem to bother either girl. Once the fever was over, both girls were pretty much back to normal.
Kylee and I talked on Wednesday once I had figured out Savannah had HFM. Obviously Kylee’s baby, Ian, would be at risk if we proceeded with our plans, so we decided to cancel our retreat.
However, with the gorgeous weather forecast and the hopes that our girls would be feeling better by the weekend, it was hard to cancel our reservation. We could stay home and go on with life as usual, or we could all go to Traverse for on last family adventure of the “summer.”
Kylee and I are rescheduling our trip for a future date. She was completely wonderful and understanding about the unforeseen circumstances. (And thankfully, she had just gotten away with her husband the weekend before).
I’ll leave you with a few pictures from our magical weekend. Obviously God knew what we needed, and we’re grateful for the time we had together.
That’s too bad that you couldn’t get away with Kylee. Glad that you were able to make good use of the weekend. Thanks for the pictures. It’s so nice to stay connected through your website.
I’m glad to hear about your thoughtful husband 🙂 And the pictures and accompanying story were wonderful!
Aww that’s too bad about the HFM 🙁 But I’m glad that you were able to get away as a family and enjoy Traverse!