Our Beach Vacation.......3+ Months Later

***I wrote this post back in August, but never posted it because I could not get my slide show to work.  I have now figured it out, Enjoy!***

     In July we went to the beach for 2 weeks.  The first week it was just me and the 2 younger kids at the beach house.  We dropped Edi off at camp on our way. Daniel came down on about day 5 and then we picked Edi up at camp on day 6.  The first weekend we were down as a family was relaxing, we cooked a lot and went bowling on Sunday.        

     Monday morning Daniel went riding as he had done every morning since coming down.  About 8am the phone rang and it was the Fire Chief telling me that Daniel had been in a accident.  He said he appeared to be ok and was talking fine, but the ambulance was there and they were checking him out.  As soon as we approached the accident the ambulance was pulling away with Daniel inside.  He called me from the ambulance to tell me he was ok, and get this, to tell me to get his bike!  I got his bike and headed to the hospital, 22 miles and 45 minutes away.  He had run off the road on his road bike and instead of riding it out into the soft sand, he over corrected to pull it back on the road because a road sign was in front of him.  He knew if he hit the sign, he’d get hurt.  Well, when he pulled the bike back it didn’t want to go over the shoulder of the road and he flipped over the handlebars.  The kids and I arrived at the hospital about 9am, most of us had not eaten breakfast and none of us had brushed our teeth, it was not a pretty site.  After lots of tests and scans, they found a broken jaw, lacerated ear canal, and a cut on his chin that required stitches.  The hospital where we were could not handle the broken jaw because they were sure it would require surgery.  After checking with a couple of hospitals they sent us to UNC-Chapel Hill, 3 ½ hours away.  We weren’t due to go home for a whole week.  I made some calls and my mom and brother came down to stay with the kids at the beach while I met Daniel in Chapel Hill, he went by ambulance.  Daniel arrived to UNC at around 4:30pm and I arrived about 6:30pm and at 10:30pm we were on our way home, no surgery required.  He was so lucky, they are still watching his jaw and some procedures may be needed in the future, but for now just a soft diet.  We slept at home that night, headed to the dentist the next morning for them to file down some chipped teeth and were back at the beach by 4:30pm on Tuesday to finish out our vacation. 

      We pretty much hung around the beach house, going out on the beach, to the pool, cooking, going out to dinner and such.  We did have guests stay during our last weekend for a bike training ride that Daniel had organized to help with a charity ride he does called Ride Without Limits, he of course did not ride.  We also had some friends from home that were down at their place for the weekend and we met up with them a couple of times, once for dessert and coffee at our house and then for a scenic boat tour and lunch.  All in all our vacation was great and there’s nothing like being away from the regular routines and schedules of home and being with family.

***Update on Daniel:  He is doing good.  He did have to do a couple of months of physical therapy and that seemed to help a lot.  His jaw will never be just like it was and he is always making it pop, which is really annoying.***