Driving to Florida

Feducial surgery went fine and Avery was in recovery before Jeremy and I were even back from picking up TOGO food in the cafeteria. She did great and was fine after waking up. She had a rough night last night though and we aren't sure if it was due to being a little backed up or if she was a little sore on her noggin.

We ended up getting both places packed up by 11 am and we started on our journey to Florida. Our plan was to drive down hwy 55 through Jackson, MS and take hwy 10 all the way to Boloxi before stopping for the night. The trip should have taken about 6.5 hrs however it took a little longer. We decided to go up the shoreline in MS and take in the view. NO OIL SPILL SO FAR. However, once we attempted to find a place to crash for the evening we were greeted with NO vacancy! Apparently a ton of people are here waiting for the oil spill to hit the shores in MS and AL. Some are here to rescue animals, some for barrier building, others are just weird and are here to gawk. We finally managed to find a place closer to Mobile, AL around 8:30 and luckily its a newer one with a king bed for mommy & daddy and a pack n play for Avery -- which means not having to totally unpack the car.

Jeremy has decided we look like the Clampets and that everyone is staring at us as we drive. I think its cause our totes on the tailgate shelf are pink and he is a boy. We are packed to the max of course and I've been told we can't accumulate anything in FL. We ended up having to leave behind some things as we ran out of room! No worries -- all things we can purchase easy enough.

We really figured out we were in the south this afternoon when we ran into some traffic. As each car in front of us veered off and drove up an embankment off the interstate to avoid the traffic delay --we watched in amazement. Then we finally got up to the issue and just as we got there we heard BOOM BOOM BOOM and right next to the road they were setting off mortars and playing WAR...I mean we saw guys parachuting in and a huge helicopter nose diving and I am not kidding this was on the edge of the interstate in between the entrance ramp and us.....OMG. Who does that? That was totally not safe. They are lucky we didn't veer off the road ourselves and cause an accident. Bizarre. Then as we went to check out different hotels for vacancy we found half of them were smoking hotels....I didn't even know that was legal in the US!

We are so glad to be moving on with our journey -- thank you to everyone for all your continued prayers and support. Radiation is going to be a somewhat easier treatment for Avery hopefully, but there are still risks and side affects involved. We'll need all the prayers we can get that this stage goes smoothly and she is able to continue on with her development. She is doing so great and surprises us every day with something new. More and more she is understanding things and working so hard to move forward. They don't think we'll be walking unassisted by the time we come home but we may be close. PT at St Jude was looking at a walker for her to start using in the up coming weeks, so we'll see if FL PT agrees.

I suppose the 3 of us better get some sleep as we have another long day of driving ahead of us. We should have about 8 hrs left and we will take hwy 10 all the way to Jacksonville. We are really looking forward to it!

Jenn