Fantastic Point of View : 06/15/15

What a truly wonderful holiday! I won't bore you all with a day by day fly by but in summary we swam, ate, swam, cycled, lazed on the beach, swam, ate lots of ice cream, kayak(ed), shopped and spent some very valuable family time together.

It turned out to be one romantic holiday too....Dad surprised mum with a blessing of their wedding vowels for their 25th wedding anniversary. Dad had been planning it for a while, organised the priest and photographer and even chose mums dress himself! I had it hanging on bedroom door for 4 days prior to the holiday, scared i was going to forget it! Dad presented mum with a tiffany bangle on the edge of the Rod and Reel Pier which means a lot to Dad as this is where my nan and grandad spent a few trips themselves. After mum stopped crying with happiness the wild dolphins made an appearance and by then all were consuming alcohol apart from designated driver moi and Henry :)

The blessing took place on the beach at sunset and it was a blub fest (well mainly for us girls!) The priest and photographer were really lovely and there are some wonderful professional family shots (although Carly has a super eye for taking pictures and took most of the best ones :-). We topped it off with a champagne dinner on the beach in a bar called the SandBar.

Secondly my brother proposed to his girlfriend Carly on the beach at sunset!! This was 2 days after mum and dads blessing. While we were out shopping Jack saw and bought the ring and even called her dad to ask permission! Very very sweet! She said yes of course and we all celebrated with a meal in Codys and a lovely cake! The ring is super sparkly and I can't believe my little brother is engaged!

Thirdly, I think with all the romance going on James bought me a beautiful Emerald ring as a eternity/second baby trinket. Ive always loved emerald and it was a really lovely surprise! So all in all us girls didn't do too badly ;-)

The boys did a lot of fishing and dad had bought James and Jack a fishing rod each which was really kind of him. They went out sea fishing one day, and caught a lot of fish of which they bought me home to cook. James was super chuffed with himself as he caught about 6. Their trip got cut short as there was a tremendous storm which meant they had to come back in. Us girls took Henry out that day to a play park in Macdonalds and also to re-size Carlys ring. As its my first time driving in America I took great pleasure in being designated driver. The drive out there is super easy and very laid back. I was very content in driving the boozy lot around.

On the 12th Henry woke really hot and despite being a bit narky he was mostly himself all day. Yet come the evening he was burning up and James and Dad went out to buy a thermometer and some ibroprufen. His temperature hit 101F so, missing urgent care as it closed at 8pm we headed to the hospital. He had calpol throughout the day and as his temp hadn't dissipated so we played it safe and went to a+e.

It was quiet an experience. Although familiar with hospitals I wasn't ready for how quiet it was. The emergency room was empty apart from us and 2 other families. Henry was seen by the triage nurse in 10mins and sent to the Dr in under 4mins! He was really nice and made us feel at ease. As soon as he looked in Henrys ears he said yeap! An ear infection and without hesitation and a should he shouldn't he have antibiotics, the Dr immediately said 10days of amoxicillin. This was a great weight off our shoulders as parents, having the professional make the decision and make it fast instead of this nonsense we have to put up with at home. But as soon as we walked out of the Drs room we hadn't even sat our butts on the chairs to wait for the prescription when a woman came up to us to ask for our insurance card. Declaring we were internationals with insurance was a bit of a faff for them as they just handed us a fax and telephone number which then James spent 2 days on and off trying to get through to get it all sorted. He was worried we wouldn't be let out the country without paying so wanted to get it sorted fast. England being the typical pain in the arse all round the houses type that we are wanted certification that Henry was safe to fly with an ear infection. Logical yet not so logical, as otherwise the Dr would have said so as he did say the ear infection was likely due to the flight more than any swimming because of the imbalance of fluids in the ear when the air pressure changes.
So one more trip to the hospital to pick up the documents and we were all set to go. Faxed and done we are still waiting for the bill and are very interested to see how much it will cost!

On the Saturday we decided to take Henry to the Mote Aquarium. Something that we could do that was mostly in the air con. The weather was blistering hot and wasn't helping Henrys temperature. Jack and Carly had gone home and mum and dad didn't fancy coming so we had a little day out as a family. It was really nice Henry really loved it and was super excited, there was a huge dock full of fancy boats just opposite and Henry enjoyed looking at those too. Fishes, boats and cars seem to be his thing at the moment.

Mum and dad looked after Henry on two occasions so James and I got a date night. First night we went to the cinema and watched Spy which is pretty good. We also got a surprise as to the seats....the cinema was like something from The Last Action Hero but the seats were huge leather recliners! And we didn't have to pay gallery prices. Not bad for $22! Second date night we went for a meal in a seafood restaurant on the sea which was lovely and then a walk on the beach to watch the sunset. We got caught in an amazing thunder storm so much so we were drenched through walking back along the beach to the car! There were huge lightening strikes and a massive clap of thunder right over our heads and the rain came in all which ways so we couldnt see as we were partially running and walking along the beach! it cut our night short but we didn't care, mum and dad had a right ol' laugh at us when we walked in. Good fun :-)

We took over 500 photos and lots of video but Im just going to upload a taster of what we got up too. They arnt 100% in order but your'll get the jist :-)

Heres to next time!