On the Road Again

I can't really say that I can agree with the next line of my post's name's song: "I just can't wait to get on the road again"

Nevertheless, we are hitting the road again--this time to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Combating my aversion to spending hours in the car is my huge amount of excitement to be going on this trip. We are traveling with four of our favorite friends from college who happened to marry each other! The six of us will be spending 6 days on the beach, on the golf course, at restaurants, and in the sun. Can't wait!

Unfortunately, another vacation means a neglect of the blog world for me, so I probably will be M.I.A. again for a few days, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when I get home, I will have lots to blog!

See you soon.

Destination: Destin

A few days ago, Jeffrey and I got back from our vacation with my family to Destin, Florida. Mom and Dad have spoiled us rotten by paying our way to two summer vacations since we got married—the first to New York and the second to Florida. We had a great time there and are so grateful for the time we got to spend with our family. Here are a few memories to share:

We drove to Destin. It took about 13 hours to get there and 13 hours to get back. As most of you probably know, 26 hours in a car can inspire even the most level-headed people to imagine that the suitcases piled in the back were closing in on them, so to help combat the crankiness from being cooped up in the car so long, Mom devised a plan--surprise bags! Gift bags were received every 100 miles or so and contained anything from a little snack to a couple of dollars to use at a gas station stop to a more sizable amount of money to use while shopping. It was a great idea and it made the trip seem shorter.

One of Mom’s less fortunate choices on the trip involved her attempt at using SAT vocabulary words in conversation with us. Mom is an English teacher, so she must often feel compelled to broaden our horizons by using such word choice in conversation, and while most of the time she succeeds, this time she did not. She said something to the effect of, “Look at that bridge! It must have taken them so much time to erect that!” This simple, seemingly innocuous exclamation led to quite a number of jokes made (in poor taste) by my brother and my husband using the formerly harmless word “erect.” Welcome to family vacations with children over the age of 18…rated PG-13.

Speaking of age, my sister, who is now 18 years old, came on the trip. As is required of all 18 year olds, she made a solemn promise to herself and the entire teenage race that she would, under no circumstances, have any fun with her family. Somehow, though, the happy sun and my brother’s unending barrage of jokes broke through that exterior within minutes and she had a good time. (But don’t tell her friends.)

There will be more stories about the trip to come, but I’ll leave you with this little one….

If you’re ever down in Destin, you should stop at Dewey Destin’s (a restaurant that I consistently referred to as “Dewey Decimal System”). Dewey Destin’s is a seafood restaurant on a pier that has the most INCREDIBLE shrimp I’ve ever tasted. Everything they cook was freshly caught that day or the day before, and the pier was the perfect setting for a nice meal next to the sea waves and cooled by a sea breeze. Pictures below.

Mysterious Absence...

Sorry, blog readers. We are on family vacation this week, and thus have no time for blogging. Not to worry, though--we're carefully recording all of our memories and funny stories, and we'll be back to tell you about them in a few days.

Arrrrgh you ready for this?

Normally I don't approve of making fun of the president--I just find it in poor taste; however, I found this graph on one of the blogs I read, and I felt like it was so lighthearted that I could copy it here and even President Obama himself would laugh if he saw it.

Graduation

Last Friday night my sister, Leslie, walked across the stage at her graduation ceremony from Wylie High School. We're all really proud of her for finishing strong and even getting scholarships and awards for her efforts. In celebration of her achievements as an adult, I thought I would share some of my favorite memories of little Leslie when she was younger. Enjoy!

When Leslie was in about 2nd grade, she was "helping" my mom in the kitchen as mom made dinner. I think mom was making Chicken Tetrazinni or something similar. When mom started to add the chopped mushrooms to the casserole, my sister panicked and started yelling, "No! No! No!" Mom stopped what she was doing and asked, "Leslie, what is the matter?" Leslie responded in an incredulous manner, "Mom! Mushrooms are poisonous!"

When I was about 5 my parents decided to build a house in a cul-de-sac in Abilene. Unfortunately, the cul-de-sac was very near to a busy street in town, and Leslie was so drawn to that busy road that my mom wore herself out trying to watch Leslie every second, because if she took her eyes off of her for more than a second, Leslie would be crawling/toddling toward that road. After a few terrifying instances of finding Leslie dangerously close to the street, my parents decided to move. By that time, Leslie was about 4 years old, and though the house was further from danger, we were still upset one day that we couldn't find Leslie. We started searching inside the house, but once we found that she was not in the house, we got really worried. Mom and Dad started searching the streets for her on foot and in the car, when suddenly one of our new neighbors came outside her house and said, "Are you looking for Leslie? She's in here with me. We're having tea." Leslie had been going door-to-door all down our new street with a notepad and pen, ringing each person's doorbell and saying, "I'm Leslie Oglesby and I just moved in, will you write down your name and address so we can be friends?"

At about this same time (when Leslie was around 4 years old) she began wearing bright red or bright pink lipstick daily. We partially blame Cathy Potts, who encouraged this behavior, but eventually we had nothing to blame but the fact that the girl loves makeup! Luckily in her "old age" she has toned down the lipstick to more demure colors.

Leslie, being a free spirit, always wanted to dress herself. Many children like to dress themselves, but how many do you know who think that cowboy boots and a ballet tutu go together? I know one. Little Leslie. She wore those cowboy boots and that ballet tutu almost every day (except for the days that she wore the tutu with roller blades).

One other favorite memory of ours comes from lots of long car rides with the family. My mom always thought that it would be a good idea to have sing-alongs in the car to keep everyone from killing each other (which was a great idea when we were 7, not as good of an idea when we were 15+attitudes). Anyway, one of the favorite songs is a silly one where you sing: Willaby wallaby wauren, an elephant sat on Lauren, williaby wallaby wenny, an elephant sat on Jenny, and so on and so on. Leslie loved this song. Sometimes we had to really stretch to come up with new verses (like willaby wallaby wour war, an elephant sat on our car), but we always made sure to go through each family member's name at least once. Leslie would laugh and laugh and laugh at all the others, but when we got to the part where an elephant would sit on Leslie, she would yell, "NO!!!" and start crying. Every time.

As I mentioned before, Mom and Dad built the house we lived in right after Leslie was born. When she was just an infant, the whole family went over to check on how the house was doing. The contractor asked Mom and Dad to come look at some things at the back of the house while the kids stayed in the unfinished living room. Mom asked me to hold Leslie (which I had done often by myself, even at the age of five), but unfortunately this time I must have forgotten and stood up, because I dropped Leslie on the ground. Of course she cried, but she wasn't hurt besides the surprise of falling. About five years later, Leslie got really mad at me and yelled as an insult, "And my head still hurts from when you dropped me!"

Leslie has always been a sweet, artistic, free-spirited, beautiful girl, and we can't wait for all the memories that are yet to be made! Congratulations, graduate.

Bike v. Car

This past weekend Jeffrey and I traveled to Abilene for my sister’s graduation from high school. We were able to leave on Wednesday because the doctor who Jeffrey has been shadowing gave him a couple of days off of work. We drove down on Wednesday and on Thursday morning (in an attempt to drop a few pounds before a beach vacation with my family) we decided to work out a little. Jeffrey wanted to run, but I had been eyeing my mom’s new bike that she got a few weeks ago. We split up and took individual workout paths.

Unfortunately, mine led to an intersection where I was hit by a car. Like most accidents, I’m sure that decisions by both myself and the driver led to the collision, while corrections by both of us could have resulted in the avoidance of the accident. Suffice it to say that I was riding on a 5 lane road when a car stopped at a lighted intersection. I continued to drive straight (across her lane) after she stopped, but was shocked when I reached the midway point in front of her car and she started to make a right turn into my bike.

I still cannot explain how the actual fall occurred. I remember trying to “stiff-arm” the car with my left hand as it came near me (and my left shoulder felt the soreness from that the next day), and I remember falling pretty hard on my right elbow and left knee, but I cannot understand how I got off the bike without being hit by the car on the left side of my body. Perhaps my mom’s (now broken) new bike saved me, because its wheel well was significantly bent, the wheel spokes were dented, and the left handle bar was turned at a 90 degree angle.

After I fell, I took stock of myself and realized that I was not hurt badly at all. I knew I had scratched several places and would be bruised and sore the next day, but I was relieved to find all my bones intact and extremities attached; however, right at that moment a nurse who had seen the accident on her way to work ran over and advised me to lie down until paramedics arrived to check my injuries. I felt silly lying there on the pavement, feeling completely fine, but as it turns out, the nurse was wise to tell me to wait.


[Above: A gross bruise on my leg from hitting the bike, and a picture of the hurt bicycle. I refuse to put the picture that Jeffrey took of me in the hospital--I was pale, wearing no makeup, and hadn't showered after my workout. I heard the nurses saying they would have to burn those sheets after I left.]

When the paramedics arrived, they came to much the same conclusion as I had about my lack of bodily injuries, but they noted that my blood pressure had dropped to a very low level (80/30—normal is 120/80) and my heart rate was very high. My body was going into shock from the sheer surprise of almost being run over.

I had wanted to decline a trip to the emergency room, but after fainting when I tried to stand up, the paramedics insisted that I be checked by a doctor. I went to the ER and the doctor became concerned about internal bleeding when my pressure stabilized but my heart rate continued at about double the normal rate for several hours after the accident. He checked my abdomen with a CT scan, but found no evidence of bleeding, and so about 6 hours after the accident, when my heart finally slowed to a decent rate, he released me to go home and recuperate.

I spent most of that day and the next day resting and alternately thinking of ways the accident could have been avoided (What if Jeffrey hadn’t gotten off of work until Thursday? What if I had decided to take a different bike route? What if I had turned one second earlier?) and thinking of how much worse I could have been injured (What if the car had pinned my leg against the bike? What if the hood had crushed my hand and I couldn’t become a dentist?). Then I said prayers of thanks to God who somehow got me safely off that bike and away from the car (either by divine intervention or by creating in us quick, protective reflexes) and then provided me with a nurse, a doctor, a husband, a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, and a group of paramedics to help me back on my feet.

Perhaps the most tragic part of this entire story is the fact that my poor father drove up on the site of the accident without knowing I was ok. The nurse who I mentioned earlier had asked if she could call anyone for me, and I had told her to call my dad (because my mom was at school and Jeffrey was running, and thus without his phone). Even in my state of shock from the accident, I had the awareness to tell the nurse, “Call my dad. Tell him ‘Lauren is ok, but she’s been in an accident.’ Tell him in that order, please.” When he showed up a few minutes later, I figured he had gotten the call and all was well—it wasn’t until later that I found out he had not answered the call (since it was an unknown number) but instead had happened to drive that direction to do his errands, seen the ambulance and fire truck, then seen my mom’s mangled bicycle, then seen me lying on the pavement. Poor dad! He probably needed to ride in the ambulance under surveillance with me after that shock!

Normally this blog is a fun and quirky little rendition of the happenings in our lives—of course, this post has not been the most cheerful or the funniest, so I’ll leave you with this story, which is the only amusing part of the entire “accident day.”

I had never had a CT scan before, but I had studied them in school, so I sort of knew what to expect. The radiology guy provided me with a little description before he started the test. This is what he said to me: “The CT scan is like an X ray machine that takes X rays from all sides to make a 3D image. We have to inject some iodine to create a contrast on your organs. The iodine gives different people different reactions. Some people experience a hot flash-like symptom, some people get a metallic taste in their mouths, some smell a funny smell, and others feel like they are peeing in their pants, but they’re really not. No matter what reaction you have, it should cease in about 60 seconds.”

After this little speech, all I could think of was, “Man, I hope I don’t get the ‘wet your pants’ symptom.” The guy injected the iodine…


...and I felt like I was wetting my pants. Just my luck.