Stone's Stories: November 2010

During college Bryan lived in a house that was called the "Sig Shack". It was a house passed down between members in their club, Gamma Sigma Phi. During his Junior and Senior year he lived with the same group of guys - Stan Bailey, Jason Hindman, Jake Hogan, Nic Belcher, and Ben Blake. These guys are SUPER close, and that might even be an understatement!! Through the years since college each of the guys have married or are about to marry great women. I feel so blessed to have each and everyone of them in my life! We often talk about how lucky we are to all get along so well since only a couple of us knew each other in college.

For a few years we have thrown around the idea of going on a "family" vacation together and this year we made that a reality. On Friday afternoon the Bailey's, Belcher's, and us headed to a small town called Peoria, TX just outside of Hillsboro to stay at a lake house near Lake Aquilla Friday through Monday. The ladies had such high hopes for this trip. We spent the days prior to the trip visiting Target, Walmart, and Dollar Stores buying activities for the kiddos to do during our "down time". We had coloring, play dough, pumpkin carving, bubbles, and other fun stuff. After being in the lake house for a few hours we figured out we were way over our heads with entertaining all the kids in such a small space! I give us an A for effort though!!

Bryan and I were the first to arrive so Bryan took Matthew on a hike around some of the trails

Here's a look at our refrigerator and pantry after all 3 families emptied their coolers. Each family was in charge of making one breakfast and one dinner during our trip and we all brought our own lunch items. We decided next year we'd talk a little more about what exactly we were bringing to avoid having 7 bags of chips and 3 or 4 loaves of bread!! Look at all that lunch meat on the second shelf :)

Matthew and Boston (Stan and Jessi's youngest son) exploring the woods together. While Jessi and I took the boys through some of the trails Bryan and Stan went to the lake and laid out a trout line. They just knew they were going to catch a huge fish!!

Hanging out at a picnic table beside the campfire site

Here's Jessi and Boston swinging on a rope swing with a tiny board on it. This swing was a great workout, it took a lot of muscle power to keep the swing seat straight!!

After exploring the trails, Boston and Julianna (Nic and Ashley's daughter) decided to dance with Nic

All the kids got baths the first night. But before Bryan had a chance to drain Matthew's bath water Boston decided he'd like to take another bath with his pajama's on!! Ha Ha!!!!

After the "babies" went to bed all the "big kids" stayed up and had a camp fire. Here's Stan and Brayden (the Bailey's oldest son) roasting marshmallows for their smores!

Nic, Ashley, and I enjoying the fire

Jessi, Brayden, and Stan

After our campfire and playing games, late Friday night Bryan and Stan thought they might want to sleep in the loft above the living room but ultimately decided against it.

Here they are trying it on for size...

Saturday morning after breakfast we loaded the kids in the wagon and hiked down to the lake to check the trout line. Everyone was excited to see what the boys had caught!!

Stan and Brayden had to stop by the shed on the way to pick up something. Brayden was so cute the whole weekend. He was definitely enjoying spending a lot of time with the boys doing "manly" things.

On the way to the lake we had to cross over this ladder. The boys would hand over each kid and then pass the wagon over.

Here's Bryan and Nic trying to guide the wagon slowly down this hill to the lake.

Bryan, Stan, and Brayden checking the line - they didn't catch anything :(

Matthew and I waiting on the shore for the guys to get finished

Jessi, Ashley, and Me

When we got back to the lakehouse Bryan and I were playing Stan and Nic in fooseball (sp?). At one point Matthew wanted to watch so Bryan picked him up and tried playing one handed. That obviously didn't work and we were having a very competitive game so we problem solved. Matthew loved watching us play, he would laugh and clap for us!! So stinkin' cute!!

All the kiddo's sitting around the table eating their lunch. Nic and Bryan were helping them while the girls got our lunch ready.

HA HA!! On Friday night Bryan and I made taco's for dinner and we had enough left over to eat it again for lunch on Saturday. Ashley said we could just snip the corner of the bag of beans and squeeze them out that way and this is what we got. Yummy!!

**After lunch is when our fun family vacation turned into a scary experience. **

After we finished eating the girls started to clean up lunch and the guys were getting things ready for the kids naps. Matthew and Boston were playing in the living room beside the couch, just out of eye sight of the adults. Matthew started crying and when Bryan went to get him he noticed Boston was on top of him. Ashley picked up Boston and Bryan picked up Matthew. At this point Matthew started holding his breath. At first we just thought he was hurting bad and would let out a scream cry but he never did so we started panicking thinking he was choking on something. I grabbed Matthew out of Bryan's arms and started trying to do the Heimlick maneuver. After a few seconds Matthew went limp and doubled over in my arms. Ashely quickly grabbed her phone and called 911 while Jessi went to find Stan and Nic. I started freaking out so Bryan took him from me. When Bryan grabbed him I noticed Matthew's eyes rolling in the back of his head and he was turning really pale. Bryan tried doing the Heimlick, then did back blows and Matthew was still not breathing. Nic came in the room and tried finger sweeping his mouth. The second time is when Matthew started opening his eyes a little bit. At this point Stan runs in the room and started giving him a few breaths by mouth to help him "come to" a little faster. All the while I was running in circles screaming in the living room - not my finest moment! In the end Matthew stopped breathing for 30 to 45 seconds but he was really pale and very lethargic. The volunteer fire department arrived shortly after he started breathing again and a few short moments later the ambulance arrived. We ended up taking Matthew to the Hillsboro hospital by ambulance. He was awake but just not acting himself so we wanted to be safe and get him checked out by a doctor. The hospital did a chest x-ray to make sure he didn't aspirate anything into his lungs, a CT scan to make sure he didn't have any brain damage, and blood work to make sure he didn't have a seizure. In the end all tests came back normal so the doctor guessed he either had the wind knocked out of him and before he could recover he passed out or he was stunned after being knocked down and held his breath long enough to pass out. However, just to be safe they told us to act like he had a concussion and wake him up every 2 hours that night to see if he was still breathing okay.

We were very impressed with the emergency response paramedics/fire department and the hospital. They were extremely concerned for Matthew and helped calm us down in this stressful situation!

After all was said and done we decided to stay the rest of the weekend. Matthew was responsive every time we woke him up and he acted like nothing ever happened the next day. So we decided to stay and make good memories instead of leaving on a negative note and we were really glad we did!!

After we got back from the hospital we decided to put in a movie to kind of "wind down" after all the excitement. Here's a picture of the kids relaxing in the living room (plus Bryan and Nic!).

Sunday morning Nic took all the kids into their room and had them sing songs. I think they were singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" when I took this picture, it looks like Julianna was "washing the spider out"!!

After breakfast on Sunday we decided to make another trip to the trout line

and go hiking on some of the trails. Here's the "babies" waiting in the wagon.

Stan and Brayden caught............ A Rock!!!

Here they are showing their muscles with their great catch!

Bryan and I by the lake

Boston and Matthew were great friends!!

Ashley, Jessi, and Me.

Keep in mind we were "camping" so we didn't have make up on and I'm pretty sure that was before my shower!

Stan, Nic, and Bryan

(there were only 2 life vests so Bryan was out of luck if they turned over!!)

Brayden wanted to help pull the wagon

Here's Brayden walking with his walking stick

The group going through a field. Bryan is at the front with Brayden's walking stick knocking back the grass to make sure we didn't come across any surprise wild life!!