Ruby Falls

We had such a fun morning at the Chattanooga Classic!  it was a GORGEOUS day, about 70 degrees and sunny outside.  We went to the hotel to change clothes, then walked to catch a tram and found a Mellow Mushroom for lunch.  After filling up, we decided to try out Ruby Falls since we had never been.  We walked back to the hotel, got in the car and went.

Walking around downtown Chattanooga.

Getting ready for our walk through the caves

The girls were actually really excited about going.  The building looks like a small castle, so of course they thought that was pretty cool.  You take an elevator down 206 feet, then go into the caves to walk.  It's a 1/2 mile walk to the waterfall, then 1/2 mile back.  By the time you make it to the falls, you're more than 1,200 feet under Lookout Mountain.  We ended up at the very front of the line, so we could hear everything the tour guide had to say.  Luckily our guide was a college student who was super friendly, because Madelyn asked her questions the entire hour that we were walking.  It was HILARIOUS!  At school Madelyn has been learning about geologists and different rocks and minerals, so it was really cool to be able to apply that learning to real life.

The walk was beautiful.  There were tons of stalactites and stalagmites and beautiful pools of water.

As we neared the falls, they have the light off as you go into the large room so that all you can hear is the water.  It's the tallest underground water fall, and it was just breathtaking!!!





 At the end of the walk, they have a nice outside playground and an area to get some awesome views of Chattanooga. 

We let the girls play for almost an hour before heading back to the hotel for showers.

Clint and I talked about where to go for dinner, and wanted to try a local restaurant that was within walking distance downtown.  We got on Yelp and found a place called Tupelo Honey that was only a few blocks away and had rave reviews.  We put our jackets on and walked around downtown to get to dinner about 7:30.  The food was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!  They brought out complimentary homemade biscuits with blueberry jam, and of course, Tupelo honey.  We must have really chowed down on them, because a few minutes after they had been devoured a waitress came by our table and told us they had made too many orders of fried green tomatoes, so they gave us an order for free.  YUM.

All of the food was delicious, and we really just enjoyed talking about the day.  Madelyn and Aubrey have learned (from their silly Dad) about wet willies, so Madelyn surprised Clint with about 15 of them during the course of our dinner.  I was lucky enough to snap a shot of her awesome reaction every time she surprised him. 

LOVE how giddy she is!!

That entire day was just about as close to perfect as they get.  Everyone was happy, there were no attitudes or major meltdowns.  We walked back to the hotel and got in bed.  Right as Madelyn fell asleep, about 9:45 all of a sudden the fire alarm in the hotel went off.  Poor Aubrey was terrified!  We put on jackets and shoes and walked down the stairs to head outside.  Luckily, they Convention Center, which was about 10 steps from the hotel, was unlocked because it was COLD out by then.  We watched and reassured Aubrey that there probably wasn't a real fire and everyone would be fine.  3 fire trucks came and cleared the building within about 10 minutes.  We found out later that it was from someone smoking in the stairwell! 

Overall, we had another FABULOUS weekend in Chattanooga!  It's becoming one of our favorite cities to visit.  Good thing, because we'll be back in January for a cheer competition :-)

Until next time....





Chattanooga Classic

After work on Friday, I met the family at home and we headed out for Chattanooga.  We all love Chattanooga, and have been excited about this trip for months!!  We weren't able to head out of town until about 5:30 and lost an hour traveling, so we didn't check into the hotel until around 8:30.

Madelyn was competing first thing Saturday morning, so we decided to just order some take out and eat in the room right before bed. 

I woke up about 6:00 Saturday morning, got Madelyn up, loaded up her competition bag and started working on her hair.  We only had to walk a few steps from the hotel to the convention center, but we wanted to be sure to get there by 7:30.  Unfortunately, Clint took the girls downstairs to eat the complimentary breakfast at 7am, and learned that on weekends they don't serve breakfast until 7:30.  OOPS!  So Madelyn had a bag of fruit snacks and goldfish for breakfast before her big competition.  Not off to a good start....

Before walking in to the meet.

 We've seen a huge improvement in Madelyn's gymnastics over the last few months.  She always scored pretty well when competing in the spring, but we really feel as if she could be scoring more 9s now.  The last 2 meets she had were small, in-house type meets.  She did pretty well, scoring between 8.2 and 9.4 on everything.  None of those meets included awards or placed the girls.  She was SUPER pumped to finally be working towards some medals. 

They split Madelyn's team into 2 groups, and she competed against 6 other gyms as well.  Her first event was bars, which is usually her favorite.

Nailed her landing!



She did great on bars!!  You could tell when she got off that she was happy.  Her score flashed a 9.1.  We were super pumped!!!

Next up was beam.  At Madelyn's very first gymnastics meet in January, she froze on the beam and forgot half her routine, earning her a score of only 7.5.  Since then the balance beam has always been her weakest event, and the one that makes her most nervous.  However, I feel like she also has been working the hardest on beam lately.

It was finally her turn, and I think I held my breath the entire time.  The only picture I got was of her right after the saluted the judges.

She did GREAT on the beam!!  As soon as she hit her dismount, I ran over to watch the scoreboard.  I really felt like that was the best I've ever seen her look on the beam.  I waited, waited and watched the judges signal for the next girl to start.  Madelyn's score never showed up.  At first I though maybe they were just taking a while, but the next girls' score flashed and Madelyn's had never appeared!! They were rotating to the next event, so I ran over to tell Madelyn's beam coach that they never flashed her score.  She was concerned, but assured me that the judges had written it down somewhere.  You know me though, I am NOT a patient person so I was MAD!!!  An hour later, right before the awards we finally learned that she had scored an 8.8!  That's her best beam score in a meet, so we were THRILLED!

After beam was floor exercise.  Throughout the meet I had been checking in with the other half of our team, and found out that not a single girl on our team had scored a 9.0 or above on the floor exercise!!  That's highly unusual, as we generally have several girls scoring in the 9.4-9.6 range, so we knew the judges were being extra tough.  Madelyn did her thing, and looked pretty good.  In my head, I estimated she would probably get about a 8.5.  Her score flashed and it was a 7.9.  As soon as Madelyn saw it you could tell she was upset, so I was quick to give her a thumbs up and assure here that she had done great.

The last event of the day was vault.  When we were at River City in the spring, vault was usually Madelyn's highest score.  However, at Let it Shine they don't practice it nearly as often.  I was pretty nervous because during warm ups, her first vault she missed the mat completely and didn't even do her handstand.  NOT GOOD.  However, on her first vault I saw her run with an extreme amount of power, and she even blocked when her hands hit the mat!  We knew then that she did well, and sure enough she scored a 9.275!

Overall, Chattanooga Classic was a super exciting meet for Madelyn.  She earned her first gold medal for her vault.  She also earned her first ever silver medal for her bar routine, 8th place on both floor and beam, and earned 4th place in the All Around.  What a great day!!!!!

First place!!!!!!

2nd place isn't too shabby either!

I love this one because she looks so happy and doesn't at all seem concerned with the fact that she got 8th place.  We tell her over and over that as long as she knows she did her best, she should be super proud!!!!

Her team won 2nd place!!

Woodland Middle School

A few weeks ago the girls went to a cheer clinic for Woodland Middle School.  Basically it was a parents night Out at premier, hosted by the Middle School cheerleaders.  They taught them some cheers, and even allowed for them to come and cheer throughout one of the football games.

As soon as we found out the clinic was being offered we knew that Aubrey would want to do it.  When I was asking her about it, we were surprised that Madelyn spoke up and said she wanted to go as well.  She usually makes it very clear that she is a GYMNAST, NOT a cheerleader!!!  I think it helped though that some of her best friends from school were going to be there.

That Saturday night, we dropped the girls off at the cheer gym and went to a local brewery / restaurant called Granite City for dinner.  The food was amazing!!  I had one of the specialty martinis and Clint ordered a beer sampler.  It was so nice to be able to enjoy dinner for several hours without the girls whining that they're ready to go.

So last week was the big game.  At first we didn't plan on taking the girls to the football game to cheer.  It was on a Thursday night, which was the same night as Madelyn's last practice before her meet in Chattanooga.  But we ended up taking Madelyn to 2 private lessons the night before, so we decided to let them cheer at the game and Madelyn could be late to practice.

Getting Better

2/26/14 Getting Better

Aubrey was finally moved to a regular room and out of Intensive Care on Tuesday.  I was so excited I could hardly stand it!!  Almost as soon as we got in the room, she had several teams of doctors coming in to see her.  We saw pediatricians from her office, an infectious disease team and a pediatric pulmonologist team.  The pulmonary team told us on Tuesday morning that the fluid around Aubrey's lung didn't seem to be going away, so they really felt it would be best to go in and remove it.

Luckily, they didn't think a chest tube was necessary.  they planned to do surgery Wednesday morning to go in through her back with a small straw that they could feed a camera through to look and see if the fluid was solidifying at all.  if it were they would need to try to vacuum it out.  Otherwise they could just drain it and it should be no big deal.  No parent ever wants to have to put their child under anesthesia, but we agreed it was the best chance and her getting better.

Tuesday night was rough.  Clint was going home at night to stay with Madelyn and I was sleeping in the room with Aubrey.  Most nights we slept pretty well. By 10:00 that night they had Aubrey down to only 30% oxygen with the high flow.  However, at about 11:00 or so she started having problems keeping her oxygen levels up and her levels dropped down to about 87.  The nurses came in and we moved her around and waited.  it would go up to about 92 for a minute or two, then quickly go back down.  I was super concerned.  After an hour or so of constant watching, they raised her oxygen to 35% again.  Even then she couldn't get it higher than 92.  She had been holding steady around 95-96, so I was definitely worried.  I think I watched the oxygen monitor all night and didn't sleep at all.  Aubrey slept, but you could tell she was really struggling to breathe.  She also blew her IV for the 3rd time since we had been there.  Her little veins just couldn't handle the constant stream of fluids and antibiotics they were pushing through them!

Wednesday morning they came to get Aubrey for surgery.  We were able to go back with her while they wheeled her down and got her ready.  Clint went to get her a gift from the bunny tunnel.  We tried to tell her that she was going to sleep and they were going to make her feel better, but she didn't understand what was happening.  They finally started to wheel her back to the O.R.  It was then that told me I had to leave.  Aubrey was screaming and crying for me, "Mommy, stay with me!  Mommy, no!!!!"  I was absolutely heartbreaking.  I began crying and as they gave her the "sleepy meds" in her IV they assured me that she wouldn't remember that.  However, it's a moment in time I know I will NEVER forget.

The doctors told us that we should go back up to Aubrey's room as it could be up to 4 hours before they were done, depending on how solid the fluid was.  We went up to the room and only 12 minutes later they called and told us she was finished!!!  Praise the Lord it was all fluid and they simply drained it.  As soon as I saw her you could tell she felt MUCH better.  She was no longer struggling to breathe, and seemed relaxed. 

By that afternoon Aubrey had dramatically improved.  She even asked to color a picture!!

They told her a couple of hours later that she could drink and eat something.  It had been 5 days since she was allowed to eat anything but broth!!  Some awesome friends of mine had sent an edible arrangement, and later that same day Aubrey received 2 more edible arrangements from some of her cheer buddies.  Good thing too, because Aubrey was SO excited to have some strawberries and cantaloupe.

After the surgery Aubrey just steadily improved.  By midnight that night she was down to 6 liters of oxygen at 30%.  Around 4am on Thursday her IV blew again, and they decided she had improved so much they were going to switch her to oral meds and not try for another IV.  That made us ALL happy!!  She was weaned down on the oxygen throughout the day and was moved from a high-flow to a regular oxygen mask by Thursday night.  Friday morning she was completely taken off the oxygen and was able to hold her levels where they needed to be!  Praise the Lord we were told we would go home that night!!!

I pray that we never have to experience anything like that week again.  I will say, as much as we didn't want to be at the hospital LeBonheur is an amazing place!!!  I just thank the good Lord that our baby is back to normal now!

Intensive Care

2/18/14 Intensive Care

So as you can see in the last picture, when I got to the ICU Aubrey was wearing an oxygen mask.  It was too big for her face, and even with the mask on her oxygen levels weren't completely stable.  As I talked to Clint I realized it was much more serious than he had let on while I was in Tuscaloosa.  The doctors came in and were telling me that it was possible they would have to intubate her.  Basically there was no air movement in her left lung and she wasn't coughing or anything either.  They mentioned some fluid that had gathered outside of her lung that they may need to drain with chest tubes.  From my surgeries I knew exactly how painful those chest tubes are, so I was terrified.

They decided to use high-flow oxygen instead of the mask.  The mask and a regular oxygen nasal cannula required her to breathe in the oxygen.  However, the high-flow basically pushed the oxygen into her nose and forced it into her lung.  That seemed to open her lungs up more and she was able to keep her oxygen levels at about 94.  We started at 50% pure oxygen in the high-flow and were hoping to wean it down slowly.

Because the pneumonia was so packed in her lung, they put this little vest on her every 4 hours that would inflate and deflate, making it shake her torso and break up some of the junk in her lungs.  Everyone else thought the whole contraption looked crazy, but having had pneumonia several times myself I remember how good it felt to have that junk broken up.  She enjoyed the vest and fell asleep just about every time she wore it.

Those first 2 days were extremely scary.  Aubrey didn't talk unless she absolutely had to.  She didn't move, except to let someone pick her up and put her on the potty chair right next to her bed.  Most of the time she just looked like this....

The doctors in the ICU decided to try to treat the fluid around Aubrey's lung with a drug called Lasix that basically flushed extra fluid through your body.  They gave her several doses, which only seemed to make her have to use the restroom more often.  One time she had to go so suddenly and so badly that she just wet the bed.  She was so upset about it, but we reassured her that it was no big deal.

In the ICU they were able to SLOWLY wean her off the oxygen.  They went down to 45% percent and waited about 8 hours to be sure she could hold her levels above 90.   Then we tried 40%.  She was able to stay steady there too.

We were completely overwhelmed by the amount of support we received in the hospital.  By Sunday evening the gifts for Aubrey started rolling in.  She had deliveries from mine and Clint's coworkers, cheerleaders, River City, church and everyone else.

Here she is with Cheer Bunny.  The sweet girls from her cheer team went to Build a Bear and made this for her.  They even all rubbed the heart and wished that Aubrey would get well.  PRECIOUS!  She LOVES Cheer Bunny!

I thought this zebra was super cool.  Some sweet friends sent this to her and everyone who came in her room the rest of the week commented on how unique the zebra is....

By Monday night Aubrey was down to 35% oxygen on the high-flow and they told us that she should be able to leave ICU on Tuesday.  I don't think I've ever been that excited - EVER!!!!  They were still concerned about the fluid around her lung and promised to talk to us about that more.

Every Parents' Nightmare

So Madelyn and I were on the road with some friends heading to Tuscaloosa for a gymnastics meet - the Crimson Classic.  About an hour outside of Memphis I texted Clint to check on Aubrey.  He said her fever was down to 101, so we both felt optimistic that she was doing better.

Another 2 hours went by and I text him again.  This time he replied that her fever was back up to 104.5 and he wasn't able to give her more Advil for another 2 1/2 hours so he was getting her ready to go to the Dr.

About 20 minutes goes by and I get this picture with a note that reads "Possible pneumonia.  They are doing a x-ray after the breathing treatment"

That is NOT what you want to see when you are hundreds of miles away from your child!!  While I was definitely concerned, I assured myself that she couldn't POSSIBLY have pneumonia!  I mean, she cheered just 5 hours earlier.  Besides, I have had pneumonia several times, and I know how painful it is.  Aubrey had not complained once about her chest hurting or anything like that.

About a half hour later we were pulling into the hotel when my phone went off again.  As I stepped out of my friend's truck I glanced at my phone and saw the following message from Clint "Ambulance is on the way, she has to go downtown.  Flu and pneumonia.  Starting iv now"

I was so shocked, I literally tripped over a curb as I was walking and caught myself on a trash can.  I told my friends what the text said, and was visibly upset.  Madelyn got upset because I was so concerned, so my friends whisked her away with them while they checked into the hotel so I could call Clint.

We agreed that I would stay in Tuscaloosa with Madelyn until her meet was over.  After all, we were to be gone only 24 hours.  I didn't completely understand why they were sending her to the hospital anyway.  Clint told me her oxygen was low, but really didn't give me any details.  I thought that they would do another breathing treatment, maybe give her some IV antibiotics and send her home.

I found out several days later that when Clint took her into the LeBonheur minor medical place, they checked her oxygen levels and it was only at 78.  The lowest "acceptable" level is 92, so they called the ambulance before even starting the breathing treatment or doing an x-ray.  I'm glad Clint didn't tell me every detail or I would have really had a heart attack!!!!!!!!!!

I called my mom to tell her what was happening, and she must have quickly called my brother.  He called me in Alabama to tell me just say the word and he would leave to pick me up from Tuscaloosa and bring me home.  That seemed like a waste of 7 hours to me at the time.  All of my gymnastics friends were absolutely FABULOUS.  My friend Sharlinda offered to let me take their truck, and her husband Chris told me that he would drive me home whenever.  Everyone was praying immediately, and trying to keep me calm.  I told Clint and everyone else to text me rather than call, and not talk much about it around Madelyn.  I didn't want her to worry, and this was supposed to be our fun girls weekend!!

My friends Rindee, Kim and I, along with our girls, went to a little store that was closeby and went to eat dinner at Logan's.  They did a great job of distracting me, and Clint only texted me with few details.  I knew they had her in a trauma room, and would certainly spend a few days at the hospital.  He told me then that her respiration level was only 86.  What he DIDN'T tell me, was that was her respiration level WITH an oxygen mask. 

As the evening went on they started Aubrey on IV antibiotics and tamiflu and admitted her to LeBonheur.  They told Clint she had pulmonary distress due to the pneumonia.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and Rindee, Kim, and several other moms took the girls to the hotel indoor pool.  This gave me a chance to go up to my room and cry, pray and generally FREAK OUT.  I was torn.  We are parents to 2 kids, so I felt guilty leaving Madelyn and felt guilty that I wasn't there for Aubs.  I felt sorry for my amazing husband, who was having to deal with all of this by himself. 

As the girls came back into the room from swimming and began to get ready for bed, Clint texted me that they were out of trauma and going into a room on the 11th floor.  I felt a little better as it seemed that the situation was not critical at all.  Madelyn and her friend Kyrrin settled into bed, and Rindee and I sat up just talking for several hours, until about 1am.  Needless to say I wasn't able to sleep.  I kept waking up thinking it had all been a bad dream until I opened my eyes, saw the hotel room and knew it was a reality.

Next thing I knew my cell phone was ringing at 5:15am.  I answered and Clint was just crying.  Through the tears he said, "They're moving her to the ICU.  They can't get her breathing controlled."  I simply said "Ok" and we hung up.  I immediately called my brother, who answered quickly and told him to head my way.  I also texted Sharlinda and told her to meet me in the hallway.  She ran out into the hall, where I just hugged her and sobbed.  She told me to get my things and they were driving me home.

I talked to Rindee and she assured me she would love on Madelyn and send me tons of pics and videos.  I woke Madelyn up to tell her that her sister was worse, and I had to leave.  She cried.  It was heart wrenching, but I knew I had no choice but to go be with Aubrey.

By 5:30 Chris and I were on the road driving towards Memphis and Clay was heading towards Tuscaloosa.  We ended up meeting in Tupelo and I was at LeBonheur by 9:30.  I ran into the hospital room, kicked off my shoes and jumped in the bed with Aubrey.  When she saw me, she cried.  So did I....

Cheer for the Kids 2014

Aubrey joined Memphis Pride Cheer last April.  Since then she has been practicing 2-3 days a week for their first competition.  She absolutely LOVES cheerleading, and has been doing extremely well in it.   The week before her competition she had practice every single night.  We tried to make sure she ate well and got in bed as early as possible, as we didn't want her little body getting worn down.  Friday night in the middle of practice she came to me and said her throat was hurting when she did her cartwheels and back kickovers.  I told her she was probably just thirsty and encouraged her to get back out there.  With about 10 minutes left in practice, I looked down and saw her sitting in one of the coach's laps.  I knew then something was wrong.  Sure enough, I went down and they told me she wasn't feeling well.  Since practice was just about over anyway, we went ahead home.  I took her temp as soon as we walked in the door and it was 101.8.  She ate dinner and went to bed.

About 3:00 in the morning I heard her cough and whine and got up.  As soon as I touched her I knew she had high fever - she felt like she was on fire!!  I carried her to the den, lay her on the couch and took her temp - 103.6.  I loaded her upon Advil and lay with her for over an hour.  She asked me to turn the tv on, so I did and turned the volume way down.  She fell asleep within 5 minutes.

We got up and all she kept asking is, "How many hours until my competition??"  We asked her over and over if she was SURE she felt like cheering, and each time her reply was an emphatic "YES!!!"  I texted the moms and told them that Aubs had been running fever and not to let the other girls hug on her, put the Advil in my purse, and off we went.

Before the competition

You can see she was feeling puny by this time, so I loved on her and kept her away from her friends.  I gave her a little more Advil, and she didn't feel too feverish.

When it was time to perform, I was a nervous wreck.  I was so afraid she wouldn't be able to do it because she didn't feel well.  When they introduced her team, the Glamour Girls, she ran out screaming and smiling and you never would have imagined she had felt bad. 

The routine.  You can spot Aubrey by her hair :)

We were SO proud of the team!!  They all did a fabulous job!  Clint went to go get Aubrey from the coaches and brought her to the bleachers where we were sitting.  I noticed immediately that she was shivering.  I put her warm ups on her and we waited until awards.

By the time awards rolled around, about 45 minutes later, it was obvious Aubrey wasn't feeling well.  I still couldn't believe she had just performed as well as she had.  She was definitely glad she stuck around though, her team won 1st place!!!!

Aubrey posed for a few pictures, then came over to me and said "I want to go home".  We left immediately.

When we got in the car Clint and I debated whether or not he should take her to the dr.  Madelyn and I were leaving less than an hour later to go to Tuscaloosa for her gymnastics meet.  We decided we didn't have enough time right then and went home.  By the time we got there Aubrey was running 104 fever.  She changed clothes and laid on the couch.  Clint promised me that he would take her to the Dr. if her fever didn't go away soon, so when our ride got there, Madelyn and I left.

We had NO idea just how sick our baby was....