Travel and Grandbabies

Hi everyone!

I hope you’ve had a wonderful week. I haven’t written anything for two weeks and the last thing was the post for this blog. I’ve had a harrowing two weeks which I’m sure all of you are dying to hear the details. LOL!

On March 1, I went to New Orleans to participate in one of my yearly conferences, EPICon. This conference is for authors specifically in the ebook field and as I have a lot of friends there, always have a great time. This time though, it started more auspiciously than I could imagine.

I boarded the plane here at 10 am and we took off in beautiful weather. I landed in horrible weather and had my first real moment of thinking that a plane I was on might actually crash. The wind sheer was so bad that two hundred feet from the ground, we were called off the landing. The bumpy climb back up was horrendous but when the pilot calmly quipped, “As you can see, we didn’t land” I knew I was in good hands. It took us another eight to ten minutes to get down to torrential rainfall. During that whole time all I could do was think about just how bumpy my characters on my spaceships had it. If I hadn’t done that I would have been sobbing. Sigh.

Once on the ground, I took a taxi to my hotel and not once could we see two hundred feet in front of us because the rain was coming down so hard. That coupled with the fact the ride cost eleven dollars more than had been posted on many NOLA websites didn’t make the trip begin well. This was all forgotten when I got to my first hotel, Chateau Bourbon, which was beautiful. I had one of the most expensive rooms for a very cheap price as hotels.com worked its magic again. And I did the lazy thing. I had room service and soaked in the huge tub to work out all the kinks.

The next day, I packed up and went to the conference hotel, the Sheraton on Canal Street. This was the same hotel I had gone to twice for RWA, so I knew it well. I had to actually wait three hours to check in, so I walked to the nearest spa and got their $99 special because heaven knew I needed a massage and facial. It actually calmed me down from the previous day’s happenings and I finally began to relax. And this day was sunny and a little warmer than the day before.

I should have realized I was being deceived when I had an allergy flair up. This flair up blossumed into a full case of bronchitus in less than 48 hours and other than my own talk, I was in bed a lot during the conference. Of course, the nearly 80% humidity factor didn’t help either. I got the chills, a fever and a horrible, horrible cough which I could have done without.

Still, all in all, I had a wonderful time with my friends and meeting new people. I also did the online announcements for the awards ceremony, letting everyone know just what was going on that special night. Congratulations to all those winners.

On Sunday, I called my family while they were doing the normal family day and my DIL informed me that she didn’t feel well either and she would be going to the doctor’s the next day. One of the major reasons I decided to go to EPICon this year was the fact that the boys weren’t supposed to be born until March 24 when the C-section had been scheduled.

The best laid plans...sigh...I should have known. My DIL calls me on Monday to say that she was already dialated and they were going to do an amino that day. The results came back late that night and suddenly the C-section was moved up to the very next day, March 10. I scrambled and discovered that there was no way I could catch and early plane home with the bad weather everywhere and every flight booked solid.

I was really bummed and being sick didn’t help at all. I left the hotel Tuesday to get one closer to the airport. Close to the time of the C-section, I began texting my friend Brenda and we talked the whole time. So here are the first pictures of my grandsons, Michael and Joseph...aren’t they adorable? Joseph is the first and Michael is second. Sorry about Joseph being out of focus.

True, they were small, Michael was seventeen inches and four pounds while Joseph was sixteen inches and four pounds eleven ounces but considering they were early, the doctors were very pleased. And they have continued to thrive since their birth. But they will stay in the hospital until they weigh a little more.

Now, I’ve been home over a week and am just getting better myself. I got one peek at the boys after I landed but haven’t been back since as I don’t want to get them ill. I finally went to the doctor myself on Monday and got a lot of medication which is finally making this crap go away. Like I said, today is the first day I’ve even wanted to sit at the computer and type at all.

And overall, the benefits far outweighed the negatives these past two weeks.

Still, as the old saying goes, there’s no place like home!

Hope you all have a great week!

Lynn