Birthday Recap

Andy surprised me the night before my birthday by telling me he was taking me away to one of the places where we went on our honeymoon, a mountain bed and breakfast in the Blue Ridge mountains called the Sugar Tree Inn. It's literally our favorite place on earth.

He told me by serving us ice cream in our Sugar Tree coffee mugs that we have from there and saying he thought we could have some ice cream, but specifically ice cream in our mugs because that's where we're heading the next day.

So Andy took off a half of day on my birthday, which was already a huge surprise, since he had so much going on at work. (I thought it would be a plus if we were able to fit in a dinner out). He had his mom come down to stay with the boys and she brought me an ice cream cake and they sang to me before we left.


We got there and it was gorgeous as usual. Over the course of our three trips there, we have gotten very friendly with the inn keepers and when they saw us, they said it felt like their kids were coming home to visit. We just love them.

The first thing we wanted to do was go on a hike before dinner. So, we set off and were having a great time, and then... we stepped on a yellow jackets nest, which are in the ground. Andy got stung first and about 15 seconds later, I got stung. We continued to head back down the mountain but at a quicker pass. Well, Andy was perfectly fine, but I ended up having a HORRIBLE reaction to it. I got bumps all over my body and was burning like fire. They eventually all swelled up and I was one big swollen itchy ball of flame.

It took quite a while to get it all under control, but eventually we did. We talked of going to the hospital, but since my breathing never got too difficult, I decided to wait it out. I'm glad we didn't.

So, no dinner at the Inn, but we did get it brought to us after things calmed down. I spent the entire night in bed with my loyal husband by my side nursing my wounds.


By the next morning everywhere but my hand, which was where I got stung, was almost better, so we decided to change plans and instead of going hiking we went to see Wade's Mill and the Frontier Cultural Museum before heading home.

Despite the unexpected, we had such a fabulous time together. We commented that even though it was far from ideal, God used the situation to grow us probably closer together than we would have if I hadn't gotten stung.

What a blessing our time away was. To be away and to know our kids were being so well taken care of was a huge plus. We're so excited to do it again. Even, though it had been exactly 2 years since we'd been away without any kiddos, we were ready to get back home. We loved our time away, but we're the happiest when we're all together.