One Rough Vacation

This past weekend marked one of the most trying vacations we’ve had as a family.  In fact, it was one of the most trying 24 hours we’ve ever had as a complete family.  Let me explain…

We rented a condo in Wisconsin Dells this past weekend with Aimee and Steve (Jenny’s sister) and Tim and Laura, and their respective children, all of whom range in age from 6 months to 2 years.  The weather in Wisconsin had been wonderful, until this weekend.  Friday night on the drive up we witnessed gale force winds along with tsunami strength rain.  Apparently there was a tornado in one of the areas through which we drove!  Not to worry.  The resort we were staying at had indoor facilities which we fully intended to utilize.  Despite the weather, Friday night went off without a hitch.  Everybody got up there safely and the sleeping arrangements were more than adequate.

Saturday was nice also.  We spent a large portion of the day in various wave pools and water play areas, no problem.  The real fun didn’t begin until later in the evening, after a healthy taco meal!  It started right at the tail end of supper, actually.  Ethan started complaining a bit about his stomach not feeling well.  We just assumed he had jumped on one too many lilly pads and discounted it.  I ushered him into our room to get him ready for bed.  Before he could get there, though, he gave a bit of a squeak, ran into the hallway, and threw up everywhere.  He managed to get about 1/2 of the seemingly endless supply of vomit into the tiled bathroom, but there was still a healthy supply on the carpeted hallway.  While Jenny settled him down and cleaned him up, I got the puke from the carpet as best as I could.  At this point we were still dismissing this as overexposure to the water park.

Fast forward two hours.  By this time, Ethan had thrown up all over both of our beds and sheets.  At this point, we knew that it wasn’t overexposure and it was indeed some sort of bug.  Not having a bed to sleep in anymore, we decided to head home around 11:30 in the evening.  Before we could go, our friend Tim suffered a similar fate to Ethan’s.

The ride home was uneventful, if you don’t count Jenny having to hold a plastic bag in front of Ethan to catch the various bouts of vomiting.  To make a long story just a little bit shorter, we got home, Jenny threw up, I lasted a couple more hours before I got sick, and Quin seemed to weather it all without incident.  Unfortunately for him, none of us were able to get up or do anything until about 4:00 the next day.  Luckily he slept a large portion of that time.

So yeah, Quin’s second family vacation was probably not too memorable for him.  The rest of us will remember it, though!