Emma's First Vacation

   About half of our time was spent in the cabin, which I suppose is good because then we get our money's worth for staying there! I did really like the size of the cabin and kept saying it would be the perfect size for us. I estimated it to be about 500 sq ft (it was smaller than the house we rented when we lived in California six years ago, and that was 826 sq ft), but couldn't find the exact number since we didn't know the address. There was a loft upstairs with twin beds and a second bathroom, which Michael's mom used while she was staying with us. Our room was a good size on the main floor, with a king size bed, and there was a triangle shaped jacuzzi in the corner! The front porch wrapped around half of the cabin and as Michael noted, "The water pressure is really good." Then he added, "Oh geez, that sounds like something your dad would say." He is right about that, haha!

  The front view from the mile long "driveway" road that I walked down with Sasha twice during our week there. Sasha is good about listening to us, and immediately running to us when we call her, so we felt comfortable letting her outside without her leash to use the bathroom each time. Of course, we went outside with her. We definitely did not let her roam on her own.

  Good morning!! I love this photo of her so much. So cute and happy to be on vacation. However, when we first brought her into the cabin the night before she looked scared and suspicious. I'm glad she quickly warmed up to it. She seemed to like looking at the vaulted ceiling, or maybe she was counting all of the dark knots in the wood planks.

   Emma usually has physical therapy for 30 minutes every Monday at our house, with Lara now that Grace had to move away. But since we were on vacation, we just worked with Emma ourselves, sitting her up more to balance. She's been doing better lately, but still thinks it's so funny to fall back and will purposely put her hands behind her head and start laughing right as she falls back. I always try to catch her right at the beginning of the fall and tell her, "Nooo, you gotta sit up", but it's hard not to laugh because of her huge happy face.
   Driving to Dahlonega after Michael's mom arrived! One thing that was a little more difficult was when Emma needed suctioning while we were driving on all the switch backs up and down the mountains. I kept trying to look out the front window as much as possible while suctioning, to avoid getting nauseous as I was sitting in the back seat, but also had to keep looking down at Emma's trach to make sure I wasn't pushing the catheter too far down each time. Everything was fine; I never got sick!

   One of the places I wanted to go for dinner while we were in Blairsville was Rib Country. Last time, when Michael and I were in town for our Babymoon, we went to a place called Jim's BBQ, which had really good cinnamon sweet potato fries, but I like trying different places. I got the ribs, which were very good and "fall of the bone", as they should be. We ended up ordering the food to go in the parking lot since it was raining a lot that evening and we didn't want the ventilator getting wet. Emma was "talking" (making her baby noises) a lot in the car while we waited, so I got a video of that.  :)

    The first night at Walmart near the check out line, they had the bin of $5 movies. Michael saw Mockingjay Part II (from the Hunger Games series) so we grabbed that since we didn't have it. It rang up for only $3.47, woohoo! Michael's mom hadn't seen it so we watched it with her one night.

   Emma in her mountain trail jammie pants that I couldn't pass up for $3 from Once Upon a Child (resale store). We brought a lot more clothes for her than she ended up wearing ~ something to remember for next time. She's in pretty small sizes still for being almost two years old (6-9 months in shirts, but some 3-6 month onezies and dresses still fit her, and 0-3 months in baby pants), so they didn't take up much space in her unicorn backpack! When we tuck her in on colder nights we usually just put her in a long sleeve onezie or just jammie pants, and cover the other half of her body with a fuzzy blanket that she usually kicks or pushes off anyway.

  Emma and I wore our Appalachian Trail shirts the last day. To be honest, I wore mine four days in a row because it was sooo comfy! Two of the colder days I had a long sleeve shirt under it, so it didn't get stinky. But it's definitely been washed now. ;)