Let's try this again

Jeff turned 50 in early October, and we decided to take him to the beach for a long weekend as his gift.

And then Hurricane Matthew blew through the eastern part of the state with flooding, downed trees and other kinds of damage.

We looked at the calendar to see if we could find another time to go. When we saw that Biscuit had Veteran's Day off from school, we decided to give our trip another chance.

I called our usual hotel, only to find that it was booked up ... in November!

We were honestly starting to wonder if our beach trip was cursed.

And then Jeff got pneumonia.

He hadn't been feeling good, and I told him that his cough was worrying me and nagged him into making a doctor's appointment

Our plan had been to pick up Biscuit as soon as school was out on Thursday. Then we'd drive to the beach and get there in time for dinner.

Then Jeff called and said the doctor was sending him to get a chest x-ray. I got a sinking feeling that our trip was going to be cancelled again.

But by then, I had found another hotel and had made non-refundable reservations. 

I asked Jeff what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to go no matter what, so we got his prescriptions filled and off we went. I did all the driving, and Jeff slept in the passenger seat.

We made it halfway through the 4 1/2-hour trip, only to get stuck in construction and traffic. It was awful. We were crawling on the interstate. And of course all the drivers around us were getting impatient and honking horns and cutting each other off.

And again, I was thinking, "Should we just go home? Have all these things been signs that we shouldn't go?"

Biscuit was so patient and so good for the whole trip. And despite the fact that our original plan had been to arrive around dinnertime, we got there at 10:45 p.m.

I had called ahead to let the front desk know that we would be checking in late, and the woman I talked to was really nice about it and said whatever time we checked in would be fine.

We finally got there, and I got us checked in. Jeff wasn't allowed to touch the luggage, which he felt bad about. I used my mom voice and said, "If you touch a single one of these bags, I will turn that car around and take us right back home!"

I did let him go out for dinner Friday night and Saturday night. Other than that, he stayed in the room. I felt really bad for him, especially since Biscuit and I spent a ton of time out on the beach playing in the sand.

Poor Jeff. The closest he made it to the ocean was to sit
for a bit on the balcony. Luckily, our room was oceanfront.

At certain times of the year, you can see the sun set on the ocean at that stretch of the beach. So Jeff did get to see a couple of pretty sunsets.

Jeff said he had a nice, relaxing trip, but it would've been a lot better if he hadn't been coughing his head off the whole weekend. His whole body just ached, and I would've given anything to make him feel better.

Thankfully, he's on the mend. He has to have a follow-up x-ray just to make sure, but his coughing is a lot better. He's still constantly exhausted, but the doctor said that would be the case for at least a couple of months.

When I asked Jeff how his birthday trip was, in typical Jeff fashion, he said, "It was good."