Swimming with Little Audrey

Last night's dream came out of left field.
In a couple of weeks we are going to Hawaii. My parents are going to meet my family there, and they are bringing with them their "god-daughter", Audrey Gore. My mom and Audrey's mom were best friends. Audrey's mom died a few years ago and her dad remarried without complete approval of the kids. Things have been awkward ever since.
Anyway, Audrey is now graduating from college, and for her present my parents offered to bring her to Hawaii with us. So I will be seeing her soon. (Last time I saw her was at Thanksgiving, which was the first time in years.) However, I have not been actively thinking of Audrey at all, and that is why the dream caught me off guard.
I have never dreamt specifically about Audrey. I have dreamt about her "family", especially back when her mother was alive. I've dreamt of their house often in the past too, but never Audrey specifically. I know this dream was to prepare me for Hawaii in some way, now I just have to figure it out. I thought the back-story would best be told before we got into the dream, so there you have it.

In the dream I was in a very large and deep pool holding baby (1 1/2- 2 yrs old) Audrey near the edge. She had her arms around my neck and I was holding the edge with one hand and cradling her with the other. My parents were swimming with us. The pool was fairly crowded, but not overly so. It was Olympic sized, and didn't have a shallow end. Concrete was all around. Because of the depth and the crowd I talked to my parents about taking Audrey someplace else. I got out and we walked outside to a place I had been before. It was a hot tub that's been in my dreams before... not too long ago. I got in with Audrey. There were college age(the age that Audrey is in real life) boys in the hot tub. While we were in the hot tub (which had two levels; we were in the lower one), I noticed the scenery. It was very different from what had been around the hot tub in my previous dream. It was like a swamp/lake. I've dreamt of that place before too. (In the previous dream I think there were alligators and I was swimming for my life.) Anyway, as I looked back the hot tub even had moss and algae growing on the edges. It all looked very old and run down. At this point I thought that the area was an old camp ground I had visited in my youth and that things had just gotten over grown. I picked up Audrey and we made our way up and out of the hot tub. (As we did, I worried about the boys noticing that I hadn't shaved. haha.) One mentioned to another that I was old when I was going up the steps. I turned and said, "I'm only 35!"
I looked down at the swamp/lake below (the hot tub was up on a cliff... but only like 20 feet high). There was an old mock pirate ship that I remembered from my "camp days". It was all covered with algae and moss and yuck, but there were still boys playing on it, so we went down to it. (I don't know how... that part kind of skipped.) We walked around on the ship briefly then decided to go back up. The side of the cliff had tree roots gnarling in and out of it and some trunks that started at the base were half buried in the side too. Audrey held on around my neck as I pulled myself up the side of the cliff on a rope/vine that was used for this purpose. Half way up, I noted that I had not taken the easy way, and that only 10 feet to my right there was a much better way. We would go down and try that way instead. Then I woke up.

When Audrey was little we all lived in Italy. Every now and again we would go to indoor water parks (usually in Austria). I can remember at least once going to one with Audrey and her family. It was the one time I attempted a flip off a high dive. I knocked the wind out of myself and couldn't breath even when I reached the surface of the water. It was so scary. The indoor section of the dream reminded me of that pool though... no shallow end, big, somewhat crowded with strangers, and scary.
Swimming in dreams is typically a refreshing or cleansing thing. However, noting the swampiness of our setting outside, I'm not sure this "cleansing" went as planned.
The fact that Audrey was represented as a baby just breaks my heart. She is the youngest of her siblings, and has no doubt had the hardest time of any of them with her mother's death and father's remarriage. She is worried about what the rest of her life is going to look like with college over and not feeling welcome to stay at her old house. It's a very deep pool indeed to be in.
The outdoor part of the dream seems like a lot of "trying" on my part, without any real success. A hot tub full of boys her age could be an attempt to lose her sorrow by being preoccupied with boys, but being a baby shows maybe she's not quite ready for that. (Maybe)
Then I take her down to a childhood play structure (the pirate ship) but it's all gross too. There's corrosion on both the hot tub and the pirate ship. So keeping her in a "child" state is not the answer either.
Then there's the mystery of going up out of that situation the hard way... realizing there is an easier way, but waking up before I took the easy way... all the while, Audrey still as a baby around my neck.

Well... I pray that our time in Hawaii would be healing, growing, and refreshing. I hope is some way, I'm able to help, and not make things worse. Dreams are typically warnings when they show bad things, so I consider myself warned to not make "cleansing plans" for Audrey. I'll just follow God's lead, not my own ideas.