Tuesday, January 02, 2018

Happy 2018 and An Update On Our Family "Adventures"!

UPDATE 1-3-18; We all have the flu with high temperatures, body aches, sore throats, coughs, you name it. My new action will be a little late, I hope to get it out tomorrow. Until then I am going to go back to bed. 

Happy New Year!!!

I realized that I haven't been blogging as much here and I miss it. So I wanted to take a few minutes and catch you up on what we have been doing. 


We had a great Christmas. My sisters were in town and we were busy visiting them at my parent's house, but Christmas Eve we just stayed at home and enjoyed the peace and quiet. All three of our boys were excited to open presents.

Yes, I consider Piper the Dog as one of my sons. The annoying one I want to adopt out half the time. ;-)  But darn it, he is just so cute!


Paul and I don't exchange gifts, but we enjoyed our coffee while the kids opened their presents. Give me coffee and I am in heaven.


Piper promptly tore up and ate most of his new chewy penguin toy and then tried to crawl up in my lap. I have an 80-pound lap dog...


Christmas Day we headed over to my parent's house and hung out with my sister Heather and her kids. It was a relaxing day; so relaxing I forgot to take any photos of my parents or sister!  



The day after Christmas our oldest was headed out to the Air Force Civil Air Patrol Cadet Winter Encampment where he would spend 6 days in Bastrop, Texas at Camp Swift for leadership/basic training.

If you have children and haven't checked out the CAP program you really should. It is such an amazing organization. Check out all of the classes they can take. Duke can't wait to sign up for the glider, flying, and cyber-security classes.

We had to have him at the airport at 3:45 AM to catch his van ride. The day after Christmas. Thankfully Paul drove him there. I helped get Duke ready that morning and it was like trying to coax a coma patient to get dressed. Duke is not a morning person...

The boys can't bring phones so we knew the only way we would be able to check in on him is by looking through the photos they would post every day. This was hard on me since this was the first time my son had been away from home that long.


I was worried Imp would be lonely, but his cousin came and spent most of the week at our house and they had a blast. Here you can see them posing with their new laser guns.

Meanwhile I was  haunting the first day CAP photos posted and couldn't find any with Duke! I convinced myself that the van was abducted while en route and Duke was working as a mule for the Mexican drug cartel on the Texas border.

I have a really active imagination. I was going to call the emergency CAP number and insist that I see a photo of my boy holding that day's newspaper, but Paul told me that I needed to stop being crazy because I was going to embarrass our son. Plus he asked me where in the world were they going to even find a paper newspaper? ;-)

Yep, Paul is the sane (and sometimes sarcastic) one in our relationship. 



But the next day I saw my sweet boy in some photos.  HE IS ALIVE!!! 

Here is his Delta Flight, you can see him on the far right.



They had a busy week with classes, projects, training, and they even had some time to play. You can see my guy, third to the left. His flight had 5 girls and 10 boys and they all looked like they were having a blast. 



I love that they really concentrated on teamwork. 


And this photo made me so proud. Look at these kids! 

Wait, does one of those boys have a sick mask on his face?


Yep...


That sure looks like a sneeze...

Oh boy.


Needless to say, when we picked Duke up on Sunday he was fighting a virus. He looked like death-warmed-over and said he started feeling bad the day before around lunch. He was running a fever and had one of those razor-blade-swallowing sore throats and a cough.

My poor baby!

But we were so excited to have our (sick) boy back. And he had had a wonderful time, up to that morning when he had to help scrub down the barracks. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? After all, his CAP's motto is "First or Not At All".

We couldn't wait to get on the road. I promised him a hot coffee from Buc-ees and we would stop and have Mexican food at Brenham. He was sick but he was also starving and he LOVES Mexican food.


And wouldn't you know, 2 hours from home, our car died on the side of the 290 highway. And of course we were getting that arctic cold front and it was COLD!

Luckily having AAA finally paid off and we had the car (and ourselves) towed back to our house. Our car mechanic just happened to be in and we were able to drop off the car. But as it is a holiday who knows when we will get it back. Our Escape has over 130,000 miles on it and I am not surprised it is getting a little grouchy with age. Luckily my 2000 Grand Marquis is a kid and only has 95,000 miles on it. ;-) Yep, we might be car-shopping in the near future. 

But back to my story.  We were in a warm truck with recycled heated air for almost two hours with a sick, feverish kid... It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened 48 hours later.


The next day it was so cold (for Texas). Paul is a heat-loving guy and this is his outfit he wore when we went on our walk with Piper.

Duke stayed in bed as he was running 102F. But thankfully his fever broke during that night and he is feeling much better today. Weak, but well enough to build his LEGO set he received on Christmas.

Glad we got that walk in because the rest of us woke up this morning with headaches, a cough, and scratchy throat.

It is going to be a long week. But I made a big pot of chicken soup in my Instant Pot, and everyone knows chicken soup heals everything.

Hope you had a wonderful New Year!!! I have a new action coming out tomorrow, so be sure to stop by.

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4 comments:

  1. You always entertain me! Happy New Year to you and yours from the frigid state of Michigan! :)

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  2. Sorry to read how poorly you all are feeling with the flu! I love reading your blog and finding useful everyday tips - so thought I would pass one along for dealing with sore throats. I keep Slippery Elm on hand for such cases (really does ease a sore throat). Also some Licorice Root and Stinging Nettle. Using all three keeps cold symptoms away - not sure about helping the flu, but should help for future cold bugs. Rest up and eat that chicken soup!

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  3. Oh my. Not the best way to start the new year now is it?! Sorry to hear you are all feeling so poorly. At least Duke got through most of his week well. That must have been difficult--not only his first extended trip away from home but not talking to him to boot!

    I am glad that you had a nice Christmas. Gosh, Piper is huge! I remember when he was just a pup! Goodness how time flies!

    The picture of Paul had me laughing. What would he do up here in Northern Ontario where the temps are in the minus 30s right now with wind chills in the minus 40s?!

    I hope you are all feeling better very soon. All the best for 2018!

    Lisa

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Rita