Manwaring Moments: UEA weekend craziness

Let's tell the story of the crazy UEA weekend this year:

UEA weekend is where schools in all of Utah get the Thursday and Friday off so that teachers can have the opportunity to go to conferences and workshops. Anyway, lots of people plan vacations around this weekend, but we were not this year. I told the kids we were going to do lots of neat things though so don't fret. However, here's how it started out:

I took the kids to a pumpkin patch/stand place (you don't pick your pumpkins from the field type of thing, but there are lots to choose from), and Jonathan got a mosquito bite.

It swelled up pretty big right away!

The next day, Friday, Jonathan woke up looking like Quasimodo!

Wow, the swelling!

What is more, is that a)I woke up not feeling great at all, and I had a fever the night before.

b) Nathan was getting ready to go to St. George for a bike race on Saturday.

c)I had a private party that night that had booked Hawkwatch where I was going to show off an owl, and because I had made a semi-big deal about needing to know more information concerning the Hawkwatch events earlier so I can plan...life..., I felt like I now couldn't cancel.

So, we called and did a video conference with Nathan's biking buddy (who was also going to St. George), who is an NP, and he concluded it was periorbital cellulitis. He called in a prescription for clindamycin, which ended up being pretty expensive even with insurance. Anyway, I went down the canyon to pick it up, made it back exactly as Bailey was dropped off to babysit, Nathan left for St. George, and I left Bailey with the boys and with the instructions to take a picture every hour to see if it would get better.

Jonathan at 2:24

Jonathan at 4:45

(this is right after I left)

Jonathan at 6:45

7:45

8:30

Well, it didn't look like it was getting worse, so we thought that the antibiotic was doing it's job.

And yes, I was giving benadryl the entire time. I totally started giving that on Thursday night.

I held Kotori for the Owl-o-ween party for over two hours. I thought I was strong and could handle this no problem, but wow, my arm was sore! I bet you want an owl at your Halloween party now don't you? I know I do! (If I ever throw a Halloween party...)

Well, I got home about 10pm, checked on Jonathan who looked okay, and gave him another dose of medicine, and then went to bed myself. I had a very fitful night though. My fever spiked at 104*F and I ended up sleeping on the floor next to the heating vent, and I felt achy all over.

Next morning I awoke, and Jonathan looked like this:

He didn't have an indentation in his forehead because the swelling had spread to his other eye and was covering his whole forehead. The good thing was there was no pain. I called my friend to have her daughter come watch my other kids because I needed to take Jonathan to the doc and be prepared to be sent to the hospital. (sidenote, I still felt really achy, headache, and now my throat was on fire). We headed in and they sent in blood for testing of a bacterial infection (which came back negative, whew!) and concluded it was a SEVERE allergic reaction to the mosquito bite! I'd say so! That doctor said she has seen about 12 kids this autumn with this same thing. She wondered if it was a different kind of mosquito, or if the mosquitos were carrying some weird antigen or something. Pretty crazy, but he {shouldn't} have this reaction again. He got a steroid shot, and a prescription for oral steroids for the next few days.

11: 30 on Saturday

She did say that it might take a few days for all of the swelling to decrease (SPOILER ALERT: It did take until Tuesday for him to look normal again). One problem down.

I asked if she could look at me at all, but no such luck(their office only took care of patients 0-18yrs.)

So from that parking lot I called my doctor and got an afterhours appointment with the office. It was in 2 hours, so I headed home, relieved the sitter, loaded the kids and then went back down the canyon.

2:30pm Saturday and now at my doctor's office. It IS getting better, he can now barely open his left eye! And the swelling finally stopped spreading.

For me I had a strept test...and it was positive. Okay, crappy, but fixable. Antibiotics please...

I did get a nice talking to about my adenoids (they aren't really big either, but this is my second time this year, as an adult, to get strept throat). This doc talked to me about a tonsilectomy. Yikes, I just wanted the antibiotics! We'll have to visit that subject later, because my kids had just about had it in the office at this point.

Second problem fixed.

Meanwhile Nathan was riding the Fall Tour of St. George.

It's not a race, but it is timed...so of course it turns into a race...

Nathan and buddy Jason before the race.

He called about 3:30 that he had won! GReaT! I wasn't doing super great at home and could really use his help, so he was going to have dinner with the biker gang, then try to start for home that evening. Again great! I was trying to do something for the kids besides just have them watch Netflix at home, so we went to the little pumpkin patch activities by our house...

3:30, and Jonathan's face is looking better and better!

Also fun sidenote, but friend's the Tripp family (who's daughter had babysat that morning), arrived right after we did! It was only them, us, and one other little family. Kind of fun to have it to ourselves. Anyway, then it wasn't 10 minutes into this pumpkin patch outing that I got a text:

"I'm sorry you don't feel good :("

"First of all, I'm okay, but I did get a little bit of road rash when I had a little minor crash. Everything else feels good, but in am going ot be in some surface pain for about a week...sorry."

"No one else went down. I made a stupid mistake messing around and went down."

...then I got sent these pictures?!!?

Wha? I called and he was okay, but he and Lee were messing around on the way back to Drew's house, and...

Then the text:

"Arm has a decent gouge in it."

"Bike might need a little carbon patch on top tube."

"Honestly, I'm just grateful that it's not worse that it is. Helmet did it's job, I hit the back of the helmet pretty good on teh road, but I don't even have a headache or anything. Would have been really bad if no helmet. "

That made me so {happy/mad/sad/scared/other emotions}. He was going to be okay! But, he wasn't going to leave for home until the morning now.

Well, nothing we can do about that situation right now, so might as well take advantage of our horse Chex and the other horse's from Second Chance Ranch at the pumpkin patch activities and ride around a bit! (see, I really was trying to do fun things with them)

All the horses were painted for Halloween, and one was painted like a skeleton and Jonathan thought that was neat! Jack and James both just wanted to ride Chex (that makes my heart sing! He's a great horse!)

Finally, to throw another log on the fire...

On Sunday Nathan and I were scheduled to do a special musical number in Sacrament.

Our friend's son was leaving on a mission, and we had the perfect song.

I was going to PLAY the piano, and Nathan was going to sing.

Now this was a big deal because I have NEVER, EVER accompanied someone before, and the last time I played in sacrament it went horribly. I had been playing this song for about a year, and had thought it would make a great piece to do at for a mission farewell (we are partly in charge at church to get musical numbers together for sacrament/anything else that is musical). Nathan is a great singer, but he had also asked someone else to sing with him 2 weeks before(this person has never done a duet before) and we hadn't had a practice all together yet. Yes, I was very nervous to say the least.

We were going to practice at 10:30 on Sunday morning...but now Nathan was in St. George.

It was good that he was singing because my throat was still hurting, and Nathan wondered if he had broken his pinky finger.

"Don't worry, I'll leave by 6am," he said.

I borrowed the keys to the church on Saturday night and went and practiced on that piano for 30min late that night, which I think helped a ton to know the piano. Not all piano's play the same, and it was great to calm my nerves.

Sunday morning I wake up at 8am and check my Find My iPhone app so I can see how far away Nathan is...AND HE HASN'T LEFT YET! Oh man, I was so {sad/scared/mad/insert emotion here}. He had awoken at 7:40, and told everyone that drove with him "we gotta leave in 10 minutes, my wife is going to kill me!" They made it back at 12:30. Church starts at 1pm. Our friend came right over (and he had been practicing the song with a CD so he felt prepared!) and we ran through the song about 3 times. Then I headed to church with the kids to get our seat closer to the front, and told Nathan to come when he was done shaving. He wasn't going to shave, and I said, oh yes you are. See you there.

WE MADE IT ON TIME!!

Hallelujah!

The musical number went really well!!

After we sat back down I felt like I was going to throw up. Nathan said "you get used that feeling, or you just play in front of so many people that you don't care anymore." I asked "how many was that for you?" A special conference at the MTC...welp, that won't ever be happening for me...so for now, I'll just feel like I'm going to throw up, ha!

We made it through the weekend!

Sunday night we got to go see the Kutterer's for Ann's birthday, and tell our story all over again:)