The flu, again

The flu has struck our house again. Leah and I have it this time. So far John and Sam haven't gotten it. It's the stomach flu too, so there is a lot of laundry in this house. I'll write more when we get over it, till then toodles.

These are just a few of our friends in Wa. Leah and Mason became fast friends. TJ fell in love with Sam and spent alot of time holding her. I think he wants a little girl, bad. We love all of our friends and had such a great time. we miss you all already.

So here are pictures from the oregon coast. It is so beautiful. I could show you pictures for days, but here are a few good ones.

Cranberry fields. This was a first for me to see.

Leah holding a baby kangaroo.
Leah yelled "stampede" as all the animals ran past her for breakfast

I could put a ton more pictures from the zoo on this but i have to stop somewhere. Leah got to pet and picture with a white tiger and mountain lion. She got to hold a ferret, kangaroo, pet a skunk, and opposum. We had a great time.

Redwoods

We went to the Redwoods. Oh my, this is trully a spectacular place and one of the coolest places i have ever been. I am going to say that it ranks up there with the grand canyon. Pictures can't do it justice. You can barely even see John and the kids in this one next to the tree. I highly recomend seeing this at some point in your lives.

Elk. I was so excited to see elk for the first time in the wild. It was awesome.

All the kids!

Our Family Trip

We went to Washington for John's best friend TJ's mom's funeral. It was great to get up there again and see everyone even though we were going to a funeral. Here are some pictures from our trip. There are so many pictures i will try to limit them.

my first baby

This is my little love. Isn't he looking so cute on the pink sleeping bag. I love my little guy so much, and yes i can admit to being psycho about my dog. We all have issues, here's mine.

my girls

They are all smiles now and feeling much better! And that makes me a very happy mommy!:)

this week

So i bet you all thought that i fell off the side of the world, or mountain, but i'm still here. Lets see where to start, well i guess the beginning would be a good place. Rewind one week, John's dad gets the flu and pneumonia and spends a week in the hospital. Then John's mom gets the flu, which really sucks because it's really bad for her to get sick because her immune system is compromised. Then Mindy gets the flu which sucks because she's pregnant, and then Leah gets the flu too. Which is where my life begins to turn upside down. Not that it wasn't already but you know what i mean. So we take both girls to the dr. so Leah can get on some special meds for the flu, and Sam has been coughing for like 3 weeks now and so she gets an antibiotic for that. Not to mention this is not just the regular flu but influenza B as they call it, i guess people are dying from it. not good. So two kids sick is not much fun at all. About two days later Leah is not taking in any fluids and only peed one time in over 24 hours. So if i can't get her to drink the dr. said she would have to go to the hospital and get an iv. for fluids. So i'm freaking in my mind trying to give her everything i even went outside and dug up some clean snow and she wouldn't even take that. So hopeless i called John and told him he had a tall order when he came home to try and get this kid to drink anything. We tried a few things and didn't work so finally John put her in the bathtub and got her to play a little and drink water out of the tub. way to go John. Thank god for small miracles even if they are from the bathtub i didn't care. So currently Leah is doing much better. Sam is still sick and can't breathe when she lays down which means long nights of me making sure she is still breathing. How morbid. So far John and I have not gotten the flu yet. we aren't out of the woods yet though. His mom is doing better and his dad is still coughing up a lung, i feel so bad for him. Then tonight we get a call from John's best friend TJ and his mom died. we are so sad. So we are trying to plan a trip up to wa. for the funeral. Are you feeling my stress yet. It's crazy, sometimes i wonder will life ever be normal or not so much to bear? I guess that's one part of having a big family, there is always something going on and the flu isn't over till every member of the family has had it. We have been hiding out in the house for the last week because we don't want to get anyone else sick. Oh, today i got a wild hair up my butt and emptied the dining room and when John got home from work we started pulling all the carpet up and we are going to lay granite tile this weekend. bless his heart for putting up with me and going along with the idea. ok that's enough for now