If I Call it an "Adventure", Maybe I Won't Cry

If I believed in karma, I'd be wondering what I'd done wrong.

This past week was the girls' Spring Break, and we left Chris behind and headed down to St. George for some Grandma & Grandpa time.  The plan was to fill our days with hiking, exploring, swimming, playing, and all kinds of craft projects, and my sister-in-law Emily was coming down with her girls Abbie and Savannah.

Our flight left late Friday night, so we spent the morning packing and the afternoon running errands.  Our neighbors, meanwhile, spent the afternoon in a gang-related shooting incident which caused our entire street to be closed off and filled with policemen.

For a while, it looked like we weren't going to be allowed to go home.  And not going home meant not packing and leaving again for the airport.

We eventually made it home, and in a crazy mad rush finished the packing, ate dinner, and left the house significantly less clean than I had intended to.  But we made it, and the trip began.

Among the items we forgot to pack in our mad rush: the girls' toothbrushes and my swimsuit.

Saturday we slept in and then went hiking at Red Cliffs Recreation Area.  Uncle Blaine and his girlfriend Mel were with us for the day.  This was BY FAR my favorite day of the trip.

Queen of the world!

This was a lot scarier than it looks - I'm so proud of her!

Sunday was spent playing with cousins, baking cookies with Grandma, and challenging Grandpa to a putting contest in the backyard "golf course".

This was also the day my camera broke.  Thankfully Vicki brought hers along, so I didn't have to worry about missing a day.

Monday was a rainy day, but we planned accordingly.  All the girls sewed matching pajama pants with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Emily while I ran around buying craft supplies and a new swimsuit (FYI: Walmart's choices in this department are rather unfortunate.)  We made flower fairies and went to Del Sol, where Grandpa bought us each a t-shirt.

And this is where my vacation ended.

Tuesday morning I awakened to the sound of Vicki throwing up.  Everyone else went hiking at Zion National Park while the two of us stayed home and watched movies.  Then they got back from hiking, with a vomit-covered Ellie, who didn't make the last 10 minutes of the drive.

Wednesday was another day of doing nothing at home.  I finished one book and started another, while Ellie watched movies and threw up a lot.  Everyone else went to the sand dunes in Snow Canyon, and Vicki came home with a fever.  Goody.

Ellie continued into the evening, so by 8pm I was on the phone with our insurance company's ask-a-nurse and the on-call physician at our pediatrician's office.  Both recommended having her looked at, so it was off to the ER, where it didn't take long to conclude that she was dehydrated and in need of an IV.  The poor kid was so miserably sick that she didn't even move when the stuck the needle in.  After another bout of vomiting, they gave her some Zofran, which I have nicknamed The Wonder Drug, and within 10 minutes she was sitting up, chatting animatedly about all kinds of things, and eating a popsicle, which stayed down.  If you ask her what the worst part about the hospital visit was, she'll tell you it was when they removed the tape that was holding the IV on.  It was the only time she cried.

After the Zofran


We returned home around 11pm to learn that Lexi had a fever.  Joy.

So on Thursday, Lexi lay on the same couch previously occupied by her sisters, watching movies while Emily and I cleaned and packed and Grandma and Grandpa took the rest of the girls to a park.  They came back to pick us up for lunch at IHOP, but Lexi elected to stay home.  Knowing I hadn't been out of the house in two days, Grandma offered to stay with her, but I only got out of the house long enough to make it to the IHOP parking lot, where Vicki threw up.  Again.  And where the energy was quickly fleeing from Ellie.

So I had one kid with a fever, for which Tylenol was doing nothing, one kid who was vomiting, and one who had absolutely no energy and complained of a tummy ache (mine would ache too if I'd spent 24 hours vomiting).  Two of them were also having issues with the other end, if you get my drift.  And I wasn't feeling so hot myself anymore.

Did I mention we had a plane to catch that night?

God is good.  I know this because after begging and pleading with Him for pretty much the whole day, we managed to make it home almost without incident.  The girls were in fairly good spirits during the two-hour drive from St. George to Las Vegas, and they managed to make it through security (bless forever the sweet security lady who must have seen the exhaustion in all of us and sent us through the "special" line - the one set aside for airport personnel and wheelchairs) and into the packed waiting area before crashing.  We found a corner and they all lay down and fell asleep.  Once we got on the plane, Ellie was asleep again before takeoff and Lexi about five minutes after.  We made it through the first hour of the flight before Vicki threw up again.  Thank goodness for barf bags and a kid who's old enough to know what to do.

The plane landed at midnight, and when Chris picked us up I sat down in the car and burst into tears.

We made it.

I don't believe in karma, but if I did, I'd have an awful lot of questions for the universe.  I'm pretty sure I haven't done anything to deserve all that.  I do believe in God, though, and I know there's no way I would have made it through the day yesterday without His help.  I did not do that on my own - He was holding me up until I could do it on my own again.

And now, I need a vacation.