The dreaded influenza

Hello family & friends!
I sure hope your winter is going better than how ours seems to be going! I thought we'd be done with illness after Nash's go round in January. It would seem not. Travis came home from work on Thursday after being gone for only an hour and climbed into bed - which is where he stayed until about Friday afternoon when I told him to go shower! I forced him to go to instacare on Friday afternoon and they decided that he had influenza (apparently, there's an incredible outbreak). Well, last night (Sat.) the kids both had fevers by 8 pm! Grrr!! So, now I'm in the process of trying to get instacare to give me tamiflu for both kids (without having to go in there & pay the $60 to see a dr. and another $100 to get 2 more doses of tamiflu just to be told what I already know!) since that's what they gave Travis and he was doing better by last night. What complicates it further? I rescheduled Samantha's friend birthday party (she was supposed to have on it Sat.) for Wed. AND we're supposed to be leaving for our week long trip to Florida on Friday!! Let's hope instacare comes through!!!
Have a better week than we have!

Update: InstaCare finally called me about about 4:30 pm (figures since all the pharmacies close at 6 on Sundays) and said they would not give either one of the kids a perscription for Tamiflu without seeing them (and testing them) first. So, we made it to InstaCare by 5 pm and were lucky enough to get out of there by 6:30 pm. Hey - that's a short wait compared to what I have had before! Anyway, they both tested negative for strep and Nash tested positive for Influenza A. The poor kid had Influenza B last year and he even got his shot last season too! So, since we were lucky enough to see the same dr. that saw Travis on Friday, all 3 of them are now being treated for Influenza with Tamiflu. Yea. Let's just hope that I stay germ free! I did make Travis take a bottle of lysol to everything in the house while I was gone & I stripped all bedding, pillows, towels, etc. and washed them all in hot/hot water. I told Travis, "Spare only the toothbrushes." We'll be buying new ones later this week!

Our regular visitors...

Here are some pictures of the herd of deer we have had visiting us regularly all winter long. There are between 10-15 that show up. They graze on our apple & pear trees and have made quite the beaten path through our backyard. If I could catch a picture of Charlotte chasing them through the yard I would, it's actually quite hilarious. I think she thinks she's a hunting dog!!

Samantha's 5th Birthday!

It's a...

So, I went in to the dr. for my regular check up today (17 weeks & counting). He had a hard time finding the heart beat (happened last month too). So, since Travis and Samantha were there, he got out the portable ultrasound machine. He said, "Either it's a girl, or the boy parts are too little to see still." I told him we were going to go to Florida at the end of February to visit Trav's sister. He said to go ahead and schedule my ultrasound for before we leave so we can take the news with us. I am SO glad! It's killing me to not know!! You'd think that since we have one of each (a boy and a girl) it wouldn't really bother me to not know. Nope, I HAVE to know! I'm a planner. Now I only have to wait 2 more weeks instead of 4 more weeks to find out if it's a boy or a girl. I'm sticking with my prediction of girl and Travis is sticking by his prediction of boy so I guess we'll finally get to find out who's right! As long as the baby cooperates that is!

A Day at the Ranch

We took the kids up to Hardware Ranch today to see all the Elk and go for a sleigh ride. The kids had a lot of fun and it was such a nice day (relatively warm compared to what it has been). The wait to ride was a little bit long but since it was such nice weather it wasn't too bad. We've tried to take the kids up there and go for the ride several times during the last couple of years and it seems like every time we've gone we haven't been able to do the ride for one reason or another. Anyway, here are a couple pix from our adventure!