On the mend

We have been blessed to have this influenza thing easy with only Jason and Diego suffering real symptoms, and all of us on Tamiflu to treat/preempt the flu. Poor Diego had some chest aches that gave all of us a scare, but after a chest x-ray and EKG, all was found to be normal and we are on the mend, looking like doctors courtesy of AF Hospital's mandatory face mask policy . No lingering aches or pains to speak of, except for our stunned pocketbook after the expense of Tamiflu ($87 x 5 people = ouch!) and you can bet we will be getting a bill from the hospital for the x-ray and EKG, but we're not too upset since you can't really put a price on a health.

So all in all: we are fine, but I wish we would at least get Pandemic '09 shirts or something cool to show for it!

We have been incubating...

Influenza is circling our neighborhood, and with the rise in the swine flu, the doctors are treating all the flu cases like H1N1 . We had a fun week, and played with some neighbors all day for 3 days before they found out their baby had influenza. Considering that fact that Athen had been loving on his best baby friend all day, and sharing half eaten strawberries with him, I was pretty sure we were exposed. We stayed home for 6 days, to play it safe with the 4-5 day incubation period, but apparently, it wasn't long enough because today, day 9: Diego woke up with the first symptom, the dreaded high fever *Dum dum dum!*


So, here we go. Forgive me if you don't see me for a while. I'm really hoping we never find out if it is actually the "Swine Flu" since they only run that test if you have to be hospitalized. Meanwhile, what does this up the ward count to Jessie? Are we at like 10th family?

Watermelon in the strawberry patch... and other weekend fun!

Diego has been telling people about the watermelons growing in our garden, which seemed a little tragic to me since those plants were the some of the first casualties of our garden this year (second only to the poor little cucumber plants, and soon to be followed by the carrots I am afraid) So as part of the shower of little birthday festivities for Diego, we bought a watermelon and put it in our garden where the watermelon plant used to be. (Well, it was meant for his birthday, but if you know me, you might have guessed that I could not wait for his birthday so we did it the evening before.) I asked him to go out to the garden and see if there were any strawberries or watermelons we could have for dessert, while the rest of us watched his excitement from the porch, and what show! He was so excited that I gave him this important mission, and even more excited a few minutes later when he finally noticed it! It was my favorite part of the weekend, but with such a fun weekend, there are some other little tidbits that I can't leave out:

-Diego opened a new toy train and Brooklyn said, "Wow Diego, it is Thomas!" to which Diego replied, "Yeah!! Thomas S. Monson!" Brooklyn told him it was Thomas the tank engine, but Diego seems to prefer calling the little blue train Thomas Monson, and has been calling it that all weekend. Too funny!

- A friend of mine pointed out that Diego loves clocks, which is true, although I have never really noticed until she pointed it out. We got him a little plastic Spiderman watch and he has LOVED it!

- We played at a friend's water birthday party, at which they very thoughtfully added Diego's name to the birthday song. A water party with friends was a PERFECT middle for his day!

- We had ice cream!

- He open presents throughout the day, whenever we had a dull moment. It was fun to scatter the festivities throughout that day.

- Our neighbors, the Leckies came over with birthday surprises for Diego.

- Our other neighbors came over to have a last meal with us before they move to Japan. Jason made delicious Zuppa Tuscana, and the kids got to play, for the last time, with this sweet young couple that they LOVE .

- The afore mentioned sweet young couple brought water ballons for Diego so we played water balloon toss after dinner. A BLAST!!!

- We ended the day with a nice walk to share the leftovers and recipe with some Olive Garden loving friends.

In other, non-essential news, my neighbor fixed my straightener, which has been broken for a YEAR. HOORAY!!!