Scraptacular Weekend

This past weekend I went on a scrapbooking retreat with five other friends (Mo, Kim, Raven, Julie and Heidi). What a blast!! We stayed at a place called Blooming Escapes near Madison. The house was built specifically for crafting retreats. There is a huge studio with lots of tables, computers, scrapbooking machines, tools and embellishments. There was also a full kitchen where we cooked and shared meals with everyone in the house. There were 4 bedrooms upstairs, each with 6 twin beds and a bathroom. We didn't spend too much time upstairs, because we had lots of scrapping to do! I didn't get too much done (15 total pages I think, but most need a little tweaking), but I sure laughed a lot! I love my friends! This is the longest I've been away from my kids, but I have to admit that the weekend went by super fast.I guess that's bound to happen when you're really focused on something. 

While I was gone, my mother in law, Judy, helped Justin with Josie and Deuce. And unfortunately, both of them got sick! Both had a little diarrhea, and Deuce had a fever from Friday to Sunday. Deuce seemed better by the time I got home, but Josie's fever was just starting that day.

Her fever was off an on all day Monday and part of the day, Tuesday. She would be really lethargic one minute and up and playing with her brother the next. Tuesday afternoon, during her nap, she woke up crying and burning up. I checked her temperature under her arm, and it read 103.8! That's the highest I've ever seen it. Justin and I decided that I should take her to the ER, so I went to St Luke's, down the street. The nurse took her temperature with a digital thing that she just kinda scanned around her eye and ear (never saw it before), and it read 107! Her head was just radiating a bunch of heat, causing the machine to give an inaccurate reading. So she took her temperature rectally, and that said 104.8. Yikes! Surprisingly, the ER doctor didn't seem too concerned. He explained that in little kids, higher temperatures are not as dangerous as they are in adults (a temperature of 104.8 would be critical in an adult), because kids' immune systems are more active. Anyway, he thinks the fever was in response to a her eye infection (which she's had for awhile) and a mild ear infection. One of the nurses told me that sometimes a child will have a fever for a mild illness but won't have one he/she seems really sick. Interesting. The doc prescribed an ointment for her eye and an antibiotic for her ear. He also recommended giving her ibuprofin and Tylenol every 3-4 hours, alternately. She hates taking her medicine, so every time we have to give it to her, it feels like we're torturing her based on all the tears. Thankfully, her fever has been down since last night, so I'm hoping we will only have to give her the two antibiotics and not the fever reducers.