Yuletide Upchuck

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We sure did our best.

Hakan came down with some kind of sickness early this last week, and it included a few hours of vomiting, which was fun. He had a fever off and on, and a cough that would make a chain smoker blush. He was luckily feeling pretty normal on Christmas day, though he still wasn't himself for another couple of days.

Christmas itself was great. Gifts were all well-received and the weather in Indiana was fantastic. We went on walks and the kids played with their toys most of the rest of the day, while I assembled things and rearranged others. We upgraded our television to one that did not have scratches all over the screen (pretty sure that was Hakan), and gave Avey the old one, so I had plenty to move around, including getting her very old and very heavy television down the stairs to get rid of it.

Hakan laid down for a nap, still not feeling great, but probably didn't actually sleep. Kira and I nursed colds, but nowhere near what Hakan had.

The day after Christmas was full of packing and preparation for a road trip. Hannah and I decided we wanted to get to Colorado for a few days, and Kira just couldn't bring herself to make the trip, given the past experiences with sick kids on the road, and the long packing preparation and so on. Avey and Carver opted to come along, so we all decided to make the trip in one long, grueling, awful day.

We got ourselves packed and then went for a snack run while also dropping off the old heavy television to be properly disposed of. We left early on Friday morning and made the trip in about 17 hours of driving, with only some fog once we entered Colorado. The kids were good sports in the car, with technology and their ages making it much easier to get through.

Poor Merritt back at home was down with what Hakan had. Kira reported that he threw up a couple of times, and was pretty down. He was eating by the afternoon at least, but then the next day he had to go in to see a doctor with a double ear infection. The poor kid is a trooper, and feeling much better after some modern medicine.

We are having a good time here in Colorado, although now the two older kids are dealing with a pretty bad cold. Carver is coughing a lot, so I picked up some medicine for him today, which is helping a lot. We've got big plans for seeing the latest Star Wars tomorrow, and Avey and Carver are going with Kira's mom to see Frozen 2 on Tuesday. I'm really glad that all of my siblings were able to come, and we even met up with our dad for pizza last night.

Kira sounds like she's managing pretty well, considering she's got a sick boy and a bored doggy.

Maybe after some more sleep we'll start feeling back to normal.