medical mysteries & the campout.

after posting these pictures of putting up our tent in our kitchenslashfamilyroom, i'll share the story along with it.

we have been trying to take a family vacation for months now, and trying to do it before the baby comes, because...well, life just changes after that and i kind of hunker down for a while. 

my sister was going to come out with her kiddos in april....and then that was cancelled because her kids got sick and then, a big shocker, so did mine.  we were bummed.

we had a trip to utah planned for early in may....but then that was cancelled due to our frantic move from the moldy house.  we were more bummed.

we had been invited to go camping with ben's twinner & her family over memorial day weekend....which was cancelled when we found out the day before we were supposed to leave that caleb needed immediate surgery the next morning to repair his arm.

for father's day weekend i asked ben if he wanted to take the kids camping.  being honest, camping is not on my list of top 100 things to do for the weekend, especially when i'm 8 1/2 mos pregnant, but ben loves it & we finally had a tent that was big enough to fit our air mattress in...which at this point is the only way you could convince me to roll my big belly out to the out-of-doors.  and since we'd had to cancel so many fun things due to so many un-fun things, i wanted to be a good sport.

he said yes, got that special gleam in his eyes when he starts thinking about trail mix and bug spray, and we started to plan it.

....only to have caleb come down with a seriously crazy-looking rash that started just above his cast and started climbing up his neck and onto his face.  after 3 days of watching it, putting on hydrocortisone cream & giving him benadryl at night, it was only getting worse.  so the day before we were going to leave to go camping, we took him to the doctor to figure out what it was. 

it's so fun when the peditrician is as puzzled about a rash as we are.  

"could be a virus?  could be an allergy?" she askedslashtold us.  and followed that up with the reasurring words:  "i'd love to be there when they take off that cast to see what's going on underneath there.  that would be interesting." 

uhhhh.  great?  glad this is so exciting to you?  we'll mail you an invite when they're going to take off the cast? 

of course my vivid imagination went wild with that statement.  picturing us on the next episode of "medical mysteries" while a group of experts gathered around as they broke open the cast to reveal something extremely nasty.

she said that if it were a virus, that it would likely be followed by a fever and then who knows what else.  of course this was the day before we were planning on leaving for the father's day campout.  we have to go several hours outside of where we're living to get to cooler weather and decided that it wasn't worth it to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere in case a possible virus hit.

needless to say, but i'll say it anyway.....we were bummed.

so, that's when we decided to bring camping to our home.  we set up the tent, i made some good food, and we invited our new across the street neighbors {who also happened to have been in our rexburg 11th ward back in the newlywed days--and also happen to be a really fun couple with some cute girls--bonus!}  for an in-home campout night.  we put our t.v. & dvd player from our bedroom in the tent, grabbed a bunch of blankets & pillows, and wha-lah!  here's a picture of the kids in the tent, watching "brother bear":

the week before, ben had gone out early to some yard sales on the hunt for a cheap dresser to put the baby's clothes in....and even though he didn't find a dresser, {we're still looking in case any of you local folks know of a dresser up for grabs} he did find this:

our own fire pit for the backyard.  a dream come true for the once hardcore camper extraordinaire.  not me, ben.  the only thing i have ever been hardcore about is naps.  and icecream.

so we roasted marshmallows, had smores, and had fun talking and hanging out. 

that night, ben & caleb slept in the tent.  there was no way i was going to sleep there if my bed was just a few feet away.  i might be crazy, but i'm not that crazy.  

it was a fun night, and i was glad that no matter the circumstances, we finally got our family vacation.

p.s. it wasn't a virus, just an allergic reaction.  they changed his cast yesterday and luckily my nightmares of rotted gangrene skin did not come true.  and also....his pediatrician was not invited to the cast removal.