WE LIVE!!

Wow, this was an illness for the ages.

Nina started to spike a fever on Friday, but generally she was still in good spirits, so I was (naively) hopeful that this one wouldn't be as bad for her as it was for me.

No such luck.

She was burning up all night Friday night and woke up Saturday morning with a fever of 104.7. This is high, and had me especially worried because generally fevers are naturally lower in the morning. She's actually hit 104.7 before, but that was in the evening, when fevers usually begin to climb again. Fortunately, her pediatric practice has hours on Saturday, so we scooted off to Damariscotta and saw one of the pediatricians. She prescribed antibiotics because, she said, with such a high fever she didn't want to lose any time fighting it while we waited for the cultures to grow.

Saturday the advil brought her fever down to 101 or 102, but then it was back to 104 by the time she was able to have another dose. I gave her one, she fell asleep, and she woke up totally delirious. Seeing things, talking incoherently about something she saw, then afraid, then back to mumbling and confused. I took her outside for some fresh air and she still wouldn't come out of it. Finally I put her in a warm bath and she came to. Very scary.

She was at 104 again around 11 pm and we talked to the pediatrician over the phone. She was worried about the height and persistence of the fever, and we debated bringing her into the hospital for bloodwork, but finally decided that since she was resting so comfortably, we'd watch her carefully throughout the night and bring her in if she wasn't better in the morning.

Fortunately, she did start to turn the corner. Fever was only making it up to nearly 103 between doses of advil, but she was much more alert. It was such a relief when she started talking and laughing again. And walking, on Saturday we had to carry her. She could barely make it to the bathroom on her own.

Just as soon as Nina turned the corner, Maggie started to tank. Fortunately Maggie doesn't suffer as badly as Nina, but she has still been pretty sick. Her fevers have been nearly as high as Nina's, though I've been too exhausted to take them overnight. There's no point really, it just disturbs them and makes me worried. She's sneezing and coughing too, and generally more tired than usual, but again nowhere near as bad of as Nina was over the weekend.

Ugh, good riddance to this virus. I'm still just totally beat and still dealing with a cough and runny nose. Smack in the middle of the summer, too. What a ripoff!!

When Mom is sick, we watch bad TV...

I am so, so sick. It's ridiculous. I don't think I'm as sick as I was the time I got tonsillitis, but there's still time for me to get worse, so I don't want to make that call and then doom myself. See though, I'm barely coherent. I've had a fever since Monday, which I think is getting better but it's hard to say. Actually, it'd just be faster to give you the symptoms I don't have: vomiting or diarrhea.

Anyway, so the girls and I watched like 3 episodes of "Naked and Afraid" on the Discovery Channel last night. It's a survivor kind of show, only they drop 2 people (a man and a woman) off at some God-awful place (Africa, jungle, deserted island), NAKED, and see if they can survive for 21 days.

We were quite disappointed to see that they blur out everything except butts. America, what's wrong with you! Go through all that work to film naked people only to blur out the goods! It was still interesting, though. In all three episodes the men got sick and the women had to do everything. This has done nothing to improve the male image in Nina and Maggie's minds.

Well anyway, the girls were playing Naked and Afraid all morning. They "made" themselves jungle leaf clothes so they weren't actually naked, then they built this fantastic survival shelter:

My family room still looks like this...

Then that got boring so Nina dressed up like Nick and Maggie put on my clothes. (The hat is just there to keep her hair up, not because Nick's taken to wearing pink straw hats. Not that there'd be anything wrong with it if he did).

Ok, I'm too tired to write any more. Cross your fingers that I feel much better tomorrow!

Nina's Restaurant

Yesterday Nina set up a little restaurant in the living room/family room. It was called the Ebb Tide:

Here she is taking Maggie's order. This photo is funny because Nina instructed Maggie to pretend she was talking to her, so Maggie is sitting there with her mouth open but not actually speaking.

Here she is in her uniform! If you think it fits shockingly well for being one of mom's hand-me-downs, you're right. I altered it to better fit her!

Here's Maggie showing off one of the menus.

And here she is with her order (cocoa wheat, which was free). Nick and I had both ordered 

coco health, which was a mixture of cocoa krispies and healthy mornings cereals. Maggie's

 is a mixture of cocoa krispies and frosted mini wheats.

Too cute! I paid the bill and tried to leave her a generous tip, but when I checked her apron later, I found that Nick had confiscated the tip. Cheapskate!!

Also, you can see that I've figured out how to resize the photos on blogger. I love this platform, but over my blogging years, blogger has tried to make it easier for just anyone to use. For example, at the beginning of my blogging career, I had to use HTML tags if I wanted anything bolded or italicized. Now I just highlight the text and hit the bold icon like one would in Word. Similarly, I had to resize photos using HTML all those years ago. Then they switched it so that I could just select a size on upload, but now I have to click on the photo after it's uploaded to resize it, which I didn't realize. Also captioning is an automatic feature now too.

A vacation at the lake!

After all that hosting, we decided we needed a mini-vacation! So yesterday, the four of us headed west to Sebago to visit an old friend of mine on Peabody Pond, which is right next to Sebago Lake. It took just under 2 hours of drive time, and boy was it worth it!!

 Here's the path down to the water. There were blueberry bushes on either side, and the blueberries were just beginning to ripen.

 We headed right for the dock and went for a quick dip.

 It had to be quick, because then these clouds rolled in and we heard some thunder. Boy did it rain! Eventually it stopped, then we picked some blueberries and went swimming again.

 We spent the night and swam again first thing in the morning. Here's the girls, me, and our friend Heath on the trampoloon. So much fun!

Here's Maggie, bouncing.

What a relaxing day! Nina made us all breakfast in the morning--blueberry pancakes with the berries we'd picked the day before. They were delicious! We'll definitely be heading back there next summer, only this time we'll stay at least a few days!

Oh, yes, we brought the dogs and they just loved it. Marley swam a ton, and Moxie did a few swims. They were exhausted between that swimming, the trip, and the heat. I think they'll sleep for a week!

Our last day with the Hermans...

We had so much fun! Before they left on Thursday, we got a little more time to play with Wyatt and Ray:

 Here's Nina pushing Ray on the baby swing. She's such a wonderful cousin!

 Ok this one isn't cousin time, but Maggie just looks too cute in it.

 Here are the four of them, on the swingset. I'd given up asking them all to pose, smile, look at the camera, and keep their hands or toys from blocking their faces. And look, it's a great photo anyway!

Here's Ray splashing his hand in an inch of water. Give that guy some water and he is one happy little boy! Nina was a little nervous that he was going to spill the water all over her, but all went well.

These actually might have been taken on Wednesday, the last full day of their visit. I can't remember any more. Regardless, they were certainly taken towards the end of the visit, so good enough.

We miss them already!

Family Reunion!

My oh my, what a busy weekend! Here's the whole crew at mom and dad's house after lunch at the Whale's Tale:

I think we were 27 in all. Uncle Lee didn't make it because he was sick, but fortunately he's home now and much better.

Everything started on Friday when Erik and Isabelle, Jen, Gabriel, and Luciana, and Uncle Vito and his new girlfriend Veronica arrived. We had a lovely fire pit

in the course of which Nina, Maggie, Wyatt, and Luciana ate about a bagful of marshmallows.

Then on Friday, Maggie, me, Erik, Isabelle, Jen, Gabe and Luciana took the boat into town and met everyone at the restaurant.

Then it was back to my parents' house for ice cream (lots and lots of ice cream, I'll explain another day!), cake, beer, and another bonfire. This morning we took a trip to town for some iced coffees, swam in the pool, and ate more ice cream.

Whew, it's no wonder I'm exhausted!

Lots of photos

This one is from a few weeks ago. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but one of our neighbors was having some work done on his dock, and this house-like thing was down there for a week or so. Then one morning, it just floats on down the rivah! There must have been some kind of outboard attached to it, because first they came south, then turned east towards where the Ponderosa campground used to be. I think some bad weather was moving in the next day and they were moving it to safety. It was a very funny sight.

Here's little Mr. Ray on the swing! He's the mellowest guy, and happiest when he's crawling around and pulling himself up on whatever's nearby or being pushed in a swing.

 Here are the four dogs, chilling out. They're a good-looking quartet, don't you think?

 Maggie has really been expanding her look beyond pajamas for the last few days. Yesterday it was an old dance costume fairy wings for a bit, then a skirt and shirt for the evening out. With underwear even! Who is that child?

Nina's grown another few inches in the last few weeks I think. She's almost eight!!

Dance Party at the Halter House!

We've got three kids rocking out to the Chipettes covering Destiny's Child's Survivor over here. Too adorable!!

Tea Party anyone?

Nina made a fruit salad and put together this absolutely gorgeous tea party for Tante Vanessa:

Besides the fruit salad and tea (of course!), everyone got one marshmallow. So cute. Unfortunately, Vanessa was taking a nap (she'd had to get up at 4 am the night before to catch her flight here), so Unk got to enjoy the party in her place.

Oh, I almost forgot! There was one other treat at the tea party. Cool whip!

I took this one this morning. It's Nina's nervous face. Wyatt was playing with something and Nina was unsure about whether he could break it.

The heat has finally broken and we had a lovely day today. Much cooler, mostly cloudy, and a little rain in the afternoon. 75 has never felt so good!!

Hot! Whew!

We're enjoying the last day of a nice summer heat wave here in Maine. It's been humid and 'bout 90 every day, with a blazing hot sun. Thank goodness for mom and dad's pool, which with the new solar heater heated right up to 85 degrees. Perfect!

The girls and Wyatt have been spending the mornings jumping in the trampoline, swinging on the swings, and playing in the house. And tormenting the dogs. Poor little dogs.

The guys took the boat out on Friday night for some dusk fishing. It was going well, until the boat didn't restart. They had to paddle home. That was the fourth time we'd taken the boat out though, so in the boating world that's considered a very successful rate of operation. THEN we sold the kid, our old but working boat, so now we have extra money to sink right back into the new boat (tentatively named "the grown-up").

Happy Fourth of July!

And God Bless America!

Lots and lots going on. Vanessa and Ray got in today, so we finally have everyone. Eight adults, five kids, and four dogs. Whew! At first I wrote "ten adults," thank God Nina is reading over my shoulder because she set me straight. At least one of us can count! It's hot and humid too, but I'm not complaining. It was a great day for boating, swimming in the pool, and throwing the ball for Marley.

My eye is much better. My girlfriends all made fun of me for putting the world's worst photo of myself on Facebook for the whole world to see, but what can I say? It was epic. Behold:

Actually, it looked even worse than this. I unintentionally opened my eyes more than is natural, especially for me first thing in the morning, so the swollen eye is more open than it was. But, you get the idea.

Later, to make up for it, I took a much better picture of myself. But, alas, kids and dogs were running around everywhere and I didn't get to upload it. I will right now though. Hang on.

But did I put this picture of me on Facebook? No. And do you want to know why? One simple word. Fidelity. It's a lot easier to stay married when men are horrified by you. Ha!

Anyway, the eye is all better. Now Vanessa and Wyatt are here so more later!

There's a fire house in my basement!

Wyatt gathered up all the trucks in the basement and made a fire station. There's even a dalamation!

He and Maggie are playing really well together. Her ponies are down there too, probably up to no good... setting fires maybe. Ha ha!

Earlier I took the 4 kids (Ethan's still a kid!) to Ocean Point. They were playing in the water and then alternating between chasing and trying to feed a seagull. After a bit, two young women came walking towards the water and Wyatt said to them, "Watch out for that seagull!" in his adorable, squeaky little voice. It was too cute!

Then I dragged them all through Hannaford, which was in full summer swing. Whew, is it bedtime yet?