March Break Part #1 - Chatham

On the first days of the March Break we took off for a visit to the Chatham area. It was nice that the kids also had the Friday off before the actual March Break week and so we could get that extra day in and be less rushed in our visiting. Rob was just at the end of his in-between-semesters "break" (if you can call it that considering the amount of work he was swamped trying to do and catch up on), so we managed to convince him to take two days off from his studies (minus the time he spent studying on the drive up) and relax a little. I love seeing him away from the pressures of the books, it's so refreshing. So we went to Chatham from Friday to Sunday night ... had to be home so Rob could go back to school Monday.

We had a lovely time ... like we always do. Good fellowship, great conversations, very upbuilding and strengthening. The weather was lovely and the kids got some good country air along with lots of socializing ... as did the adults too :)

Last time when we went to Chatham we left with a healthy boy (or so we thought) and arrived with a sick boy. So this time we decided to try leaving with a sick boy in hopes of arriving with a healthy boy :) Okay, we knew that wouldn't happen, but wishful thinking :) All our kids had been suffering from this lovely vicious long-term cold/flu virus that has attacked the school and area. Marietta and Rebecca had been sick most of the week and were still not all the way back on their feet, although doing better. Rebecca was over the fevers and Marietta was still worn out but seemed to be mostly over her fevers. Matthew had also gotten hit by this virus and after seven days I took him to the doctor as he was just getting more and more miserable, even though his fever had finally left on the seventh day, he was refusing to eat and even starting to decrease on his drinking. The doc said his ears were not infected but had plenty of fluid behind them. In the end she said he just didn't look well and could possibly have a sinus infection, so she prescribed some antibiotics. So the next day, armed with antibiotics, our handy-dandy ear themometer, and our bottles of Tempra and Motrin we headed off for Chatham. We figured he was so miserable at home (the "old" Matthew was back) that maybe just getting out and seeing new thing and keeping busy would help him. I would say he did well over the weekend. We did see some fevers again and he did have some meltdowns where he just couldn't cope anymore, but mostly he did good and thankfully he was so exhausted by the end of the day that we had no trouble getting him to sleep (something we always do when we go away) and he even slept thru the nights (yahhh!). To date Matthew's back to drinking good and his eating has picked up a bit (with much effort on our part) but is not anywhere near what it was before he got sick.

Left: Matthew has a fascination with glasses and loves to ask for sunglasses when we are driving.
Right: Marietta trying to read story to two boys with very short attention spans











Matthew loved Buddy. He showed a bit of caution but typical Matthew not too much fear.











Typical boy - Matthew loves trucks and trains, especially trains right now. So it was very fortunate that almost every house we went to has some trains ... and if there wasn't trains there was cars and trucks. He loved all the new toys to play with and since he wasn't feeling well these really helped him get through the weekend.

We were introduced to a new "toy" over the weekend. Seeing as we don't watch TV (just vidoes on our ancient old TV and VCR) guess we don't really know what's out there these days ... not that we're missing anything. Over the weekend we were introduced to Wii. The kids enjoyed various sports games on there ... and even the adults gave a few of them a try.

The girls hanging out for dessert time.