workation

So here I am. I woke up this morning wondering if there is ever a time when Blogger gets tired of an un-updated blog and just deletes it. Now I am fully aware that there are many blogs that go much longer without updating but it was still a thought. And with that thought came the thought that I am ready to start writing again. Nothing profound yet...have I ever been profound...hmmm. Anyway, I'll just start out with our Workation trip to Thailand.

So the week before our trip Bennett came down with some sort of stomach bug. We still aren't sure if it was a virus (hard to believe cause no one else got it), food poisoning (likely cause he eats off the floor/ground), or a parasite (again, likely--did I mention that even though our floor gets mopped everyday we still don't let the boys apply the 30 sec. rule, if you came here you would understand). The five days before we left Bennett had vomiting and diarrhea like I have never seen. My boy can eat, anyone who has shared a meal with our family can attest to that, and we had trouble keeping liquids in him that week. I PTL that our dear friend Amanda was here that week spending some time with us. I seriously believe without her we would not have made it through. She helped clean up vomit (yes, this is a really good friend) since I myself was still pukey, helped with the many loads of laundry and sacrificed a week that was supposed to be spent seeing our city to be nursemaid to me and Bennett. Bennett was so bad that he lost about 2 kg (almost 4.5 pounds) So we were to leave Saturday morning on a 4 hour bus ride to the capital city so we could fly to Bangkok on Sunday. I was pleading with Father for Bennett and I to both stop throwing up long enough to get through the traveling. I can PRAISE HIM cause he answered. Bennett threw up Friday afternoon and then began to ask to eat..and he kept it down, little bits at the time (the diarrhea continued for a few more days but not so bad and since we have not potty trained him yet it wasn't such a big traveling issue). I threw up Saturday morning and other than a few more small bouts of nausea I have felt fine since. Stan is positive that I was having traveling induced nausea on the days we had to travel. Any morning we had to get up and be somewhere was when I felt queasy. It was almost as if the anxiety upped the hormones, I think he was right. But my pregnancy will be another post.

So on to our Bangkok arrival on Sunday evening. We were taking a couple of days to have everyone have a check-up with a doctor. Since Bennett had been so sick I really wanted them to go ahead and see him on Sunday evening. So we check in to our hotel and walk on over to the Hospital to the pediatric area. Let me tell you this was an amazing pediatric office. There was a play area (I'm talking full on tunnel slides and climbing equipment) that also had a child's movie playing and a table for coloring. They are open all weekend, including Sunday till 8 PM (obviously since we were there about 6:30). We were seen within 10 minutes of arriving. They had no problem looking Bennett over and doing a full check up on both boys. They both checked out fine--I don't have their stats but they both were fine with weight and height. The doctor said that if Bennett was keeping down food and liquids he was definitely on the mend but gave him some probiotics to get his system back to normal.

The next morning it was my turn. I met with an OB--who came into the office just to see me after I sent a pleading email. I really liked her. She got my thorough history and did all the normal exam, blood work and had them do an ultra sound. The blood work all came back normal and the ultra sound was great. Of course being only 14 weeks along there was no way to tell the baby's gender. But I was very pleased with the facility and feel very confidant about having the baby there. After I was done it was Kirby's turn to have his allergy test done. She decided to add in shrimp and crab to the test to rule out shellfish allergies. After his arms were all pricked and our wait was over we were able to confirm that he is indeed allergy free! He had been drinking milk for a few months but I wanted to just make sure and have it in his medical records. So, another answer to prayer! Stan was supposed to have his check up on Tuesday morning but he got food poisoning and didn't want to deal with the appointment so we had to postpone.

Tuesday afternoon we headed to Pattaya on a bus and got there just in time for dinner. This is where we spent the bulk of our two weeks. Our time there was mostly meetings but we were also blessed with some great times of fellowship, worship and informative classes. The boys got to swim and play each day with their friends. The only draw back is that there was a stomach virus going through the conference as well as a bad cold. Bennett, not being fully recovered from the week before, ended up with more stomach issues and we all got the head cold. Bennett was by far the worst off and got a cough so bad that if he ate too close to bed time, when the cough was the worst, he would end up coughing till he threw up. The colds lasted through our meetings and to our few days of vacation time. We had some friends that stayed a few extra days as well so we did our best to enjoy it even while feeling kinda lousy. You can see pictures here. We left there and went back to Bangkok for Stan to do his check up (including a stress test, I wish I had a picture of him in the little outfit he had to wear), the boys got checked over again and a little shopping (we are now the proud owners of a Wii). We finally made it home and did our best to recover (the boys both went through a phase of having drainage from their eyes...I have never seen that before) and getting back to our normal schedule.

In reality normal schedule doesn't begin until tomorrow when we go back to class and studying but it's been nice to have a few weeks to get life back in order.