SPRING FLING

Just look at this smiling girl! SO MUCH BETTER today!

 SouthPark had their Spring Fling (which is basically like a low-key carnival) and since the Cub Scout Campout got cancelled due to predicted severe storms all weekend long, we were all in town and available to go support the fundraiser!

Yes, it rained, but that is mostly the result of water balloons crashing down onto Alex's head!

He got so close to the dunk tank to make a hit that he got soaked from the splash!

Go Bulldogs!

STREP AND THEN SOME...

Thursday looked like this:

 And Friday looked like this:

 Busy Cora doesn't normally slow down, let alone stop (and stay on the couch all day long for two days straight). The bigger problem though was that her fever wasn't going away with the meds (Tylenol or Advil). A quick check with Nurse Grambot and a call to our doctor sent us back to the doctor's office, where we discovered she had tonsillitis on top of the strep throat. So, new meds were prescribed and get well flowers were purchased to cheer her up, and by this morning she was almost a new woman!

She was given the OK by the doc to attend dance recital rehearsal this morning (since she'd been on meds since Wednesday and her fever broke last night), though he asked us to double dose her with meds and keep an eye on her in case she got tired and needed to stop dancing and just sit and watch instead. She was full of energy though, and we ended up staying an extra hour to help sort recital costumes, so she was running around the other studios with some of the Demi Pointe girls and getting some extra production number practice in. I was so thankful to see her feeling better!

SWEET SLIPS

We saved some mature potatoes (since January...) and planned to stick them in the garden when the spring planting season arrived. Well, when we finally did the research, we learned that you're supposed to plant "slips" for sweet potatoes (even though you can plant the entire potato for many other varieties). So we got to work growing our slips. Jay conducted an experiment between rain water and our double-filtered Fisher Ferry water: the rain water produced shorter slips with broad, dark green leaves while the FF water produced very tall slips with tiny leaves (reaching for the light).

This is what they looked like about 2 weeks ago - they got broader and taller, respectively.

One sad remnant carrot that tried to make a comeback after Jay had tilled and treated the garden box.

Digging trenches, dipping in root health solution, laying them flat, and covering with dirt.

Fingers crossed we get some delicious Mississippi Sweet Potatoes this summer!

(These were purchased from a local farmer, not the grocery store)

STREP SURPRISE

When I picked the kids up from school today, Cora was yawning and rubbing her eyes (which is unlike her). I asked her if anything was wrong and she said she was "just tired", and I believed her, since vacation had caught up with me too (we didn't sleep well, or much, on this trip). We went to dance and got her changed, and she was really clingy until class started, but semi-happily went in. With 20 minutes left to go, the teacher opened the curtain so that the parents could check out the girls' tap number (and more likely, to let the girls get a taste of performing for an audience and get some of the waving and blowing of kisses out of their system before the recital). I could tell Cora was off, and as soon as Ms. Bridgett spotted me, she pointed at Cora and made a sad face. The first run-through went well and Cora was on it (though not as animated as she usually is, especially with fancy dance moves to show off), but rather than wave and smile at me, she gave me a few pouts...

As you can see from her facial expression above (and in the video linked HERE), the second (and last) run-through of their tap number did not make her happy. I couldn't believe she was THAT tired and started worrying something else was up... As soon as she ran out of class into my arms, I just knew it was more than vacation blues - she felt warm and just looked so sad. As I carried her to the car, she told me her throat hurt. I used my iPhone flashlight to take a look and decided to rush straight to our doctor's office before he closed for the day - we've seen it enough times now that I felt 99% confident it was strep...

Turns out I was correct (and Cora was in no way happy about getting the shot to help speed her healing along - it took myself and two nurses to hold her down, and James' peanut gallery comments did NOT help the situation!) A strep throat diagnosis is always followed by ice cream, but especially when shots are involved... Within two hours, she went from sleepy, but "fine" (cool headed and no complaints of sickness or hurts), to feverish (her temperature was over 102 by the time we got home, though it had only been 99.6 at the doctor's office an hour earlier) and sick. Poor Baby Doll. When she gets strep, it hits her hard and fast :-(

(A similar situation happened at soccer this past fall, though this episode came on even faster!)

ROAD TRIP WINS

For us? Their naps

For them? The normally forbidden candy

WELL EARNED

James worked hard for this Lego set! He spent two weekends REALLY helping daddy build the chicken coop, spending well over 10 hours out there in the heat and dirt, so we paid him $10. It was his first ever paid chore, of his choice (and he picked his salary as well). He combined that with his leftover $25 birthday giftcard and was able to get The Wither MineCraft set. We had it shipped to Gramma's house so he'd have something to work on during down time, but we ended up not having much (busy weekend!), so he got started the night before we had to leave (and we very carefully packed everything up for him to complete at home later).

BEACH TRIP #5

(Sorry, we didn't feel like moving the 18th Street cans out of the photo this time...)

James was determined to teach sissy to boogie board today - and he succeeded!

Cold Cora = Snuggly Cora

One last round of Beach Bootcamp...

Then everyone got cold, the dinner hour passed, and it was time to say goodbye to the beach.

OPENING OF THE BEACHES PARADE

Arriving on scene after the parade was already underway, but they still got a good viewing spot

Excitement building as she realized mama was wrong and there WERE beads being thrown at this parade (not to mention the CANDY). Happy Cora  = kisses for everybody!

Stuffing those pockets full of candy...

She knows just what to do at a parade to get the goods...

We've never seen people give away entire bags of marshmallows before, and Cora was clearly convinced mama and daddy would take it away, so she held onto it very tightly (until Uncle Jamie convinced her that she could trust him to keep it safe in his bag).

Trailers and Jeeps full of superheroes! You can see Jean and Jay across from us. We'd run across the street to grab the Rita's coupons that we saw being handed out...

(There's more where that came from in those bulging pockets...)

What? We had to put the coupons to good use ;-)