Merry Pukemas

We have a lovely title for a lovely story. Our trip home for Christmas this year was a bit creative. With the price of plane tickets so high, we decided to fly out of St. Louis to save some money. It was going to work out great because Da had a conference there and the kids and I were just going to hang out with Bud and Heath and the kids. The plans were to leave on a Sunday right after church, and our plane to Spokane was to leave on Wed afternoon. Plenty of time.

Well the Thursday before we were going to leave, Jack started throwing up in the middle of the night. Great! That sucks. Jack is sick all day Friday, and a little into Saturday. We are just praying the no one else is going to get it. Ya, right, not with our luck.

Saturday night in the middle of the night, Sadie starts in with the pukes. Ok, this is not looking good for our 7 hour car drive the very next day. Don't worry, by Sunday morning early, Da and Kevin are throwing up and having diarrhea. We decide that obviously we are not going to start our drive. Da emails his colleagues and tells them he will not be making it to the conference.

Monday morning, Da and Jack and Sadie are doing better. The puking has stopped, but they are really weak. We debate leaving that day, Maddie may end up with it still or me
(though I had it over thanksgiving, we hope I am in the clear), maybe we should go, no one is puking at the moment. However, Da is very weak, and does not think he can even load the van, much less put on the luggage rack. We decide to stay home one more day.

That night, I make a very light and easy dinner, eggs and hash browns. I just serve it up, call everyone to the table and Jack throws up all over the table and all the food! Awesome! Things could not be better. In the middle of Monday night, Maddie starts throwing up with diarrhea. Now we have a problem, we really have to leave on that day, because our plane leaves the next early afternoon. We will never make it if we wait until Wed. morn. We call the doc. and she calls in some phengren for Maddie, what a trooper, we throw her in the van with a puke bowl.

The journey starts out slow, some people are still having bits of diarrhea, we stop for the bathroom a lot. We just pass Memphis, when Jack throws up all over the car!!!!! Not just a little. We pull into a gas station and I take Jack in to the bathroom and practically bath him in the sink. He screams bloody murder the whole time. Da takes our the car seat and hoses it down. All this takes about an hour. We finally make it to Bud and Heaths and 1am. We are tired.

The next day is pretty nice. We spend some time with Bud and Heath and the kids. We go and have lunch with Payson at his school. Heath drives us to the airport and we are checking our bags at the curb. I realize I can not find my wallet. I have no ID what so ever! Swell!!! We turn the van upside down looking for it. I call Emily, she runs over to my house and finds it in the corolla. I have no ID. The girls start bawling! They are sure they will have to spend Christmas without me. Maddie says why can't we just go home, we never should of come. Da and I are starting to agree.

They send me through this special security and ask me a bunch of questions, I pass and they let me on the plane. The first leg is pretty uneventful. The second leg, Sadie says she has to use the bathroom, but quickly changes her mind because it is pretty turbulent. She is scared. I ask her if she can hold it, and she assures me she can. About 5 mins. later, Da tells me that Sa has had diarrhea in her pants!!!! Poor girl, she is soooo embarrassed. I have to try to clean her up in the closet size bathroom on the airplane, while we are descending! Good times. I just throw away her clothes and she has to wear a back up outfit I packed for Jack.

We land in Seattle and discover that our plane is major delayed, we get to spend like 4 hours in the airport. We finally arrive in Spokane at about midnight, 2 am our time. We are so exhausted its unbelievable.

We are grateful that we were able to make it home! We loved seeing our family and friends. As I told Maddie the day we left for Bud and Heaths " this is not going to be the best day of your life, but the good news is, you will always remember it" SO TRUE!