Surprise!

The blog was a little quiet last week, no? I had intended to post while I was away, but it just didn't happen.

I couldn't make mention of it here, but I did take a trip to Missouri last week! Certain people read this blog that I was intending to surprise, so I had to pretend I was just going to study all last week. I did get a tiny bit of work done while I was gone, but that was not my first priority. I wanted to see as many people as possible, and that I got accomplished.

Monday I flew to Kansas City. I could have flown to Branson's new airport for not much more money, but I really wanted to see some family in KC while I was in MO. My aunt Ann picked me up from the airport and I got to spend that evening with her and my cousins, Kathryn and Dan. It was wonderful to catch up with them. Living so far from where 90% of my family lives makes it difficult to see people more than just at Christmas or other major family events.

The next morning, my sister Rhiannon drove up from Springfield to collect me. We had lunch with Ann before driving back down, and went straight away to my aunt Debbie's house. She was in on the surprise and organized a BBQ/swim party so that I could see several households of my family at one time. It makes better use of my short time there. It was a little stormy that evening, but we got a rainbow out of it:

Wednesday was pretty low-key. We took my little sisters to school, then I had lunch with my dad, stepmom and brother. That evening I met up with two of my best friends from high school who still live in Springfield.
Andie and Jenny! I hadn't seen Andie since Christmas and seeing Jenny twice in one month is something that hasn't happened in almost a decade. We went out to dinner and then to Andie's new house so that I could meet her boyfriend. He kindly took our picture:
My throat had been a bit sore that day, but I didn't think much of it. I woke up the next morning SICK with some kind of bad head cold. I was supposed to have lunch with my grandparents, Rhiannon, Braxton (my nephew) and James and I wasn't going to let some sickness ruin my plans. I went and saw my other grandmother on the way, then went to my grandparents' house to decide where to go to lunch. We had a great time. Here is Grandma entertaining Braxton with her storytelling:This lady knows how to tell a story. It's one of her many, many gifts. I left the restaurant with Rhiannon as I was staying the night with her that night. We got to her house, she took my temperature, and we realized I was indeed quite sick. I laid low, and while the family came over for dinner, I tried my best not to breathe on anyone.

I woke up the next day even sicker, although without the fever. Rhiannon took me back to my parents' house earlier than expected, where I laid around and played cards with my dad and brother. We picked the girls up from school and then had a movie night. We had an early morning the next day, so it was off to bed early too.

My parents kindly drove me back to the airport in KC. I finally got my camera back out at this point.

Julianna and Josie

James

A little playtime since we were a bit early.

Half of my siblings

It was a great trip, even though it was marred by illness. I got to see many, although not all, of my people, which was the whole point of my trip. It's so hard to get back home with my school schedule and expensive flights from Philly (it was MUCH cheaper and easier from Denver to Springfield) so I was glad it worked out.

Unfortunately, I'm still sick and found out that I got Braxton sick. Hopefully I can diagnose myself from his trip to the doctor and determine if I need one of my own or not! This was supposed to be the week that I transitioned to my fall work schedule since classes start next Monday. We'll see how that goes. Today isn't looking so good from a work point of view, but I should manage to get some reading in at least, and maybe finish prepping my first few lectures for the semester. Normally I just work through the sick, but this one is pretty rough. I need to heal myself before classes start so I'll be doing my fair share of resting, drinking green tea, taking Vitamin C, and anything else I can think of. It's good to be back home while I'm sick, though. I just have to figure out how to prevent Nick from catching this thing...