I hate bees

So, I ha something happen to me this week that hasn't happened in a long, long time. I got stung by a bee. Let me share the entire story with you.

This past Thursday, Olivia was a bit more on the cranky side at bed time the past night, and squeaked a couple times in the night, enough to wake me up. She did fall back asleep on her own, but that feeling didn't allow for much restful sleep that night. So, I went into the day tired. I also had to go to Huron to referee soccer in the early evening, so I had a lot of things to do that morning. So, I run Olivia to daycare and get her dropped off. I head to the gas station and get filled up with gas and see that I'm running late. I had been having issues with one of my tires losing air, so I needed to go and air it up. So, I head over to the air pump at the Cenex, and put it on the car. The only thing that happens is more air comes out of the tire, and none goes in. I'm angry and dumbfounded, but knew that my day was too packed to get away to work on it more, so I ran back home quick to use my air compressor. To my dismay, mine wouldn't turn on. So, I'm 0/2 now, and late for work, and still don't have my tire aired up. So, I head toward work and stopped off at Coborns to use their air line, and their's lets more air out of the tire than Cenex's air hose did, so now I'm 0/3, and the tire is nearly flat. So, I called up Heather, and asked if she could come and meet me to switch cars so I could use the TB to do the traveling. So, I get to the school, and am waiting outside to get the keys, and I get stung by a bee. I was just standing there, minding my own business, and the dumb thing got me. I gave it a good whack, so I don't think he survived, but I couldn't find the body to dismember (which I would have, because I was mad). So, my arm starts to swell instantly. I got things moved over, then went home to get some antihistamines. I got them in me, and my arm started looking a lot better as the day went on. All in all, a 10 minute car swap turned into a 40 minute project. So, I thought all was going to be ok. Friday morning I wake up, and the entire crease of my elbow is red and hot to the touch. Great.....this is awesome. So, I went to the doctor, and of course they wanted to draw blood. Great....love that. Then the doctor comes in and tells me I have a serious skin infection that if I left untreated much longer would land me in the hospital. Seriously?!?!?!?! From a bee sting....I get a serious skin infection. At least it was only limited to my arm/elbow area. So, I got two options: 1. I could go to the hospital and get an IV, or 2. I could take a shot in the butt. Now, I'm not faced with too many decisions in life that are as difficult as this one. I would rather let someone hit me with a baseball bat than get stuck with a needle, and putting one in my butt doesn't sound like anything close to a good time. IV is by far the better option, but going to the hospital means I'm going to be paying 10 times too much for that service, so that wasn't a good option. I told the doctor I wasn't doing either, what options did I have for a pill. I was told that I didn't get a pill option, I had to pick one or two. So, out of two absolutely awful options, I chose the cheapest. My hip is still incredibly sore. I didn't get the shot in the cheek, it was actually in the hip area, which is bad enough. I have a hard time limping around. Sitting isn't comfortable at all, and there is just an ache that is constant. I have to go back to the doctor tomorrow, where I will again share my displeasure with him. Ohh, it's also not my regular doctor, so that makes it even more fun. I'm going get on my usual doctor, and tell him when bees are in season, he's not allow to take vacation!

Ok, so the update to this is I have a dotted outline on my arm of the previously infected area I'm getting looked at again tomorrow. That will be fun, and tonight I was shuffling vehicles around, because I'm leaving. Ohh, I totally left that part of the saga out!! I'm going out of the country on business next week, so I am dealing with this infection, on a holiday weekend, when I'm going to leave the country. That's awesome. So, I'm trying to get things set prior to my leaving, and I am in the garage walking past my air compressor, and I gave it a kick, because ultimately, it's the air compressor's fault. If it had worked, none of this would have happened. So, I kick it and happened to kick the air check release. Air comes shooting out of the thing. As it's loudly dispensing the air out the valve, I realize that there is nothing wrong with it at all. When I went to turn it on, it didn't need to turn on, because it was ready to go. It was fully charged with air, and all I had to do was put it on the tire to try it, and the air would have come. Grrrrrrr. But, the good news is my air compressor was spared a brutal death at the dump tomorrow morning, and the car is fixed!!

One Big Party

Heather and I hosted our first major get together at the house tonight. I've finally finished the bathroom (outside of fixing an outlet and touchups on the trim), so we decided it was a good time to host our church group. We had a great time, and Olivia didn't know what to do with all the kids her age. Every family here had at least one child her age, and one family has two (a set of identical twins that I cannot ever tell apart). So Olivia had tons of kids to help her play with all of her toys, and it was great to have all the room we had to roam around and let the kids play up stairs, and we didn't even get to the basement. We were missing two families tonight, so had they have been here, we probably would have spread to the basement also. Kind of makes all that cleanup we did down there worthless, but I guess we needed to do that also to get it done, and to get ready for some company in a couple of weeks.

So, in all we had 18 people here, which meant a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers to go around, but all was a great success. We had been providing weekly updates on the house in Sunday school, so the group was kind of anxious to see the final product as where it stands now. I told Heather that I think the kitchen is next, so we'll have to have the group over again when that's completed. I'm not even sure when we'll get to that, but in due time, we shall see.

One Wild Week

This week bustling downtown Mitchell area is consumed by carnival goers for the Corn Palace Festival. I know, I know, all of you who cannot make it down here will miss out on this, but I hope you can cope until next year. Actually, our town is invaded with lots of people. I think they go to Dakotafest during the day, then hit down town at night. We made it downtown tonight to have our usual pork loin sandwich. It was pretty tasty. Also, we let Olivia do one carnival ride, the merry-go-round that merry-went-round awful fast. That dumb thing nearly threw me off. Well, it didn't help that Olivia was also screaming and pushing me away while trying to get off her horse. I finally got everything pulled together for last 6 minutes of the ride (ok, it wasn't 6 but it was a long ride, especially with a scream child). So, that wasn't a big hit with O, but the inflatables were! She loved the jumping bean area, and the inflatable slide, well, after the first time, she really enjoyed it. The first time we sent her up in her socks. She knew just what to do, she climbed the ladder as best she could (as it was slippery and steep and the little steps were pretty far apart) and she got to the top and stepped out on to the part of the slide that begins to go down and WHOOOOOP....feet went out from under her and she's on her rear end FLYING down the slide. I will never forget the look of horror on her face as she came down. It made me giggle, because she's never moved that fast in her life, and the expression on her face showed it!! When she stopped at the bottom, then it was all fun!! She couldn't get back to the ladder fast enough. The second time was a little quicker to the top as she got in front of a little girl that wanted to go up faster than Olivia, so she'd push her up the inflatable stairs. Olivia liked getting up there easier, and this time, it was on the stomach using the arms to slow her down.....she went several times on the slide, but none were quite like the first ride down!

Softball Wrapup

This week marks the end of another softball season. Tonight was the beginning of the all-city tournament. We went in with hopes that it could be our year, but after our first game we are now out of contention. We are back tomorrow in the consolation bracket, and are 3 games now from the consolation title. We do have a shot at that, and if I recall correctly, we are defending consolation champs. Maybe I should check the archives.....

Well, the end of softball tomorrow marks the beginning of the fall season for us here. Heather is in process of going back to inservice and getting ready for a new year. She is excited of a little bit of a change. She is now teaching in a middle school type situation where she gets two subject to teach to 3 different sections of 5th-6th, 7th, and 8th. She'll teach Bible and Social Studies this year and is looking forward to that. For me, I begin the fall referee season with soccer this weekend. I'm not sure I'm ready for it to begin, but here it is! It will be nice to get a few games in again. So, from now till November, we'll see you on the pitch!

Bathroom Project Lingers On

This seems to be a project that now the bathroom is useable will not end. I'm in the process right now of trying to get the trim finished, and I never really realized how difficult that aspect is. I have a very nice saw, thanks to dad letting me keep his indefinitely, so that definitely helps. So tonight I was carefully planning it out, and carefully cut my first piece to perfection......only to figure out I had it upside down......so it was ruined. I think I can salvage it on another part of the bathroom, but I wasn't too happy with myself. At any rate, I did get 2 other boards cut and ready to put into place. Now, for the finishing nailer....which I don't have. So, I will explore that world tomorrow, and see what I can get. Normally I like buying tools, but currently, I'm sick of it.

On another note, I'm trying to get this done because next Friday opens soccer season. It's a fall that will already be busy, and I've got games lined up into October, and more will be coming soon. I gotta get more done this weekend, or I'm in big trouble.

Just another busy summer....VACATION

Well, as you can see by the lack of posts, we've been out and about through the summer. Here are some of the highlights.

We took a family vacation to Tennessee. We visited some of Heather's relatives there, toured the Ryman Auditorium, and stopped at the country music hall of fame. We also had Olivia's first trip to the zoo. She enjoyed seeing the animals, and attempting to imitate them as we went along. Before we ended up seeing the entire zoo though, we lost O. Not literally, but the poor thing crashed in her car seat. She just couldn't do it any longer. But we had a great time there none-the-less. We did come away with a few interesting stories too.

This was Olivia's first time flying, and she travelled quite well. It helped with the new iPad we had gotten for this very reason, to help Olivia travel when she wouldn't sleep, and I'm sure that literally saved us. More on the traveling front though, we left home with a plan to get to the airport early, and be set to just get organized and ready to head out. So, what did I do? Forgot the camera. I did think of it before we got on the interstate, but yet, it cost us a very valuable 15 minutes. Plus, we'd already been running late that morning. Getting up at 5:15 and trying to get everyone out the door on time is a big task, and we didn't quite make it. So when we arrived in Sioux Falls at the airport, we were half an hour behind schedule. We got through security easily though. I took Olivia with me through the metal detector. I saw they still had it, and I figured out how to get to use it instead of the imaging device they have there. So, we get to the gate a few minutes before boarding, but we all needed to use the bathroom, so Heather went, I went, and then I took Olivia to change her. They were in a hurry to get the plane out of the gate, so we were among the last to get on board. I get to the agent who scans my boarding pass, and it won't take it. She informed me that I'd been upgraded to first class and they'd changed my seat assignment. Well, I told them I didn't want it, and since the plane wasn't full, they let me keep my old seat. I knew that I needed to be there to help with Olivia. We get to Minneapolis fine, but Olivia becomes a huge pain in the airport. She's yelling and screaming and won't eat. We finally get her to calm down and head to the gate to find out the plane is delayed. Great. We wanted Olivia to sleep on the plane, not in the airport. So, we are sitting down and my name gets called to see the gate agent. I go up there and she hands me a new boarding pass. I'd gotten a second upgrade. I don't often get two in one trip, but apparently today was my lucky day and this was a very full flight. So, I gave it to my lovely wife so she could get away from the chaos for a while. She's also been taking a summer class, so it gave her the opportunity to be able to focus on getting some items done for class. So, she took the upgrade seat, and now the only problem is I don't think I'll get her to sit in coach every again....

We got to Tennessee and get our luggage and head to pickup the rental car. At the rental car counter, I get up and they pull up my reservation and tell me that I received a complimentary upgrade! Well that was good news. I ended up with a jet black shiny Lincoln. This car was so new, in only had 1,100 miles on it when we got in. Our vacation was rolling in the lap of luxury!! So we got to the hotel, and I told Heather I was going to try and sweet talk the reception is (if it was a female) and see if I could get us an upgrade at the hotel. So, I go in and sure enough, a female. So I sweet talked her a bit, and walked out with the key cards to a suite. So, now vacation was set!!! I love the extras, and to not have to pay for them was even better! So I want to say a big THANK YOU to Delta, Marriott and Avis for a great summer vacation! And one minor thank you to my work who helps me get frequent flier miles and other reward statuses for my trips. I say that's a minor thank you because I don't want them to think I need to travel more to up the level of rewards I receive!