Influenza Epidemic and Deer Butchering

Abi woke up Tuesday morning last week feeling "just funny." By Wednesday morning, both Abi and KK were pretty sick with high fevers, body aches, sore throats, colds and headaches. Sammy crashed that night with the same thing, though, he ended up throwing up several times. I started feeling "just funny" on Wednesday, so I was pretty sure that I was in for it too.

Mom came down with it on Friday. Thankfully, she got a lighter case like I did. The rest got it more severely than we did.

Medicine, Kleenexes, cough drops and sick bodies lying around for the past week have made our house look like a hospital. With all the coughing and hacking going on, anyone could've mistaken us for a TB ward. :)

We were so sick that we wondered if we had the H1N1 that's supposedly going around... until Mom discovered that the mortality rate for that flu is 100%... Since none of us died in the first 24 hours, I guess we must just have the plain old, everyday, hum-drum, 7 day flu. Nothing nearly as exciting as the H1N1. :)

Being sick all at the same time has it's pros and cons. It's fun to crowd into a room together, sniffling and coughing, and listen to Mom read a Little House book to us. We had a "sick" bathroom upstairs that all of us sickies used, "sick" blankets and pillows, "sick" couches and chairs... The healthy people weren't taking any chances!

KK's fever must've soared to worlds unknown several times. Poor guy always got delirious. One morning, halfway better Abi had to take care of everybody 'cause Mom had to go somewhere. KK began muttering incoherently from his couch, sat up, then swung his legs over the arm of the couch and stood up. With his eyes squinted almost shut due to the terrible eye ache that the fever gives you, he staggered over to the foot stool and sat down. He sat there, squinting and muttering, then threw his arms and said "This is not our house!" Abi finally got him convinced to go back to bed. :) Poor KK, he's born to be dramatic. :)

After being near death's door the past 5 days, I'm very grateful to be back! (Just kidding!) Everyone seems to be on the road to recovery and so far, no one else has gotten sick.

We were planning on butchering the 13 deer hanging in our shed on Saturday.  Dad, Josh, T.J., Ben, Brie, a few Zooks, and some Martins came to help.

I was so glad that I was sick that day! I absolutely, positively hate butchering. Ya, all you tough girls and boys can be tough and laugh at me, but I don't mind being a sissy. I'm content with hating the whole business. It's just a disgusting, bloody mess.

That said *sigh of relief*, I'm very grateful to all of you who don't mind the bloody mess and came to help out. Special thanks to Dad, Nate, Josh, Ben and Brie who stayed up late washing dishes and cleaning up. You guys did a great job! Also, thanks, T.J. for supplying the butchers with Casey's pizza for lunch!

Sadly, my vacation is finally coming to an end. It was nice to just lay back and forget about cleaning for an entire week! We didn't even clean our own house, we were so sick. Even though it's been miserable, it's also been nice to be able to relax and just read a book.

Since I've been sick, I haven't really had the camera out. But, here are several pictures of one of the fitful snowstorms we've been having. I took these Wednesday morning.

The sun was shining as snow fell thickly, making it look like billions of tiny diamonds, sparkling as they fell to the ground.

I'd never seen anything like that. The beauty of it just took your breath away!

Now, I didn't get any pictures of the butchering day since I was sick, but Nate gave me several that he took with his phone of the deer hanging in the shed.

It looks like mass murder...

Apparently, our window delivery guy walked back here looking for a spot to place the windows he was delivering, and got completely freaked out by the poor deers. :)

How many deer can you fit in a five gallon bucket? Pretty gruesome, huh?

Couples Night 2014

Sorry, this was ready days ago, but somehow I forgot about it. :) I got on today to get a new post ready and discovered this one still in drafts... Whoops! :)

Dad and Mom had the responsibility of planning this year's couples' night. Early on Dad asked Abi and I to do the meal. Mom and he decided to have the event be a mystery theme. Supper was to be what is commonly called a "Mystery Meal." We children decided not to tell Mom and Dad the menu. It was a lot of fun researching to find alternate names for the menu choices. 

Brie and Grace came early to help us prepare supper. They were going to help us serve too.

Cutting sharp cheddar cheese for the cheddar onion bread bowls.

Abi, teaching the girls how to kneed the cheesy sauteed onions and chunked cheddar into the dough.

Egg washing the bread bowls.

We moved the blue couch from the computer room into the living room to make room for the tables and to provide more comfortable seating in the LR.

The dining table

Time is marching on... We were using Mom and Dad's wedding china, so we had to haul it down from the attic and wash it. Gracie polished the silverware.

The heavily laden 'mystery' table. I made cheat cards for every item for easier identification.

Abi suggested that we prepare the salads before hand. I'm so glad we did! It saved a lot of panic. :)

The couples enjoying their unusual supper. :) Thankfully, there were only a few mistakes on the serving side of things. We got quite a few compliments on the food, so it must've been good! :)

We tried to clean up as we went so that we wouldn't have a huge pile of dishes waiting for us.

Ah... Everyone is served and happy, now we get to serve ourselves some well deserved grub and rest a little after the storm.

Brie and I washing the china (and other misc. things). I forgot to mention that the four of us wore black dresses to serve in. :)

Stacks and stacks of clean dishes! Actually, that means we're almost done!

Grace was pretty tired, and since the stools were handy, she laid down to take a rest. We'd all been standing for most of the day so our legs were aching.

Abi had texted Aunt Carol to see if the girls could just stay over night. She said yes, which made four girls pretty happy that night! 

Once we were done cleaning up, we slipped upstairs to have our girls' night. We sat up on the guest room bed snacking on Hershey's chocolate kisses and just having a great time! :) By the time everyone had left, these four happy, but very tired girls, crawled exhausted into bed.

For those of you who weren't there and might be wondering what our menu was, I'll put it here for you're enjoyment. :)

Bird's Eye View: Cheddar Broccoli Soup in Cheddar Onion Bread Bowls

Turtle Delight: Salad

Savory Lollipop: Tortilla Rollups

Feast for Sore Eyes: Carrots and dip

Product of Canaan: Grapes

Church Mud: Hot Fudge Sunday Cake

Jersey's Best: Ice cream

Tea-Rex: Chai tea

Life Preserver: Napkin

Monkey Feet: Fork

Whatchamacalit: Spoon

Swiss Special: Butter Knife

Katelyn, Etc.

Kelsey and Katelyn came over to do more paper work one day this week. Buggy's whale spout was pretty wild! :)

Reaching for the camera strap.

Got it!

Mom was sneaking pictures of me...

Ben and the boys have been deer hunting lately. Joel joined them later this week, so we've had a houseful of boys for lunch (and sometimes supper too!) almost everyday this week.

Cute propeller head 

Sweet Baby ear

Little feminine neck :)

Sammy was building airplane seats out of cardboard.

The sunset was really pretty one evening.

Cooking with Aunt Abba

Sleepy girl

Katelyn loves salt! She'd eat it plain if we'd let her. :)

Mom got a Hot Chocolate cupcake mix that was on sale at Walmart. Wow! They were scrummy!

A bright bit of color in the drab browns of winter.

Our African Violet had just one flower left.

Thursday was supposed to be very windy with gusts up to 50 mph. There were also mini blizzards, or snow squalls, as I was calling them. It reminded me of the Little House book, The Long Winter. The sky would cloud over, and the light would be snuffed out. Then, with a whoop, the snow squall would descend, just like a blizzard. That was a pretty dreary day!

We have an old junk cell phone that we let Bug play with. Sammy turned the ring tones on when she was here one day and let her play with it. She got really excited. Before we knew it, she was "dancing" to the music! Oh, man, we laughed so hard! :) 

Nate's Homecoming

After being gone for 7 months in Haiti, our Nate finally came home!

To add spice to his homecoming, we kept it a secret (for the whole week that we knew his itinerary) from all but immediate family. Boy, was everybody surprised! :)

We were pretty behind in the laundry, so the Friday before Nate came home was spent doing laundry. We were also having company Sat. into Sun. so we had to clean house too.

Ry and Kels have been catching up on NCWD paper work, which means that we get to baby sit Katelyn! Just after I took this picture, Buggy tipped that bag of candy and spilled it all over. :)

The boys have been having a lot of fun making boats out of popsicle sticks and their glue gun.

Organizing all the papers into files is a big job!

ODB files

The amazing duo.

There was a very heavy hoar frost on Friday. Notice the propane level in our tank?

It was also pretty foggy.

 Saturday 

Saturday morning found a very excited family getting ready for Bible Study. We were leaving right after BS for Omaha to do some shopping before Nate's plane arrived.

There's his plane!

The excitement level was soaring high! Everybody was tense with a week's worth of suppressed excitement.

There he is!

First hug is for Mom!

Then Dad...

...and the rest of us followed.

Katelyn wasn't sure what to think of Nate... :)

After we left the airport, some of us went home for awhile, then headed over to Gram's to surprise her. She had absolutely no clue! When we got there, Dad told her that we had a late Christmas present for her that just came today. He told Gram that Josh was bringing the gift in (Josh and Nate were waiting in the car). 

Surprise!

Nate walked in saying "Hi, Gram!" She was almost beyond excited!

Words can't explain how everyone felt seeing Nate home. Finally.

Zoning out...

Uho, I just saw Mom!

Of course, the iPhones had to come out. They got to talking about Apple this and Apple that till Aunt Carol said that we might as well go to the other room to talk. :)

Sunday

There was a beautiful sunrise Sunday morning. For some reason, the camera wasn't getting the right coloring. It was a lot darker reds and oranges than what the picture shows.

Chupps had hospitality so they had invited everyone over for lunch.

Irene and I visiting.

The little people took right to Nate and soon had him reading books and playing with them. :)

Big boys reading little people books...

Yes, Nate's home...

Back home that evening, Nate got his first head scratch in 7 months! :) He was in seventh heaven. :)

Dad wanted to change into his everyday clothes, so he had Sam bring them down. Boys have some pretty creative ways of obeying! :)

Way... too big!

:)

 Monday

Monday morning is laundry day (well, that is, if we can get to it). I had the boys gather the laundry for me and when I went up to put the basket away, I saw this mouse in a trap that we'd had set for months up there. :)

I texted a picture similar to this one around. I titled it, "Vengeance is ours, saith the Grices!" :)

Nate brought home his old iPad for Abi and I. We prob'ly won't use it very often, just for traveling and stuff. I'm looking forward to having it when we go to Ireland this spring. It'll be really handy.

Proud owners of an iPad. :)