Here we are, on this last day of the year 2012, visiting the southern branch of the Romney clan in St. George, having hoped for a festive and relaxing New Year's holiday/15 Year Anniversary celebration. When we put this trip on our calendar what we did not anticipate was that Troy and I would come down with the flu. Not the puking flu, for which I'm grateful, but the aches/pains/fever/chest cold/head cold/sick-as-a-dog flu. (Otherwise known as the please-kill-me-now flu.) For me it started a couple of days after Christmas, with just a mild cough and though each night I went to bed hoping to feel better in the morning, each morning I woke up feeling monumentally worse. Finally on Saturday I actually started some hysterical weeping as I was packing and getting ready for the Preslar Family Christmas Party because I felt so rotten, but Troy, who by then was starting to feel pretty rotten himself, convinced me that we should still go to St. George that afternoon because at least our kids would have something to do while we were sick. Smart man.
Saturday at noon we attended his family's lunch and gift exchange. It was nice to see everyone and be together, despite the poor company I provided - only three nephews from the whole group were missing. It somehow seemed smaller and quieter than other years but I think that's because none of us have really little kids anymore - all the kids just took off and romped around. No little ones whining at our knees or pulling on our hands to take us places. It was a little weird! But very nice, despite the illness.
After the party we went home to finish packing, which I couldn't manage to do that morning. We shoved everything our sorry brains could think that we'd need into the car and took off driving, leaving our house in such a disastrous state I'm afraid to go home. I don't even really remember packing - as I have looked through the kids' bags, I have been pleasantly surprised to find most of their necessary items such as underpants and jammies. Yay me. Once we arrived here in Utah's Dixie, I basically fell through the front door, handed the kids to Peter and Sheri, climbed into their bathtub and soaked away as many aches in my bones as I could, and after that I don't think I was conscious for more than a total of 1/2 an hour out of the next 24. Literally. I went to bed, woke up feeling unbelievably worse, let Sheri medicate me with codeine and then slept until 4pm Sunday afternoon.
Do I sound like a crybaby? Well, fine, I'm a crybaby. I just have to document the fact that I don't think I have ever been this sick since my marriage began and maybe since before my mission. Troy hung in there for as long as he could until I returned to consciousness on Sunday and then he started his downhill descent, from which he has not quite returned. And that, my friends, is how we spent our 15 year anniversary. What's the traditional 15-year gift supposed to be? I guess for us it's our ibuprofen anniversary!
No photos will be included with this entry for the obvious reason that no one needs to see us in our state of mucous-y glory.
We are deep in debt to Peter and Sheri. There is no way we would have been sick this comfortably at home. Our kids would have kept asking for food and assistance with various minutia no matter how bleary and hacking we were. So, Pete and Sheri, thanks for babysitting for us while we infected your house!! We love you.
Good times. And a happy new year to all.
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