Sick in Arizona

Sunday morning we went to Melissa and Logan's Ward because they were blessing their baby Addison. The testimony meeting afterwards had a lot of children bearing their testimonies and also a teenager telling a way too detailed story about an intoxicated person she helped. It made realize that every Ward has it's quirky people, we're not unique here in Michigan. Melissa also bore her testimony about how God will give you what you want (ie a baby girl) all you have to do is ask.  This is so untrue and honestly made me really upset. God is not a genie. And if He was I would have a baby right now. I really wanted to get up after her and clarify that God will NOT give you what you want but He will give you what you need in this life, He will be there for you when things are hard and all will be made right in the next life. But I'm not sure she would have appreciated that so I didn't.

Sunday afternoon Keshia, Logan, and Jezerea's families all came over to the Hatch house for dinner. We hardly saw Tara's family this trip which was disappointing for our kids. Tyler actually helped make the spaghetti for his mom since his mom had been at his grandparents house. We haven't seen his grandparents for years because apparently they are anti visiting with extended family. So weird. The boys also helped their Poppy make the garlic bread for dinner and it turned out SUPER salty because Poppy got a little too generous with the garlic salt. We all tried to scrape off the salt but it didn't help much. 

All of Sunday I was starting to feel achy and a little congested and just off. That night it hit hard. I was super achy and alternated between chills and sweats. I took some Tylenol and it helped but I was not feeling great Monday morning. We had planned our one and only outing with his parents and Keshia's family for Monday and I really didn't want to miss out so I had Tyler buy me some medicine. We were going to Out of Africa in Camp Verde and since it was all outdoors I wasn't worried about spreading my disease but I just needed to not feel so crappy. The medicine helped manage the symptoms and quite honestly I think the fresh air was good for me. By the end I was definitely exhausted and ready to just go home but it was a good time overall.

The first thing we did there was go on the Safari Tour. We all got to feed a giraffe a leaf during it and we were told we were lucky because every giraffe on site came up and ate- that usually doesn't happen. All of the kids enjoyed feeding the giraffes except for Lucy, she was terrified and Tyler had to basically do it for her. Seeing how giraffes mostly use their tongue, I was more grossed out than scared. There was also a fun zebra I documented who kept "smiling" because it wanted more cookies from the driver. It's funny that the driver said they don't train the animals to come to the bus but I am pretty sure giving them cookies everytime they come to the bus is what you would call "training" them...

After that tour it was lunchtime so we walked over to where the food was. We were told walking was better than talking the shuttle because we'd see more animals. Well all we saw was a rhino so I am not so sure it was worth it but whatever. When ordering lunch we got the last 2 pizza slices much to the disappointment of Keshia's kids, we're the worst. When we finished eating we went to watch the Tiger Splash Show. We got the lame, old tiger who was not in the mood for much of anything. They got him to pounce on a couple pairs of pants with balloons in them and he did one cool jump and that was it. The kids still seemed to think it was cool though so I guess it was still a win.

We did some walking after the show and saw a bunch of different animals. We had hoped to see a capybara but never did find out where it was hiding. We did see some lemurs, and Emus- one Emu that seemed to perk up everytime we spoke of pecking out someone's eye. We stopped in at the reptile house and got to learn about some of the snakes and the kids got to pet a really big snake- I can't remember what kind it was.

After the snakes we walked around seeing more animals. The animals were all pretty active and close to the fences so it was a really cool way to end our visit. We saw (and heard) lots of lions and tigers. One lion followed Tyler and that was slighlty creepy. We also saw some hyenas, wolves (there were workers in the cage basically snuggling with the wolves) and one bear who looked super unhappy to be awoken from his hibernation. I really think this last walk through with all the active animals was one of my favorite parts of the outing.

By this time we were all spent so we took the shuttle back to the gates, did a quick walk through of the gift shop and then drove the 2 hours back home.

Monday was also our anniversary so when we got back Tyler's parents told us to go out and they would feed the kids. We had talked about going to Benihana but since I wasn't feeling well, I didn't want to do a big long, fancy dinner. Instead we went and got some dinner at my favorite, Mi Amigo's and then called it a night.

That night was another bad night of aches, fevers and chills. I decided with me flying out Thursday I better not do anymore outings, I needed to rest up and stop diseasing people. Tyler was starting to feel congested too so he probably needed to rest as well but he still had work and he had a car to finish fixing, poor guy. So I spent Tuesday at home, doing some packing but mostly resting. My family was nice enough to entertain my children. My parents picked up the kids and took them out to lunch and then Mike picked them up after work and brought them to his house to play. We had been planning to go to the temple with Tyler's parents that night but I wasn't going to spread my disease there so we had to cancel. I was super bummed because this was going to be my opportunity to see the newly remodeled temple. Instead Tyler picked up dinner for us and his parents. We had an interesting conversation with them about how they rated as parents. His mom gave them a C and Tyler's dad was offeneded and felt they should at least get a B. There was also a lot of political talk.

Wednesday I did more packing and resting and Tyler did more working while still feeling under the weather. Once again my family rescued the children. My parents took them to Uptown Jungle in the morning and Rebecca picked up the boys in the afternoon to play at her house. The girls stayed home because Reese came over after school to play with them. I am glad they were able to get so much cousin time despite me being stuck at home. 

Wednesday evening Tyler's dad took us all out to ice cream at the Golden Spoon. I still was feeling miserable but the kids enjoyed their ice cream- they got way too big of sizes but that seems to be the Poppy way.

Also, this past week I had bought a pack of Pokemon puzzles with Ben and he had promised to help me with all of them. He kept his promise and actually ended up doing the last one mostly by himself. He told me that he actually likes puzzles, as long as their Pokemon ones ;)

Thursday morning it was time for me, Steven, Lucy and Penny to fly home. Penny woke up that morning with aches and a fever. She was in tears all morning and I was stressing out thinking of having to have her stand in lines for luggage and security like this. I gave her some Tyenol and Tyler gave her a blessing and the combination was perfect. She did so good at the airport (and thankfully the lines were short). She only had one complaint as we were boarding that her tummy hurt and then she was miraculously fine for the whole flight. Such a blessing. The flight for me was a bit nauseating- there was quite a bit of turbulance- but I didn't have any crazy coughing fits. 

My friend Melissa picked us up from the airport and her timing was impeccable and she was right outside our door for the luggage with a nice and toasty car. It was just what I needed as we re-entered this wicked cold climate. She filled me in on all her life drama since I left and so it was an entertaining ride. She ended up taking us back to her house because that was where my car was at and this was when Penny finally broke down and started crying again. She did not appreciate my cold car and I think the blessing had just "wore off" ;). She basically whined and cried until I put her to bed for the night.

Friday, Penny's fever had broke and she seemed to be doing much better, just congested. I spent Friday trying to clean and organize the messy house I had left behind and I also had to order and pick up groceries. I did all this in the comfort of my jammies. It is so nice to be back in my own space again. Now we just need Tyler and Ben back here too. Hopefully they will arrive Sunday night as planned and then it will be back to real life as usual.