Warning: It may gross you out.

Lately it feels just a little busy for some reason. Nothing unmanageable or anything, just lots of little things and not feeling like I have enough time to do any of them. Yesterday Marissa was throwing up, but she wasn't acting too sick. Today Alex is soo sick and keeps throwing up stomach acid. I feel so bad for him. Erin came home with a stomach ache and I've been a little iffy lately too. The stomach flu is a plague in our ward right now. Literally like half the ward is sick. I'm still not sure who to blame for all this. On the bright side, the baby just fell asleep and the other three sickies are asleep with their bowls in the family room, with the occasional moan and throw up that I have to attend to. It is making the freshly baked bread that I attempted to bake today seem slightly less appetizing. While I was putting it in the oven Marissa got hurt somehow and passed out (I hate it when my kids pass out). Just as she was coming to I heard the sounds of some more puke that I had to turn around and catch.

Please hold... okay... add Erin to the list of casualties. She just exploded and didn't make it into her bowl. Thanks goodness for leather couches. I hope that pillow isn't ruined. Poor girl. And Alex has thrown up two more times too. So, anyone want some bread? I've lost my appetite.

I am also supposed to give a little talk at Enrichment tonight. I hope I make it. The topic is renewing your family. I think we all need a little renewal right now. Hopefully the naps will help. Jared and I also had to speak in church on Sunday about setting and fulfilling spiritual and temporal goals. I hardly had any time last week to prepare, so I think it was a little jumbled, but what I said came from the heart so I think it was okay.

Then there was camping. We stayed at the Disney campground, which would have been really fun if we were staying a few days and got to go to all their fun activities. It's pretty posh camping too. They have water, electricity, a laundry and really nice bathrooms with showers. And where you put your tent is perfectly groomed. It was fun, but it was also really cold. I was trying to keep Connor warm in my sleeping bag (not always successfully) and Jared was in charge of keeping Marissa warm. The worst part was that our air mattress had a hole or something so we had to sleep on the ground--perfectly groomed but very hard nonetheless. I'm not sure at what point in life my body went from not being affected by sleeping on the hard ground to being completely stiff and bruised by it, but I'll say it: I'm not as young as I used to be.

(Make that one more for Alex)

The next morning we woke up early to go see our friend finish the Disney half marathon. Getting there was fine, but somehow we couldn't get back the same way we came. We ended up having to go on 7 different buses, monorails, or ferries just to get back to our campsite and had to wait for each one of them. We did not have the happiest feeling on earth at that point. We were supposed to check out at 11:00 and we got back at 12:30. By the time we cleaned up our campsite, it was 2:00--and we still wanted to go to the temple, which closes early on Saturday. Our friends were going to watch our kids, but couldn't at the last minute. I kind of wanted to cry, because it seems like there are always so many obstacles to getting to the temple.

(Two more times for Alex)

Oh, and did I mention the drive up and back? It seems like once our kids hit age 4 they start getting really carsick. This means we have two that get sick now. Since I'm already grossing you out, yes, they both threw up on the drive. There was a stretch of about 40 minutes where I was driving that three kids were crying non-stop, and there was nothing we could do about it. I do wonder why we do things like this and whether it is all worth it, just so that we can go to the temple. But we did both get to go and I am so grateful for it. I felt so much peace when I was there.

I guess on another unrelated topic, I decided to start potty training Marissa this week. I dunno, I guess I just wanted a whole bunch of extra laundry to do. I made this rash decision before the stomach flu, but after one of her diapers got cut open and all those little ball-y things were all over the house. That and her having some pretty bad diaper rash drove me to the great potty training idea. Yep, she's wet again.

oh no, here goes Alex again... here's hoping we have a speedy recovery.

I hope I didn't gross anyone out too much, but since I already gave TMI, I'll end on some other gross but happy news. Marissa just pooped on the potty! Wohoo.