Wednesday, March 25, 2015

A tale of a horse fly & the dentist disaster

So, in my last post I mentioned that we were taking a few days off over spring break & heading to canoe the crystal, clear waters of Weeki Wachee Springs.  Let me start off by saying that it was more beautiful than I could have imagined.  I seriously felt like we were in the Caribbean sea, that's how clear & blue that water was.  So, how then did our trip turn into an utter disaster?


I'll back up to the day before our canoeing journey... I mentioned in my last post that Cam bit his lip while he was numb from his cavity filling.  He did quite the number on it & it looked terrible!  After talking with the dentist, she confirmed I was doing everything I could; ice, medicating for pain & serving easy-to-eat foods.


This blood sucking, disgusting insect is the reason that our outing was a big fat fail.  It was the horse-fly vs. me & lets just say that I lost.  Big time.  I was so relaxed as we started our canoeing journey; the sun was shining, the weather was perfect & the air was fresh.  As the morning progressed to afternoon, we decided to pull off the river to swim & eat lunch.


 The water of the springs is a constant 72 degrees so it was super refreshing.  Although I was uneasy from the get-go because we had to pull the canoe up into the brush to keep it from washing away down the river.  Florida brush = insects.  Insects & myself DO NOT MIX.  I have no fear of heights or really even public speaking, but it's putting it lightly when I say I am terrified of bugs.  As we parked our canoe, I stepped into super squishy sand on the river bottom, carefully trying to avoid the slimy seaweed.  Despite it all, I started to settle in to eat & watch Cam swim.  Everything came to a screeching halt when a horse-fly the size of my head came out of nowhere.  It buzzed all around me, zigzagging around while trying to bite me.  When I say I freaked, I'm putting this mildly.  This blood sucking, massive fly was relentless, it seriously would not leave me alone.  I screeched & flailed while Cam cried that he still wanted to swim.  We quickly got back into the boat & set off down the river, leaving the fly behind.


I paddled away, praying I'd seen the last of the horse fly.  Unfortunately, the bastard reappeared about an hour later & this time we were mid-river & I was a sitting duck.  Again, the massive beast zoomed & buzzed around, relentlessly trying to bite me.  I flipped out & in a moment of desperation, I think I tried to jump ship.  If you've ever canoed, you know the boat is not very stable & easily flipped.  Well, flipped we did & it all happened so quickly.  Thank God my kids were in life jackets because the river was over six feet deep at this point.  I found myself under the boat & very quickly swam out from underneath, desperately trying to orient myself & figure out where the kids were.  Mike had Reese, so when I realized I wasn't strong enough to right the boat, I yanked Cam out from under the boat.  I will never forget the panic & fear I saw in his face.  And it was all because I spazzed over a bug.  I continued to tell the kids that we were going to be okay & they soon calmed down.  Cameron really thought he was going to die, he later told me, "I didn't want to go to Heaven today, I wanted to stay here with you."  How heartbreaking is that?  Thankfully, two nice guys in kayaks helped us to a dock.  We were very lucky that the boat flipped in an area of the river with one side lined with homes so we could get out & drain the water from our boat while gathering our strewn belongings.


When we all stood safely on the dock, counting our bleesings, we tried to assess the damage & see what items were still in the water.  I had my brand new, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phone in a ziplock bag in the pocket of the cooler, so I pulled it out & found that I had apparently not sealed the bag well enough because it was all wet.  I also realized my nice sunglasses Mike had gotten me for Christmas a few years ago were also lost.  If you know me, you'll know that most of the time I am an extremely frugal person.  When I do splurge on an item, I take care & protect it.  I've never had a cracked or wet cellphone in the past & here I am with the best, new cell I've ever owned & it's ruined & worse, uninsured.  In the big picture, this is nothing, I know.  Things can be replaced & I thank God that my kids are okay, but I still mentally beat myself up, knowing I had goofed in so many ways.  I put my kids in harms way by flipping the boat & I was now out an expensive pair of sunglasses & a very expensive phone because I was careless about sealing the bag.


Worst yet, Cameron re-bit his lip when the boat flipped.  It was not a proud moment for me as I stood on that small dock, looking at my soaking children, bloody lip & strewn, lost, ruined belongings. I couldn't get off that river fast enough & we still had twenty more minutes of paddling until we reached our destination.


After camping out in a bag of dry, white rice, we confirmed that my phone was a goner.  We also waited for Cameron's lip to get better as the weekend went on, but it never did.  He was off school Monday so he stayed with me & then Mike took him back to the dentist yesterday (they were closed Monday) & he was given antibiotics to prevent it from getting infected.  He's home with me today & he'll be going back to school tomorrow.  On the bright side, his lip is slowly getting better.  It's been torture watching him suffer in pain; he's on a mostly liquid diet, can't smile & can barely talk.  Yesterday we also found out that the sales guy at T-Mobile put insurance on my phone without Mike's approval.  Hallelujah for shady service because he saved us a ton of money!  In the meantime, I will not be returning to any nature spots during horse-fly season which happens to be March-November.  At least I'll be able to enjoy the beautiful Florida springs from December-February! 

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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Relax & enjoy

I decided to take part of Cameron's spring break off, so I have no work for the next 5 days, woo hoo!  Although, sometimes I think I work harder when I'm at home vs. work, so it's not exactly relaxing.  When I'm home, I have the the tendency to be a bit anxious & antsy since I'm so used to an agenda with working.  I do better when I have structure & a schedule, so I get a little wound up on my days off.  I'm constantly buzzing around the house, trying to get as much accomplished as I can. God forbid I not be productive!  With that being said, Mike's taking the next two days off with me, so we're going to get out of the house & live like Florida tourists!


We're going to head over to the Weeki Wachee Springs to go canoeing tomorrow & have a picnic lunch along the river.  The water is crystal clear so it should be pretty cool.  I'm hoping we see a manatee!


Today was my usual day off so I scheduled Cam's dental filling for today which was not so fun.  His molars came through very weak & brittle which could have been for any reason, one of which were a lot of high fevers as a baby.  Whatever the reason may be, the dentist was able to catch the first three by putting a sealant on, but didn't catch the fourth in time so it had to be filled today.  The little guy did so great, but unfortunately he bit the crap out of his bottom lip so he's pretty sore right now.  Not sure how he managed to bite it since I made sure to only give him a milkshake while he was numb, but that's Cam for you!


This little bra-wearing goofball was an angel at the dentist.  See her pink dress above?  She's positively obsessed with it & wants to wear it 24/7.  I have to pry it off her when it's time to throw it into the wash!


Recently Reese and I had a girl's night in together which included ice cream & popcorn while watching Barbie in Princess Power.  She's about as obsessed with that movie as she is with the pink dress (which you'll see above, she was wearing yet again!)  We rented the movie from Redbox & when it's time to return it, she flipped her lid.  Maybe the Easter bunny will bring her a copy of her own?


While we had our girl's night in, Mike & Cam had their boy's night out.  For Valentine's Day, I bought Mike & Cam a ticket for the Lightning game since Cameron had never been to a hockey game before.  They had an absolute blast!


I tried my first French braid on Reese last night & I was pretty excited that it came out decently!  She was just sitting on my lap eating a snack when I decided to give it a whirl.  It's the little things in life that make me happy!

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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The toothless wonder & other happenings

Cameron lost his other front tooth after school yesterday so he's without his two front teeth!



He looks so cute without them!


In other news, work has been super busy lately, so I'm especially thankful to have my Wednesday off today.  After we got Cam on the bus, I headed out on a nice, long walk with Reese this morning.  The weather is starting to get warm again (bleh!) & summer will be here before I know it.  I sure do loathe Florida summers, so I'll spend as much time outside as I can before we're suffocated with heat & humidity!


This past weekend, we had a low-key productive couple of days.  Friday nights are usually reserved for the kids to huddle on the couch to watch a movie & munch on popcorn.  It was so blissful to sleep longer on Saturday & Sunday morning & after a cup or two of coffee, I was buzzing around the house tackling unfinished chores like nobody's business.  I was trying to come up with our week's menu plan when I noticed the freezer had gotten totally disorganized.  This led me to an impromptu freezer project.


We bought a new fridge when we moved into this house & I'm extremely grateful to have the extra freezer space with the chest drawer.  Our last house was a side-by-side fridge/freezer & we had very limited space.  Although with the extra space, it's easier for it to become a bottomless pit of freezer-burned leftovers.  It's hard to plan meals & maximize leftovers when you don't have a clue what's lurking in the depths of the freezer.  So now I can sleep more peacefully knowing my fridge & freezer are purged of junk.  It's the little things in life!

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