Swine Flu

So for those of you who have been following our ongoing swine saga...here's the quick review.  Shortly after returning from Cancun for Sherry and Scott's wedding, Collin came down with a fever.  Because of the media's panic about the "swine flu" pandemic - I brought him to the doctor.  They told me it was very unlikely that he would even be a candidate to get tested.  As it turns out - lucky us - he was a candidate.  So against the odds Collin's lab swab was sent to the MN Dept of Health.  We were told we would have the results from the CDC in about a week and that in the meantime we should pretty much keep to ourselves (anyone showing symptoms anyway, which by now was both Collin and Ella).  Turns out, against even further odds, Collin was what they were calling a probable case.  Unbelievable.  This set off a chain of events including closing down his pre-school for a week, being quarantined at home for 7-10 days, and a whole lot of "talk" around town.  We got the final confirmation on Saturday that Collin was in fact a confirmed case of the H1N1 "Swine Flu".  All three of the kids got it - Madelyn suffered the worst, but nothing more than a bad cough, runny nose and fever for a few days.  We only have 2 more days to go in isolation and we can't wait to join the general public again.  So if you are wondering what a house full of kids with the swine flu looks like.  Here it is........

Water fights in the back yard.

Quarantined so long - Madelyn grew hair long enough for some of her first pigtails.

Digging for Dinosaur bones.

Designing their own plates.

Some video of what the kids have learned to do with all this time on our hands....

This book has about 15 shapes in it....for your sanity I only posted the first couple, but make no mistake it just keeps going and going.

Just tonight Madelyn learned to say "grandpa" - she thought it was super funny and just kept saying it over and over and over again.  It was pretty cute.

So as you can see.....Collin excavated a dinosaur,  Ella learned to read, and Madelyn grew pigtails, learned to play the harmonica, and to talk!  It's amazing what can happen with 7-10 days of forced vacation.  Thank you to everyone who called to keep me company for endless hours on the phone, sent stuff for the kids to do, visited even when you shouldn't have.....All kidding aside we are very lucky that we are joking about all of this and not sending messages from all 3 of my kids' hospital bedsides.  So also thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!