Tuesday Update

Its been quite an interesting week thus far and we are only into Tuesday. Yesterday I made a Dr appointment for Cody because he has had a sore throat and fever for the past 3 days and wouldn't you know it, Jared had a field trip at the same exact time...so Scott took on Dr duty while I went on the hike into the unknown...in my work shoes (not very comfy for hiking) Thus our day goes something like this - I get there for the "walk" and all these German Mom's and Dad's are dressed for a SERIOUS hike - hiking boots, backbacks - the works! I say to the nearest English speaking Mom "uh, where is the walk going?" "oooooh, we're not going far - just into the woods a bit" so off we go, we're walking, we're walking - not sure where we are walking to but we're following the crowd of kindergarteners into to wild unknown. So a few minutes and what seemed like miles later we came to a cabin in the woods where there was a field and some picnic tables. There we sat and rested up a bit while the kids had a soda pop then we followed the teachers into the WOODS and folks started gathering up wood like they were gearing up for winter or something. Then they started CUTTING down trees and stringing up ropes - all the while gathering and gathering more sticks - I had no earthly idea what was going on! Within 30 minutes they had erected a good sized tent made of small trees and covered in sticks and leaves a circle of branches with leaves on top for cushion and numerous obstacles for the kids. (I wish I'd remembered my camera) It was quite a sight and put the boy scout camp my brother attended when I was 10 to shame. Boy Scouts have nothing on German Kindergarten teachers!

Anyway, after about two hours of "roughing it" in the woods, Jared and I snuck out and headed back to the car. Somehow along the way I became "carrier of the stick" the prize that Jared walked away from his woodland adventure with. Jared was walking just in front of me and we were almost to the car when I said something and Jared turned towards me and whamo! right in the eye with the stick. I knew for sure I had impaled his eye and he would never see again - I just knew I was going to have him gushing blood at any second - after we got across the street and back to the car and he was able to take his hand away from his eye and stop crying it turned out to only be a tiny scratch. Thank God! (I tend to have a history of passing out when my boys are having a medical emergency - it's so traumatic) We got back to the car and Scott had written me a note that he had to take Cody to the hospital 2 hrs away to have an absess drained...so we rush home to change and prepare for a trip to the hospital but Scott called just as I got home and said they were done and on their way back. It turned out he had an infection in his throat/sinus cavity and the Dr took an enormous amount of puss out of it (BLEH!) Yep, I would have passed out for sure. Cody is doing so much better already and it's good to see him up after 3 days of him not wanting to get out of bed.

This morning I picked up my first hitch hiker. Yes, he was surprised too (that an American woman would pick him up) but I figured it was the least I could do after I almost drove him over...he was standing really close to the road or maybe he was IN the road - I didn't have much time to think about it and I only took him about 1 mile down the road. We conversed about the fact that I would NEVER have even dared to think about giving a stranger a ride had I been in America and then told him that there were all kinds of dangers in hitch hiking in America...should he ever visit I'm pretty sure I scared the poor man out of even thinking about hitch hiking.

And last story of the day happened during lunch today as I was checking out a Mom with her 3 very small boys was also getting her groceries together and one of the little ones snuck out the side door beside the one she was in and when she turned around and didn't see her I could just see the heart attack about to happen on her face. Since I seemed to be the only one in the store that had seen which direction the little boy had taken I pointed to her which way he'd gone and so everyone is looking around and then he appears on the other side by the road. Scary moment for all and made me think about being extra thankful that there are always eyes watching over us and we could always use an extra hand or two in life even if it comes from a stranger.