{travelogue}: the picture

So...we had an eventful return home from Thanksgiving.  It seems every year that we attempt to travel is filled with excitement:

• Thanksgiving 2004 it took us 8 hours to get from Provo to St. George going 35 mph on the freeway-every gas station we stopped at was out of both gas and windshield wiper fluid because they had been snowed in for the night.
• Fall Break 2003 we ran out of gas at the "Weston/Preston" exit.  I was carpooling with a group of girls and one guy-he offered to leave us all in the car while he walked to Malad and we said no, that we would come with him-luckily a nice family picked us up and drove us.
• Christmas 2003 my friend Kyle and I got snowed in at Nephi and luckily got the last room at the Econolodge-oh yes, the honeymoon suite complete with heart shaped tub and all!!
• March 2005 we spin off the road on the way home from being married/honeymoon.  This was not due to snow however and thankfully the shop in Beaver was able to fix up our blown tire and put us back on the road.
• June 2006 we end up parked on I-15 for 3-ish hours hanging out with a whole bunch of fellow travelers right before the Cove Fort Exit due to a fire.
• Christmas 2007 we have a windshield wiper break due to too much ice and a crazy snow storm and luckily coast off the road close enough to an exit that we survive.
• Christmas 2008 our windshield wiper fluid stopped spraying because it was frozen at Parowan so Jon ended up disconnecting and sucking out the frozen fluid while laying on the snow covered ground in shorts and a t-shirt with me throwing up the entire way with terrible morningsickness.  This was the year we vowed to fly home for Christmas next time.

And of course this year was no different.  We ended up leaving a full day early and driving the entire way to Idaho Falls in one night.  We were feeling really lucky and smart for beating the storm until we hit Malad.  It took us 4 hours to get from Malad to Idaho Falls on what we're pretty sure was a closed road.  It was bad.  I woke up sick when we got there and Paisley too.  She had been coughing at night which I thought was due to teething, but she continued to get worse the entire time that we were there and so did I.  We had a nice relaxing Thanksgiving with all of our family (pictures will follow) and had originally planned to leave Sunday.  Well, of course another storm decided to roll in so we decided to leave Saturday night.  We woke up Saturday to find that we needed to leave NOW so we packed and we left.  I'm so glad we did.  By Tremonton Paisley was fussing and sad so we stopped and I discovered dried blood on her hands and in her ear.  With my medical training and the internet to help freak me out we decided to stop and get her checked out.  Our friends Steve and Kim were in Salt Lake and we had already talked about caravaning with them for safety so we decided to hit an Instacare in Salt Lake and then continue on with them since they couldn't leave until a little later anyway.  So we stopped.  Paisley's heartrate was up in the 200's (very bad) and she had a temperature of 104!  I had been giving her Tylenol because I knew she was feverish but I had no idea she was that bad!  Apparently she was dyhdrated-something I hadn't caught and the doctor didn't immediately catch either...I felt so bad for her.  They gave her some Tylenol and Ibprofen and gave us a popsicle and sent us out in the lobby to see if we could get her heartrate down.  No such luck.  So they did an urine/blood sample (she was NOT happy) and the Doctor came in and said that they may need to send us to Primary Children's to observe her overnight!  That freaked me out.  Then she came back and said they re-tested her blood draw and it looked better.  So she ate popsicle after popsicle and still we couldn't get her heartrate to come down.  Finally the decided to start an IV which is what you see in the picture.  They had to wrap her had so she wouldn't flick her wrist and mess up the flow.  In my stressed and sick state I told Jon to take a picture (you know, for memories) and he used my phone and posted it on Facebook, not realizing that he hadn't put a caption or explanation of any kind.  Paisley finished the IV and they left a hep-lock for me to push saline the remainder of the way home and when we got home in case we had to take her back in for another IV when we got here.  So we stopped at Walgreens to load up on some more meds and tissue and were headed out when the phones started ringing.  Our entire family somehow had seen this picture, and knowing we were travelling assumed we had been in an accident.  Any family that had not seen it, was called by those who had and all were calling us at the same time.  I think Jon's Dad was the funniest-he pointed out the Jon was not in the picture which was scary and also that it would have been nice if we could have at least added some sort of caption like: "we rolled the car 3 times, but we're ok"  Ooops.  So we apologize for the unnecessary panic and we appreciate all of your care and concern for us in our travels.  We are so blessed to have things like modern medicine-we were able to come home and control Paisley's fever and today she is all better!  Next year...we're flying!!