Jon & Emmalee Day Family: Our Christmas....Vacation??

We definitely have a lot to be grateful for. We have an amazing family, a great job, a nice house, the gospel, and much much more. The rough times we experience-as hard as they may get- definitely do not outweigh all of our many blessings. However...this Christmas was definitely one of our rough times.

Last Christmas (2013), as some already know, Katie developed a bad cold and Colton got the worst case of the pukes I have ever experienced. He puked several times a day for four days and had digestive issues as well. Christmas morning, he literally lay on the floor the whole time we opened presents, with his hand outstretched trying to enjoy his new dinosaurs. It was one of the most pathetic and sad things I've ever seen. We were totally bummed he was robbed of Christmas and we felt a little robbed too so we vowed their was no way we were going to be sick the next Christmas (2014). Well, as nature would prove, we have absolutely no say in what happens.

Our Christmas break started out really great! We drove up to MN to spend a week with Jon's family and we had a huge list of super fun things we were going to do. Saturday night (before Christmas) we got to go out with Jon's brother Mike & his wife Lisa to see Catching Fire and went for late night appetizers at Applebees afterwards. It was super fun and gave great promise of what the week would hold. Sunday, my father-in law, developed a bad cough. Monday I got to go out shopping & to lunch with my sister-in-law Jenna and it was super fun! Again, promises of what the whole week of vacation would hold! Then, Katie started coughing. Then Colton, then me, then Jon- we all got sick and it kept getting worse. Then the fevers came. The kids got super miserable with fevers up to 104. With the bad coughing and fevers, they weren't sleeping much- and neither were we. We weren't able to do much with everyone being sick, but we were still able to spend time eating great food and watching movies with family, and that was fun, we were just bummed about the damper of the sickness. Christmas morning was actually one of the better mornings-(super grateful for that!)- and the kids did get to enjoy the fun for the most part. We had a nice morning with the family and we all got some great gifts! I love the Christmas spirit of giving!

Katie-Christmas morning- not feeling so hot

Out for a breath of fresh air

Snow can make this kid smile even when he's sick :)

That night, Jon, his mom, his brothers Mark & Mike, and his nephew Kyle all started puking. We decided with everyone sick and now puking, it was time to call it and head home early so everyone could recover. While Jon lay up in bed miserable and puking, I packed up all our things and we headed back. It was one of the longest drives ever! Jon was feeling nauseous and the kids were coughing super bad, and I didn't feel too great myself. Finally we got home and have been home ever since trying to recover. Thankfully, the kids and I never got the pukes! However, Katie got really sick and we ended up taking her to the ER- she was diagnosed with Influenza A, bronchitis, and a secondary bacterial infection. She got antibiotics for the bacterial infection and that seemed to help her recovery quite a bit. A couple days later Colton started getting worse so we got him on some antibiotics and they helped him as well. Then Jon got really bad and he went to an Urgent Care and also got prescribed antibiotics. It's been two full weeks of this nasty flu and we are finally feeling like we're mostly over it. Still a few lingering coughs but a lot better than a week ago! So basically, we spent our entire vacation being sick and not enjoying much "vacation-ing". It's been pretty frustrating but we've learned some things, we've got to spend a lot of time together, we know it could've been worse and we're incredibly grateful it wasn't! Looking forward to HOPEFULLY some healthy holidays next year!

Sick Kids :(

Opening a few presents after we came home...

Things we learned:
-Appreciate your health!
-Watching your kids be sick is way worse than being sick yourself
-The flu is not always puking- in fact, most the time it's not!
-The flu sucks big time- we will probably be getting flu shots from now on...
-Be grateful for family! We really did grow closer with all the time spent together!

Things I hope to never do again:
- Have the flu
-Call 911 (When Katie got really sick, she couldn't catch her breath and started coughing up blood and blood was coming out of her nose- SCARY!)
-Be sick on Christmas... & New Years

Katie- the day of the night we took her to the ER

Katie- the day after starting antibiotics- still sick but she has her smile back!

We did have a lot of fun in the lead-up to Christmas! Christmas in Nauvoo with the family, a couple different Christmas parties, Ward Christmas party, decorating, gingerbread house party, and lots more fun!