Leader/Daughter Retreat

This weekend was my girl scout service unit's Leader/Daughter retreat. It was held at Camp Trefoil, which is up Provo Canyon. Usually, when I go on long drives, I try to take our little Honda Civic, since it gets almost 50 miles to the gallon. However, there was supposed to be some snow this weekend, so I decided to take the safer route and bring along my Expedition. This turned out to be a very good thing.

We got to camp on Friday night. The lodge was absolutely beautiful, and we were amazed by how much snow was on the ground- there was at least 2-3 feet of snow.

The first evening, there was a murder/mystery performance put on by Hunt Mysteries. A cast of 7-8 people come, all dressed in costume. They mingled with the group, in character, and you talked to them a bit. They then had people sit down, and they had dialogue. After a bit of this, a murder occurs. The "guests" have approximately 10-15 to talk to the characters individually to determine HOW the murder occurred, WHO did it, and the MOTIVE. You then filled out a paper with your guess and turned it in. Once those were collected, they revealed all. It was pretty funny because one of the characters showed up at the same time as my daughters and I, and we had chatted quite a bit and really hit it off. We bantered a bit once she was in character. As it turned out, I decided she had committed the murder.

S was really taken with all of the characters, especially the bride. She begged to have her picture taken with her.

Once the murderer was revealed, they did a drawing of all the people who had the correct answers. I was one of the winners!! The murderer said to me, "How could you accu

se me of murder?! I thought we were friends!". I retorted, "Just because I think you're a killer doesn't mean I don't love you!" I thought it was hilarious, but maybe you had to be there. The performance was a LOT of fun, and I would recommend it to anyone.

For sleeping arrangements, there were three options: Party Lodge, with no curfew, then a different building with a midnight curfew, and then the bunkhouse, with a 10:30 lights out time. We decided to go with the funsucker area, and boy am I glad we did!! The other two places were huge, communal sleeping areas with dozens of people in the room. The bunkhouse had individual dormstyle rooms, so the girls and I got our own room. Once we were in there, it was silent. Beautiful silence.

The next day, they had some guys come in to do a dutch oven cooking demonstration. They were very friendly, personable and knowledgeable. Once I find out their names/website, I'll link that here as well; they were also top notch. They showed us how to make dutch oven lasagna, and then served it for lunch. It was A-MAZ-ING. I'm anxious to try it out at home.

After lunch, the girls and I went outside. I shoveled walks while they went sledding (it had been snowing lightly all day). Then, we went snow shoeing.

S did amazingly well considering the snowshoes were all the same size, and almost half her body length.

Then, we went to go cross country skiing. Unfortunately, they didn't have boots/skiis small enough for her, so she played in the lodge while K and I took a spin. It was a lot of fun, and I would've liked to have gone longer, but it was about to get dark.

This morning, we get up to find that it had been snowing hard all night long. I had to dig my car out of the snow; there was probably at least 18" of snow on it.

We finally got out to the main canyon, and found that highway patrol had closed it due to treacherous conditions. After about a 45 minute wait, they opened up the canyon again, and our drive home was uneventful.

A concerning doctor's visit

(warning- puss mentioned, so if you have a sensitive stomach, just stop reading once the doctor comes in the room)

A few days ago, I started developing a third nipple. That's concerning enough, but it was the placement and pain level that really freaked me out. Where was this third nipple, you may ask? It is on my calf.

By this morning, I was really having a tough time walking, which makes exercising difficult. It also was making me turn into a whiny baby, and generally a pain in the a..... um, calf to live with.

I made an appointment to see a doctor this afternoon.

When I got there, they gave me one of those light up flashing coasters that restaurants use. I thought this was funny, considering there was only one other person in the waiting room. Nevertheless, I sat down with my coaster.

Within a few minutes, it went off, and I obediently gave it to the medical assistant waiting for me. She took my back, and took all of my vitals (pulse, oxygen level, weight, blood pressure). The blood pressure machine was facing away from me, so I couldn't see what my blood pressure was. She looked concerned and said, "Your bottom blood pressure (sic) is kind of high. Maybe it's because you're feeling anxious, or maybe you took the stairs. If you want, you can sit here and relax for a few minutes and we can retake it if you'd like."

Concerned, I looked at my blood pressure to see what it was.

121/83

Really? 120/80 is considered "normal". 83 wouldn't make anyone even bat an eyelash, or so I thought. Meanwhile, this MA is sitting there looking really concerned.

I took a couple deep breaths to fend off the attack of the giggles coming on. Then, I told her that it's normally lower, and I wasn't concerned, and she could count that as my blood pressure. Still a bit unconvinced, she led me back to a room.

Eventually, the doctor came back. He was very nice, and could be a great candidate for the general family doctor that I've been half heartedly looking for.

I showed him the third nipple. He informed me that it wasn't a nipple, but an abscess (ANOTHER abscess?!). I couldn't decide whether to be relieved or disappointed. I lean towards relieved, since I think I have pretty nice legs, and having a nipple on the calf generally isn't considered classically beautiful.

He told me we have two options:

1- put me on oral antibiotics, and come back in a couple days if it's not improving

2- lance it

I told him that I'm a picker, and generally speaking, I'd be all over lancing it. However, I was pretty sure that it was full of blood, not puss, and that's really not a lot of fun to pick at.

Now it was the doctor's turn to try and keep a straight face (he doesn't know me well enough to know that it's ok to laugh at me). He told me he agreed with me. He said my abscess was XXX (can't remember the technical term, but basically, rather hard to the touch, and felt/appeared as though there was no puss) vs. YYY (which would feel really soft and squishy, and look like it was ready to pop). So, he measured the actual abscess (2 cm), and then drew a line around the reddened, infected surrounding area (about 5") to mark where it was at. Then, he gave me a prescription for some antibiotics, and sent me on my way.

I'm hoping that I feel better tomorrow, because I'm even sick of my whining!

Delusional

I have decided that I want to sink into a delusional state. In said state, the family and I are in Fiji. Kids are playing on the beach, while J and lay back in lounge chairs and watch them frolic happily, not a fight to be seen. If not Fiji, maybe Thailand?

That sounds much lovelier than here. It's been bitterly cold. I guess I can't complain, most of the US in "Snowcopalypse 2011", and buried under feet of now. Very little snow here, but it's been in the single digits. Makes me feel my lack of a garage even more.

We took the daisy scouts to the fire department for a field trip last night because our elementary school was having parent/teacher conferences, and we were asked not to meet there this week. It took us a few minutes to figure out which door to go to, and we nearly froze. Girls loved the trip though.

Speaking of parent teacher conferences, that means the middle kids are out of school early alllllll week. Yay. My favorite!

I think my daiquiri needs a refill. It's getting all melty in the hot sun...