long live the plague

I'm still dreadfully ill with fever and major chest congestion. The snow is thick on the ground outside, but not so awful that Mom and David couldn't get out a couple of times. The first time was to get parts for the broken garbage disposal, which David repaired (he just thought he was on vacation) and the second time was to get Mom's new Washington car tags for the Trooper that lives here now. She wanted to buy insurance for it today (and cancel the Alabama policy on it) but the systems were down at the insurance place. No more snow is in the forecast until Wednesday, which has changed from what we saw yesterday. Yesterday I feared we'd be here for a month! We watched the news and saw all the people stuck at the airport, all the flights that were cancelled. But with no additional snow happening until we leave, maybe we'll get out on Wednesday. That depends on if the shuttle to Seattle is running, if our plane leaves in time for us to make the connection in Denver... I don't even know what Denver's weather is like! I hope I'm not spending Christmas there unexpectedly. I'll have to put it in God's hands and trust Him to do according to His will.

I spent the day between bouts of being awake and coughing and then napping until the coughing woke me up. Misery. And Dennis woke us up this morning with a bad bout of coughing. Fortunately his doctor had prescribed a medication that has something to help his cough in it. David is sick, too, and though we badly wanted to see Michael and family, only Mom made the trip to their house for supper tonight (because Michael came to pick her up). Dennis has exhibited many symptoms of cabin fever and I can only hope that we're able to get out tomorrow. I'd like to take him on another sled ride and build a snowman, and I'm hoping to get to the mall so he can see Santa and play on the indoor playground in the mall. We'll see how we all feel in the morning. The roads are not great but there won't be any thawing and refreezing tonight, so we should be able to go somewhere if we want to. I hope we'll be feeling up to it! I'd like to think that Dennis is having a good time even if we have been sick for his whole vacation. He's been feeling pretty good, and his Gran has done a lot of playing with him. They built a Lego airport and flew the planes in and out, with Ernie acting as Air Traffic Control until Dennis decided that his Mommy needed Ernie in bed with her to help her get better--he very sweetly brought his Ernie in to me and said "Ernie, Mama, Ernie". Later he told me about Gran playing with him, "Gran, plane, fly, Gran, planes", which I correctly interpreted as "Gran played airplanes with you?" to his delight (big smile). Gran also played trains with him, and when she left tonight with Michael, he cried when she left. She's been his best playing buddy!

We've certainly done a lot of relaxing, so it's like a vacation, but we've had to rest to try to get well, and that's less fun than usual vacation relaxation. And David had to shovel snow today, which he hates. I have pinned many hopes on tomorrow. And I'm glad we've already had periods of great fun interspersed with all the sickness.