CONFERENCE WEEKEND and MORE.....

CONFERENCE
As always I LOVED this weekends sessions of General Conference! Because of snow and the kids cancelled Soccer and Flag Football games on Saturday, we were able to watch all four sessions (five for Adam with Priesthood Session). I can't remember the last time I was able to sit through ALL FOUR sessions. It has been a long time because of the kids Saturday Activities but I am so glad we were able to. Each talk was so inspired and uplifting and I feel refreshed and renewed after hearing the counsel of our Beloved Prophet, Apostles and other leaders! I was also excited to hear that Elder Andersen was called to be the new Apostle. He was called to the Seventy at the same time as Adam's uncle was and we have always had a soft spot in our hearts for him. How exciting that they will once again serve side by side in the Quorum of the Twelve.

One thing I need to mention is how impressed I was with my kids. Spencer and Annie watched each session with us (they kind of petered out on Sunday afternoon but we didn't mind since they'd done so well through the other sessions). Even Logan and Garett sat and watched a lot of the sessions. I had printed out the "Conference Packets" that some ingenious person put together and emailed around, and all four kids loved working on them while they listened. Adam and I both realized that a year from now, Spencer will be going to the Priesthood Session. Can it really be coming that quickly! Wow!

After such a marvelous Conference, my knowledge of the Truthfulness of the Gospel has strengthened and I am truely grateful for the blessing of knowing that my Savior lives and loves me. The closing song of the Sunday Morning session was "We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet" and as the words rang in my ears I couldn't help but become overwhelmed with emotion and love for our Prophet Thomas S. Monson. What a wonderful, loving and tender man he is and how grateful to my Heavenly Father I am that he has given us the blessing of a living Prophet to "guide us in these latter days". I pray I can have the strength to always follow his guidance!

BACKACHE
If you are on facebook you've probably read in my "Marilee is" section that I have had a terrible backache for the past 2 weeks. It has been agonizing as it has been in my lower back and in a spot that I couldn't stretch out! Finally on Friday I had absolutely HAD IT so I called the doctor. My dr. wasn't in town so I met with the dr. on call. They monitored me to see if I was having contractions since back pain is a common sign of preterm labor. Thankfully all was well and I wasn't having contractions. Anyway, I had told her that I have a history of Kidney Stones and at my last Urology appt. about 2 years ago the xrays showed that I have about 4 or 5 small stones in my right kidney. The dr. wanted me to have a renal ultrasound to see if there were any stones as that could be the cause of my back pain. In thinking about my past experience with kidney stones, I realized that the pain I was having was in the same spot and felt the same way. I just hadn't thought of it as I just thought I was having a backache and couldn't stretch it out because it was in that "can't bend when you are pregnant" spot. So off to the ER (for the second time in this pregnancy) I went to have the ultrasound! After a long time waiting in the room, the ultrasound tech came in, did the ultrasound and said everything looked fine. Then he added that ultrasounds only pick up kidney stones made of calcium and not those made of uric acid. Well hello, that would have been nice to know since the last time I had stones, my doctor said mine are made up of uric acid! So they concluded that because my kidneys looked fine and there was no sign of blockage, that I probably had a small Uric Acid stone that was moving down and was small enough that it would pass on its own. They sent me home very frustrated but with some pain meds.
Friday night I was in a lot of pain and took some meds which helped a TON. I woke up Saturday feeling quite achy in my back but didn't want to be drugged up during conference. The pain was still there but came on and off through the day. At about 6:00 I noticed that my back didn't feel any pain at all! I thought it was temporary, but Sunday woke up pain free! It is now Monday and again, my low back pain is gone! O, how I hope it was a kidney stone, it has passed, and the low back pain is gone for good!

SICK KIDS (again!)
Logan started off Saturday morning with tons of energy and sass but as the day wore on he started running a fever. By Saturday night it was around 103.5. It has been A LONG time since any of my kids have run high fevers like that so I called the Pediatrician. He said not to worry until it hit 105 - 106 (WHAT????) and to alternate Motrin and Tylenol every 3 hours. That seemed to work until Sunday afternoon when his temp hit 104.9. To me that was close enough so I took him into Urgent Care. His temp started to come down while we were there and the motrin we had given him an hour before kicked in. After running some tests they determined he has Bronchitis. A breathing treatment and perscription for a Z-pac and an inhaler later, we were back home feeling much releif that it wasn't anything more serious!

Last night, after putting the kids to bed, Adam and I crashed too, only to be woken up an hour later by Logan throwing up. We determined it was from coughing too much! After cleaning him and his bed up, we got him back to sleep, got ourselves back to sleep only to be woken up again 3 hours later by Annie, who had a stomach ache. About an hour after trying to settle her down, she started throwing up too (and this time it wasn't from coughing too much)! GREAT!!! Are you kidding me? I finally got back to sleep around 4:30 and slept until 5:30 when Adam woke up to go work out. 6:30 the dog woke up and the kids started trickling out of bed so my sleepy time was over! AHHHHHHH, and I'm having another one???? :-)

Hopefully after today we'll be past all this sickness and can move on to a healthy, happy Spring!!!