Apple Valley Orchard!

Yesterday we had some much needed family time! Whew! Life has been a bit hard to keep up with lately, and with all of the working we’ve been doing, it was nice to get out for a few hours and enjoy each other…and some fall fun! Rich was in Highlands, North Carolina last weekend and he’s heading to Washington DC this weekend, so the girls and I have been going it alone quite a bit lately.

I think we are going to try for a pumpkin patch next weekend, so hopefully there will be another installment of fall-related family fun very soon

In addition to the general busy-ness of life lately, last week I got my very first sinus infection. And oh my gosh was it a doozy. I have zero frame of reference for what a normal sinus infection is like, so I don’t know if this one was altogether typical or not. Regardless, it was absolutely unbearable!

I had an intense, scary headache for about 4 days before I knew what was going on. It was a throbbing, severe headache unlike any I’d had before, that quite frankly, made me think I was about to have a brain aneurism. I called the doctor on day 3 of my headache, and scheduled an appointment for the next day.

That night (why do all the worst symptoms always hit in the middle of the night???), I began to have a fever, chills, and nausea. The headache migrated into my face – my sinus area – and made me feel like my head was about to explode into a million pieces.

It was this combination of symptoms that made my infection so unbearable. A fever and chills, on their own, are unpleasant. Nausea, by itself, is miserable. A headache of this magnitude is terrible. But put it all together and it resulted in a crying, moaning, gasping for breath Heather. Rich was helpful, but obviously felt helpless. We were up for a while in the middle of the night, making warm compresses for my face, sipping ginger ale for the nausea, using the Netti Pot for my sinuses, getting extra blankets for my chilling, etc.

The next day at the doctor I was diagnosed with a severe sinus infection. And amid my absolute misery, somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I was incredibly thankful that I wasn’t dying of a brain aneurism. As much as I long for heaven, I feel like 30 is too young to go.

For the rest of the day I threw up. Including in the car on the way home from the doctor. You know that cloth shopping cart liner for babies to sit in? Ya, that was the ONLY thing in the car capable of catching my throw up, so that has since gotten a really, really good washing. Once we finally got my antibiotics and Sudafed, I was so hopeful that I was going to get some relief. But I couldn’t keep anything down, so I was getting a bit panicky. And can we please talk for a moment about how extraordinarily painful it is to throw up when you have a sinus headache? Oh my. Eventually, the next day, with the help of gatorade and Saltine crackers, I was able to keep my medicine down. And eventually, I could feel the effects of the antibiotic and the Sudafed. I’ve ben getting gradually better since then, and while the antiobiotic is making me feel nauseous, I’ll be done in a few days, thankfully.

Now to figure out how never to get another sinus infectionAny comments on this are more than welcome!

Rich had taken Alana to spend the day with Randy and Susan so that we only had one child to care for, and the following day Rich’s parents took Alana while I was recovering. FAMILY TO THE RESCUE! Thank you so very much to Randy and Susan for allowing Alana to have a blast with her cousins and to my in-laws for taking Alana on a bunch of fun errands! She would have had NO fun here and we SOOOOO appreciate you all!

But I digress. The REAL reason for this blog post is happiness, not misery! It’s to post these awesome photos that Rich took while we were at the apple orchard yesterday! The girls are growing like crazy and some days I can’t even believe how quickly this year has passed. Here are some of our favorites from yesterday!

There were some adorable, tiny apples on the ground, just Sierra’s size 

Happy fall, everyone!