Holiday Weekend Report

Monday is not a holiday here ... but we're with you in spirit America!

Okay. I lie. We're not. Not at all.

We're crabby, a bit stressed, tired, and snapping at each other. We don't like us very much right now. You wouldn't either. The humidity and the health issues have made for a house of irritable people.

• Wed 7am - Lyd starts running fever

• Thur - get results and treat Lyd for Malaria

• Fri 4am - Troy starts puking

• Fri 5am - alarm goes off for the long run

• Fri 5:30 am - 3 kids awake, Troy is moaning- postpone running
  

• Fri 7am - take team to airport so Troy can sleep

• Fri 7:30 am - run 8 miles on treadmill - Troy starts Malaria meds
  

• Fri 10am - bring Paige and Viv to Women's center to work a clinic

• Fri 11am - pick up adoptive parents - spend time with them - keep them away from my disease carrying mosquito infested house

• Fri 3pm - drop parents back off to airport

• Fri 4pm- Run close to six miles on treadmill to finish what i did not have time for in the morning - call it good enough for lack of better option

• Friday 6:30 pm - I (tara) start running a fever and get a bad headache - take Malarone right away
  

• Sat 7am - Jeronne and Jenny leave (scheduled long ago)

• Satruday - survive the day. that was the main goal. take turns sleeping. all kids are fed and sort of watched

• Sunday - Troy, Tara and Lydie all wake with no fever. Things begin to look up. Paige reports a headache. Treating her to be safe. Jeronne comes home and tell us about the tap-tap she was in on Saturday being held up. The men that did it had a gun. They got $100 out of her pocket and her gold necklace. She is understandably not happy.
  

The three canker sores in my mouth at once should have tipped me off that I was headed for a stress-related melt down. The true sign of too-much of too much in our house is a little tiff between Troy and Tara ... and that happened first thing today. So, I would say the two of us are worn out, coping poorly, yada yada yada. It is such an old and boring way to respond to stress. Generally we do not argue. We rarely have communication breakdowns. But when we do -- it is the wake up call that we need to find a way to stop and talk to each other without other ears around. Hopefully we can do that in the next couple of days.

Sometimes just the pressure of so many little ones to care for can be A LOT - add in outside demands of ministry and social activities and little Haiti emergencies (there always seems to be one) and Troy and I snap on each other first. It can be hard for people with smaller families or only older kids to understand. I think we come off as unsocial at times. We don't turn down invitations to be rude. We're just trying to be here for our kids.
And ...
GOOD NEWS!!! Viv has decided she likes us enough to stay. School starts tomorrow! This week is the peak week for training. Illness not an option. Running 5m. on Monday, 10m. on Tuesday, 5m. on Wednesday, and 20m. on Friday. - We all better kiss this Malaria crap goodbye and get back in the saddle - real quick like.

Darn it. Lydie is covered in purple marker. Better go.

The pictures are-
From a few minutes ago - Lydie finally looking better - besides her bad baby hair. Renald looking short and totally flippin cute. AND in the tub- from when we went to Jacmel and left our little kids with Jessica & Jeronne. Jessica's photo.