Skeeter Syndrome?

Remember this? And now this?

I'm thinking maybe this?

More Severe Reactions to Mosquito Bites: "Skeeter Syndrome"

More severe reactions -- rather than the typical itchy red bump experienced by most people as a result of a mosquito bite -- occur less commonly. These may result in blistering rashes, bruises, or large areas of swelling at the bite sites. People who experience extremely large areas of swelling after a mosquito bite (such as swelling of most of an arm or leg, for example) have been dubbed as having "Skeeter Syndrome."

In rare situations, some people may experience anaphylaxis after being bitten by mosquitoes. Other people may have experienced whole body urticaria and angioedema (hives and swelling), or worsening of asthma symptoms after being bitten. Typically, these symptoms occur within minutes after a mosquito bite, compared to Skeeter Syndrome, which may take hours to days to occur. (http://allergies.about.com/od/insectallergies/a/mosquitoallergy.htm)

Froggie

The other day Jordyn and I decided to play outside for a little while before bed. As Jordyn ran around and played on her "park" I started to open our deck umbrella. Between the folds of fabric on the umbrella I saw a bright green tree frog. As I tried to catch it to show Jordyn it hopped onto the patio furniture and then onto my leg, which startled me (who expects a frog to jump at them?) so it got away. The next morning, I went to see if our frog had made his was back to the umbrella, and sure enough he was there. This time I was able to catch him for Jordyn. We put him in a glass jar so Jordyn could look at him better. After showing him off to daddy, we took "froggie" outside and let him go. Jordyn was so excited to see him hop away. All day she kept telling us "see froggie, go ibbit, ibbit".

Unfortunately, we haven't seen "froggie" since. I think he's found a new hiding place, but everytime we go outside, we have to check the umbrella, just in case.

Funny Face

Ask Jordyn to make a funny face and this is what you get. . .

An occasionally, you'll get this. . .

While Daddy's Away

About once a week while Daddy's away at work, Jordyn and I turn on a movie (usually 101 Dalmatians) and have some quality girly time. Jordyn loves to have her nails "colored" so I let her pick out what ever color she wants for both her fingers and her toes. This past week, she picked out two color changing polishes, a yellow that turns peach in the sun for her fingers,and a blue that turns purple in the sun for her toes. I got red for my toes and clear for my fingers. When we're done, Jordyn is so excited to show her Daddy that she wants me to take pictures and send them to him.

Sticker Queen

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to Her Highness, Jordyn Queen of the Stickers. . .



*this little girl LOVES stickers. She puts them on herself, on the pictures she colors, on mommy, on her babies, on anything she thinks she can get away with putting them on. Last time I flew to Utah, I took stickers with me on the plane, and they kept her occupied for most of the flight (almost 3 hrs). By the time our flight landed, there were stickers on the window, on the seat in front of us, and all over both her and I. Most (if not all ) of those stickers ended up in the trash, but I still think I'll be taking stickers on every future flight I take with my little Sticker Queen.

When It Rains, It Pours

Now that I'm back online, I've decided to start the catch up process by telling you why we've had no computer for over a week. 8 weeks ago, we had to take the lap top to the repair shop because the keyboard was falling apart (we literally had keys falling off), so we were down to one computer, until last Friday (May 29th) when DISASTER hit. Jordyn and I had just arrived home from running errand and I went upstairs to put the mail next to the computer and found that our food storage shelves had fallen. They didn't break, they didn't cave in from weight, no, they tipped over as if someone had pushed them (which isn't what happened since there was no one there to push them). Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of this stage of the mess, I was too shocked to even think about taking pictures, instead I called Erik and started to cry. I didn't know where to start cleaning up the mess, and from the looks of things at that point, it didn't look like many of our home canned goods had survived. After I got off the phone with Erik I started the clean up process. As I started cleaning up the broken bottles I found a few bottles here and there that seems unscathed. Two hours after I'd found the mess I took a breather to reassess the situation (and to put Jordyn to bed). At this point my mind was clear enough to take a few photos of the mess. I found that I had three boxes worth of broken glass and spilled food (along with the fabric for a baby blanket that I had laid out on the floor).

The rest of my house was now a mess (everything from the office had to be cleared out and put somewhere).

The computer stuff made it to the spare room, the rest of the food storage was split between the bathroom (the stuff that needed to be cleaned off)

and the playroom (the stuff that had survived and wasn't too dirty. Oh and the computer which needed a good cleaning since it was in the middle of the mess).

I also found that I still had quite a few bottles that had survived.

Don't get me wrong, we lost around 20 bottles of food including apricots, raspberries, tomato soup, green beans, corn and salsa. To add to the stress, I was sure we were going to have to replace the carpet. After I got Jordyn to sleep and the trash taken out, I sat down to wipe down the computer and asses that situation. After I got everything cleaned and hooked up I turned on the computer and got the wonderful message that said, "disk boot up failed, insert system disk." Now, I'm not a computer wizard or anything, but I don't think that was a good message, especially since that was the last time the computer would even power up. Yup, that's correct, Erik went to check it out the next morning and it wouldn't even turn on. So that left us computerless until Erik picked up the lap top this past Thursday evening. Now, since I'm sure you're all wondering about the stain in our carpet, the following morning, we got up and rented a carpet shampooer, and while my dear friend Michelle watched Jordyn, Erik and I cleaned the carpet. After about 100 passes over the stain, you can't really tell anything had happened. The carpet is a bit stiff next to the wall where the shampooer didn't get very well, but overall it looks great. Now we just have to repaint the wall and then we can move everything back into that room and our house will start to get back into order. To answer a question that everyone has asked when they hear about our computer, I still have all my pictures, I keep them on an external hard drive which still works fine. The only things that we really had on the lap top was our finance programs and Erik's papers from his Master's program (which we have hard copies of if we can't get them off the computer). That was my weekend, how was yours?

Back Online

After a few mishaps that left us computerless, we are back online. After I get pictures downloaded and files organized I'll update, in the meantime know that we're alive and all is well.