Not For the Faint of Heart

We are NOT meant to have a pleasant family outing.

So, on Sunday we decided to take a drive to Provo Canyon, have foil dinners, roast some marshmallows. But what was going to be a great family outing turned into a disaster.

First, Provo Canyon was closed to fires. Which meant no fire, no dinner.

So we decided to drive ALL the way in the other direction to Springville, to go up Hobble Creek Canyon. Finally, we found a spot after hiking with our wood, matches, dinners, cooler, etc.

As Ben lifted some junk out of the fire pit, he encountered a sleeping baby rattler. We flipped that thing out of there so fast you could hardly blink. Crisis averted, let's get the fire going.

Just as we were about to light the fire, a bee stung Shaunelle's hand (second time in 2 weeks!). After that, we weren't too keen on staying there as we found a huge bee's nest close by, so we hiked BACK to a different fire pit right by the car.

We got the fire going (hardly) and Jaimason and I decided to take a nice walk down to the river to look at the water. We had to cross a small canal to get to the other side of the path, so we did....at which point Jaimason lost his shoe. I looked up to see it disappearing quickly around the bend of the canal, so I chased after the stupid thing, half diving-half running, until I finally caught up with it about 1/2 mile down the canal.

As we were about to eat, we noticed we had forgotten forks (an essential when you're trying to eat dinner). No big deal, we thought, we'll find some Wendy's spoons in the car. We did.

The rest of the day was pleasant. The food was good, the weather was cool, the water was refreshing.

NEXT DAY. On Monday, I noticed that my hand was hurting tremendously, swelling rapidly, and heating up quite hot. I attributed it to the bee sting and wrote it off as a minor nuisance. But that night, I couldn't sleep and in the morning, my hand was 3 times its normal size! No knuckles could be accounted for, there was a crusty scab on the bee sting site, and my hand was about to pop from pressure any minute!

Anyway, 2 hours and a doctor's appointment later, it was confirmed that I had a pretty rare infection in my hand forearm and I would need to take antibiotics 6 times a day and an antihistamine twice a day.

So here I am, blogging. My hand feels a little better (still bloody sore though), you can see my finger knuckles again, but I still cannot use my right hand for lack of range of motion and intense pain. And it's purple. All in the name of a peaceful family outing......

Normal hand (I have knuckles and a wrist)........Not so normal hand (but you can see my finger knuckles!)