This week started off with a bit of a bang.  Allison woke up Monday morning saying her stomach hurt and with a low fever.  Then she started throwing up all morning long.  By the afternoon she had finally stopped throwing up so much but her fever kept climbing and she would just lay on the couch sobbing and holding her stomach on the right side.  She was having trouble walking and would crawl to the bathroom, didn't want to eat and drink and was just miserable.  So that night we took her to the after hours clinic who said appendicitis was a real possibility.  So it was off to the ER where a huge amount of painkillers and a bunch of negative tests  let us know that she just had a virus that had caused her stomach to get really swollen and tender on that one side.  So no appendicitis, just an expensive stomach flu.

By the next night Allison felt just fine.  In time to meet up with Jason's family at the Owlz baseball game to cheer on our team and watch fireworks at the end.  I don't think the kids really watched the game at all but they had a great time and cousins came home with us afterwards for cousin week.

Cousins got to stay and play with us till Saturday morning.  We went to library classes, the candy store, watched movies, girls set up a sleeping suite downstairs in the basement for all the girls, played games and ran around.  Thursday with Taylor in school for one last day we went to 7 peaks to play for the day on the slides and stop at the BYU creamery on the way home.  Kids were happy and tired out by the end of the week.
On Saturday thanks to my ambitious friend Monica and a supportive Jeremy I spent the day hiking Mount Timpanogous.  It took us 11 hours to do the 14 1/2 miles with 5000 feet change in elevation to reach the peak of 11749 feet.  It was gorgeous with wildflowers so thick at times you felt like you needed a machete.  We hiked next to mountain goats and lakes, crossed over and under waterfalls, across a mountain of snow (that was super hard) and scrambled over fields of rocks.  Trail is a very loose term as it is not a nice little dirt path the whole way.  2 hours and 2 miles from the top I got hit by altitude sickness.  At first I was worried that Allison had shared her bug with me.  Throwing up a bunch did not make the hike easier but we persevered and my friend Monica kept cheering me on.  Came home super sore and wiped out and despite drinking 90 oz during the day, I had lost 4 pounds.  But 12 hours of sleep and a bunch of ibuprofen and life is much better.  It was quite the adventure and definitely one to cross off of my bucket list.

This is the meadow, the flattest, easiest part of the trail

See that ribbon of rock, that is the trail!

At the very top.  There is a metal shack up there to prove that you made it to the top.