Christmas in July!

We arrived safely home from Cebu yesterday. While we stayed fairly healthy down there, yesterday was a different story (more about that later - you can see Zach in the next few pics with his high fever before we took him to the ER). But we did have some WONDERFUL packages waiting for us at home. We got a couple care packages from Steve's Aunt Nancy that the kids loved - here Kayla is reading the note from Nancy.

Our visitors (Randy and Rhonda Nelson and Janice Hansen from our churches in the States) were able to bring a HUGE suitcase from home filled with goodies. Many of our dear friends pitched in to send us some amazing stuff. Talk about Christmas in July! Grandma and Papa also included some special surprises for the kids.
Here is the massive pile of stuff! God is so good - what an encouragement and blessing. We don't even know how to begin to say thank you to all of you! Taco and Spaghetti seasonings, hair stuff for me, treats for the kids and us, Ziplock bags, the list goes on and on... Thank you!!!

Now about the health issues I mentioned - Ben woke up yesterday morning with explosive diarrhea. Lots of fun on the trip home - especially when the bathrooms along the way are not well equipped (no changing tables!). No fun. Then Zach started running a temp with no other symptoms in late afternoon. The fever kept climbing until it hit 104.7!!! We gave him ibuprofen and tylenol simultaneously to try to bring it down. The fever was high enough to scare us, but then he started complaining about his neck being stiff and sore. High fever + stiff neck is a bad combo - can indicate meningitis and has to be acted on immediately! So we left Ben (still with BM issues) and Mikayla (who was also running a temp of 102) with our visitors and ran to the ER. Thankfully the meds brought the temp down and once the temp was down, he was able to move his neck around again. We think the stiff/sore neck was probably because of a headache that was a result of the extremely high fever. The Dr diagnosed the cause of the fever as an upper resp infection and said he has some "ulcers" on the back of his throat (similar to Strep). We were just thrilled to rule out meningitis. He still has a high temp today, but we did start him on antibiotics last night so hopefully it will come down later. Ben no longer has diarrhea but has a temp today, and Mikayla still has a low grade too. Oh - and I finally got antibiotics for this sore throat, sinus infection, and swollen lymph nodes that I have had for 3 weeks now. So please keep praying for all of us for our many health issues.

Meanwhile, we are so enjoying having our first visitors here and look forward to being able to bring them around to a few places tomorrow or the next day, as we are feeling up to it. Thanks again for all the fun stuff you sent and thanks for praying!