The big news of the week is that my parents came in to town last night. We had decided to keep it a secret from the kids, both for fun and for my own sanity. The kids were all sound asleep when they arrived, and it was so hard not to wake up the girls to tell them. It was such a fun surprise this morning when they woke up.

The girls have not let them out of their sight all day. Mom has been reading and playing games with them.Dad is all worn out from his hard day at church.

They will be here until Friday. We are going to have a great Thanksgiving.

This past week was devoted to recovery, so no pictures. I took Tyler to the doctor on Friday because he just hadn't been himself for a week. Both of his ears were infected. Poor guy. I'm feeling much better, but I still tire easily. I'm hoping to reclaim my house from the mess this week. We'll see.

Some of you may recall me mentioning last week that I was sick. That situation only got worse. Monday morning I woke up feeling terrible. I cancelled my physical therapy appointment and missed a play date. The next day was Sydney's last regular soccer game, which I also missed.

About 2:00 Wednesday morning, I realized that I was in trouble. I nearly drove myself to the ER that night, but I was worried I wouldn't make it home before Ben had to go to work, so I waited. After a very challenging encounter with a new acute care doctor at the clinic, who finally got the bright idea to do a chest x-ray after I had told her SEVERAL times that I was fairly certain that I had pneumonia, I was diagnosed with and pretty bad case of pneumonia. The visit was so awful that I thought about walking out at one point, but I knew I really needed the meds.

For example, the nurse had had me do a test where I blow as hard as I can into a tube three times to check lung capacity. The doctor looked at the numbers, looked at me over her glasses and said, "Did you really try to blow as hard as you could? These numbers are so low." The directions were not complicated. Of course I blew as hard as I could! I just wanted to get help and get out. She actually called the nurse in to repeat the test. Guess what the results were? Exactly the same!

Moving on. I got antibiotics, two inhalers, and super cough syrup. This morning was that I'm finally feeling a little better. I hate pneumonia. I takes so so so long to get better. And I have guests for Thanksgiving! Okay, I'm done.

Ben has been involved in a big exercise here on base that has nearly everyone working twelve-hour shifts, 'round the clock, seven days a week. His boss has let him come in for just three hours in the morning to take care of some things then he comes home for the day, and I go to bed.

Sydney's end-of-season soccer party was yesterday and we totally missed it. I wish I had sent her with someone else since half of her team lives in our cul-de-sac. I just totally spaced it. Her coach lives two houses down from us, so Sydney stopped by last night to pick up her medal and trophy. The first picture is her version of an action shot.

Everyone else has just been hanging out watching a lot of movies. I'm hoping there will be happier news next week.