Beth Comes to Visit / We Almost Die

Beth had been planning to visit us for months, and the time had finally arrived! We were super excited, not only because we would get to see Beth, but because she would be the first of our family to come visit us in Maryland! :D Little did we know, we would also be welcoming another visitor: STOMACH BUGPOCALYPSE 2016. 

These poor, unsuspecting souls. Although, Uriah definitely suspects SOMETHING.

A lot of planning went into Beth's trip (since Hawaiian air only flies to New York, she needed to figure out a way to get to Maryland), as well as money! She took a flight down to DC (which was half the price of tickets coming to BWI, the airport 20 mins from us vs. DC which is 1 hour away), and Uriah and I picked her up without a hitch! Beth started feeling yucky during her flight, but what she thought was food poisoning turned out to be a nasty stomach bug. We discovered this when, one by one, each of us started dropping like flies. We were pretty bummed that almost all of Beth's trip was altered because we each got sick. It was still really nice to be able to see her, and I was glad that Beth was feeling healthy enough to be able to see the Baltimore Aquarium and to prance around D.C. on her last two days, albeit alone. Then again, she did meet a friendly stranger (of course he was a guy - willing to help show around a cute girl) of whom I was convinced was a murderer, kidnapper, or both. Apparently, I'm a little less trusting than Beth when it comes to meeting strangers in one of the cities with the highest murder rates. Thankfully, he was neither a murderer nor a kidnapper, and Beth met a friend who doubled as both a tour guide and a paparazzi. Perfect!

Back to our near death experience with STOMACH BUGPOCALYPSE 2016. Rob and I both agree that in our 34+years of living, this was hands down the most sick we've ever been. We both each lost 12 pounds in 2 days (Kamuela said we should be thanking Beth for that part), and were completely LAYED OUT for four days. The sickness lasted about a week, but the first four days were most intense.  We experienced what Linda Blair demonstrated during her role in the Exorcist, namely, pasty sweat-sheened skin, projectile vomiting, and, as an added bonus, relentless diarrhea.   Thankfully, Uriah had only the mildest of reactions (yay for breastmilk antibodies!), a little vomiting (maybe 2x) and mild diarrhea. I am so grateful that he did not get the full fledged attack like we did. There is our silver lining! 

Beth and Uriah were even able to spend some quality time together! While I was down and out, Beth was able to take over giving Uriah his baths, reading stories, and feeding him his nighttime bottle. It was really nice to have the help, and Beth and Uriah really enjoyed the bonding time! <3

I went with Beth to try to eat some seafood on day four - I was able to eat a little, but my heart just wasn't in it. Obviously, I was still under the weather. I'm still glad she got to try Fat Boy's crab cake (my favorite so far) and their super yummy crab dip! 

Hopefully, Beth will come visit us again so we can have a proper do-over to do everything we wanted to do the first time around, with a lot less diarrhea.