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The weekend is now coming to a close and I'm not sure that I'm sad about it. A weekend that I was looking forward to turned into..... well, a weekend I didn't enjoy very much.

Last Monday my Diva Princess started complaining of a headache and running a fever. On Wednesday, we took her to the doctor just to make sure it wasn't  more than the virus which was going around town....only to find out that it was. The doctor said the virus will run its course in 4-7 days. Knowing we were going to Missouri on Friday, we were optimistic that we would be set to go on day 5. However, that wasn't the case.

5 a.m. Friday morning. 101.6. 9 a.m. 99.0  Maybe????

We became obsessive, checking her temperature every 15 minutes, but alas it wasn't meant to be. Her temp went up. We talked to my niece who we were sharing a cabin with. She has 1 year old and I didn't want to expose her son to this virus, but she said to come to Missouri and everything would be fine. So, we packed it up and were on the road by 11:30 a.m. Friday morning. The drive took us a little over 4 1/2 hours, but our princess was loaded up on medicine so she made it to Steelville, Missouri without an issue.

We arrived just in time to get ready to go horseback riding which was at 5 p.m. Princess was still doing relatively well and really perked up when we arrived at the Bass River Resort and started running around with her cousins.  Nine of us went on a 1 hour trail ride through the resort including my 3 girls and myself. The kids were definitely excited to ride through the trails and experience "life on a ranch".

After our ride, we went back to our cabin. The cabins have 1 bathroom, 1 bedroom, a couch bed and 4 double beds in the upstairs loft. Every bed is a full size bed, not a king like we are used to at home. Friday night I took princess to bed about 10 p.m. so she could some rest before our float on Saturday all the while hoping her fever would break before morning.

Remember how I said the beds were full sized? Well, my DH didn't take the hint very well when I asked him where he was going to sleep. About midnight, he climbed into bed with princess and I....and thus ended any possibility of me sleeping. 3 people - even if one of those people happens to be a small 8-year old princess - does not make for good sleep in a full sized bed. Because my princess was so congested, breathing through her nose sounded more like a fog horn - going off in my ear all night. Between the fog horn, the lack of space in bed, and 8 other people in the cabin tossing, turning and trying to sleep, I was awake through most of the night. Argh.(NOTE: I didn't hint for Saturday night. I point blank told DH he had to sleep upstairs.)

The sun came up on our little cabin Saturday morning and we were determined to make it a good day. Princess was still running a low grade fever, but she had plenty of spunk and wanted to go on the float trip. So we thought we'd give it a try. Our bus picked us up at 9:15 and we were off for our 6 mile float. The sun was warm and the water was cold. Unfortunately, the river was a little low and we had to walk our raft in several places. About halfway through the float, princess lost her interest in floating. She wanted to float like we do on the Mackinaw River where she actually gets to get out and swim down the river, but since the river was so shallow in most places she would have been walking instead of floating. Instead she sat on the side of the raft and gained little enjoyment through the day. We hit our destination about 2 p.m. and started back to the resort. Once there, princess perked up again and spent the next hour or so at the pool with her cousins. She told daddy she just didn't feel like floating today.

While everyone else was at the pool, I was hoping to relieve a little stress and tension from the float by heading out for a run. I had a mild headache, but attributed it to the lack of sleep and time in the sun. I followed the road from Bass River Resort back to the main road leading to Steelville for 2 miles and then looped back. The hills on the road were so long and tough that I decided to walk the "big one" on my way back to the resort. Once back at the cabin, I relaxed on the front porch reading my latest issue of Diabetic Living magazine. The peace and quiet was just what the doctor ordered for me at least.

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing with my sisters and brother-in-law. It's amazing how much I love these people, the people who helped form my life, my goals and dreams. I couldn't imagine my life without them. We went to the lodge for dinner. My sisters love the meal every year. I, however, do not care for it much. Maybe I'm a food snob, but I guess I'm just not used to eating college dorm type of food anymore.

The exciting part of dinner was watching 2 drunk college aged guys get into a shoving match, dropping "f" bombs here and there....followed by my niece yelling at them for using vulgar words in front of her children. HA! Way to go, Jill! (And yes the one who wasn't on the floor did apologize.)  After dinner we relaxed back at the cabins....until about 8:30 p.m. when Abby came to me saying she was freezing. I felt her forehead and she didn't feel warm. I really thought we had gotten past the virus, but I checked her temperature and yep! 101.6. Argh. We went inside, popped some Motrin and got under the covers. It was 8:30 p.m. on a Saturday  night on my mini-vacation and I was in bed!!! DH came in and asked if I was going to go back out since it took princess about 30 seconds to fall asleep. I was afraid to leave her in a foreign place with no night light and since my headache had gotten worse, I thought a little sleep was just what I needed. I think I finally fell asleep about 9:30 p.m. ...only to wake up to a splitting headache at 11 p.m. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but sleep was not my friend Saturday night.

Around midnight, princess woke up. Her clothes and the sheets were soaked all the way through. After turning on a light, I found her pajamas and helped her change. We put a clean t-shirt underneath her since I didn't have clean sheets for the bed. I tried to sleep some more, but to no avail. I was in tears with frustration from lack of sleep and my splitting headache. I almost felt as if I was going slightly bonkers. Finally, about 1 a.m. I remembered my hubby's toilet kit was in my room. I said a quick prayer that he would have some decongestant in his toilet kit and God certainly did answer those prayers. I took the nasty little pill  and finally fell asleep somewhere after 1:30 a.m. I woke up several times throughout the night and my Princess was no longer a heating blanket. I was glad to know that it seemed she had finally kicked the virus.

All night Saturday night while I couldn't sleep I just kept thinking that I should have followed my intuition and stayed home, but I was just sure my baby's fever would break on Friday and I would be sorry that we didn't make the trip. While I did enjoy the time I got to spend with my sisters, nieces, nephews and great-nieces and nephews, I do wish that I had stayed home and snuggled up to some good movies with my little baby. Because at 1 a.m. when you can't sleep in a cabin full of 10 other people, you really don't have any options, but to lay there and pray for sleep.