Day 2: Disaster Strikes

Because who would want a trip home be without a catastrophic event? What fun would that be?

The day started out fine (albeit early, thank you, jet lag). Uncle Mark made us a nice breakfast before he went to take care of the animals and head to work, and then Aunt Ruth took us on a walk around the farm to visit the chickens and the cows.

Later on, the boys helped dig some holes for flowers in front of the house. Everything was still going great... until they went off to play in the tree house, and started banging on a pipe, which unbeknownst to them, housed a colony of ferocious yellowjackets.

Indescribable panic ensued, as you can imagine... but finally we chased down every single last yellowjacket of those that had followed us into the house, and got the boys calmed down enough to get some baking soda paste on the stings and give them some Benadryl. (And then I called Frédéric back to explain why I hung up on him earlier.)

I thought, "Well, at least now we know they aren't allergic to stings."

Those, my friends, are called "famous last words." Because the next morning, after having had three doses of Benadryl since the previous day, this is what Noah looked like.

So, since it was Friday, and we were supposed to drive all day on Saturday, and it would be the weekend, we decided to go to Urgent Care, where the doctor confirmed this was an allergic reaction, so he got a steroid shot, oral steroids, and a stronger antihistamine. And a prescription for an epi-pen. (Which we couldn't fill, because they cost around $300 in the US. Ouch. But not to worry, we will get one in France. Along with in-depth allergy testing and possibly allergy shots.)