Our day in the Alsace area of France was fun. It was a beautiful sunny day and we ate outside at a little cafe and felt like lizzards soaking up the heat. Mom was starting to feel kind of wimpy and now she has the full blown flu. We are all staying mostly well...two visits to the ER in the last few days but nothing too scary. Dylan had a sore ear on Sunday already but I like to wait and see if it is really sore so at 5 am on Monday morn we made a visit to the pediatrics unit at our local hospital. Today when Hannes woke up, he discovered a tick on his chest. We do have a lot of ticks here so it wasn't extremely unusual. I got my little tick removal items ready and pulled it out...only a little piece stayed in and when I called my pediatrician (closed Thursdays..our kids always get sick on Thursdays of course!) I got a message and the suggestion to call the ped unit at the hospital. They said if a little piece was in there, we should come in. The lady who helped us couldn't get it out either, so here we are at home again...several hundred lighter probably! Grandpa stayed here with Dylan and Liam. It's great to have some help. So mom is buried in the covers up to her nose, eating a piece of toast every once in awhile and drinking apricot nectar occasionally. Hope she is feeling up to snuff again soon.