Appreciation of the Senses!

After a long week of Caleb and I being sick, I appreciate all the more being able to smell and taste, now that those senses have been taken away from me!  I think I've possibly had the worst cold, I have ever had.  Caleb graciously gave it to me through sneezing in my mouth (gross, I know!), thank you baby.  Poor Caleb had a temperature of 104 off and on last week.  We've been so congested, it has been terrible!  

So back to my appreciation for taste and smell.  I made blueberry scones last night, why?  I'm not sure, since I wouldn't be able to taste them.  But they sounded so good and I needed to use up the blueberries that had been sitting in our fridge for a week.  After making them and sadly not being able to taste them, I started to get worried.  What if, you could have a cold so bad, that your sense of smell and taste could be taken away forever?  I spent over an hour last night researching on google if there had been any cases reported.  I started thinking about how mych I love the smell of garlic, of walking in an Italian restaurant and smelling/savoring each morsel of the delectable meal.  I don't think life gets any better than that!  (Alright, maybe it could get better.  Maybe if I was eating the Italian meal and getting a massage on some Hawaiian island-- Nothing gets better than that!)  Luckily, I did not find any data in my research, suggesting a permanent loss of smell ever being attributed to a horrible cold.  Thank goodness!  How awful would it be to lose your sense of smell and taste?!  For a person who loves to eat and cook, my life would be so bland, I think I would be thoroughly depressed forever!  So if this atrocious bug has brought me anything (besides congestion, a sore throat and throbbing headaches), I am so much more appreciative for my sense of smell and taste, something I have largely taken for granted!  

To change the subject completely, below are a few pictures of John and the older scouts who went snow camping.  What makes this so amazing, besides snow camping in itself (wouldn't catch me doing that!), is that they went on one of the coldest nights of the year.  -25 degrees?!  Are you crazy?  You'd have to be!

 

Snow & Dinner

Here's an overdue post from last weekend.  As you can see, we've been getting lots of snow around here.  We've gotten so much more snow than shown in these pictures (taken 5 days ago!), not to mention it's freezing around here!  The high on Friday is supposed to be zero degrees, brrrrr!  That's not even talking about the lows or what the temperature really feels like!  I don't think we'll be playing in the snow that day...

On Saturday night, we went over to a fellow dental resident's house for a Syrian dinner.  Milad, a dentist of 15 years in Syria, wanted to come and practice in the United States.  In order to practice here, he was told that he had to complete a 2 year residency.  He is one of four residents working at Mercy hospital with John.   He and his wife graciously had all who worked in the dental department, over for dinner at their home.  Below you can see some of the exotic food.  

I've pasted this link if you want to know a bit more about Syrian dinner culture.  They typically start in the late afternoon with appetizers, next with the main meal and then fruit, pastries and nuts.  Dinner can last hours and hours, the point is to have enough time in between each part of the meal to be able to enjoy everything!   Milad and Mai went to so much work and had an amazing spread of food.  It's fun to try new things! And yes, for all of my family who are reading this post and remember the past of me being a bit finicky, yes I did eat a lot at the dinner and liked it too!  :-)

Swimming Lessons

Today was Caleb's first day of swimming lessons.  It was also the first time where I did not stay in the water with him.  I was a bit unsure of how Caleb would do...

Yes, Caleb thought it was kind of crazy...

And yes, Caleb was a bit nervous...

But yes, I think he was happy and had a great time!

All of the parents were able to watch the children on a video monitor upstairs, can you pick out Caleb?