Sam is a Mess!

In the middle of our Picture Perfect Christmas we had to stop and take Sam to they urgent care for cauliflower ear.  He had it sliced open and drained- although it seemed to take forever for it to go down in size.  We were very afraid that we had waited too long to have it done and it would now look like that forever.  

Somewhere during our time up north he developed a rash and some "drainage" that didn't look good to me.  I told him I thought he might have ringworm, but he blew me off.  That is until he got back to school and the coach took one look at him and said, "go home, have that checked out by a doctor.  I think you have ringworm and maybe impetigo.  You can't wrestle until it's gone."  So off we went to the clinic and sure enough he had ringworm and impetigo!  He is still fighting with the ringworm to this day!  He is now taking oral medication.  I was not a happy mother when I found out how many people on the wrestling team were fighting ringworm and that they never clean their mats!  Absolutely disgusting and unsanitary!!  I decided this one wasn't worth the fight however.  If he decides he absolutely must wrestle next year, we will have a discussion.

But wait that's not all!  Right after new years, Rob wanted to take his clay shooter out and try it out.  

This is what the ground looked like where we took it to try it out.  Angus kept trying to eat them!

While we were setting up, Joseph stepped back to get out of the way and accidentally stepped on the trigger mechanism which shot the throwing arm right into Sam's shin!  I was sure he had broken a leg!  When we got him to the urgent care, they were full and unable to take more patients.  Sam decided he had made it in without a wheelchair and therefore he didn't need to go in.  It seemed to heal Ok.  

Boy what a wreck that kid was over the winter!  Let's pray for a little break from accidents, injuries and diseases for a little while!

Presidents Weekend

During winter season for sports, Sam has wrestled.

He turned out to be not half bad at it, claiming second place for his weight group on the team even though he has never wrestled before.  He was expected to go to the European championships, both because of who he would face at sectionals and because of his record of wins and losses.  Therefore, we planned nothing.  The week before Sectionals, he decided it was time to take on his dad and his dad, being the man that he is, decided not to go to easy on him.  Development: strained back and neck muscles, Result: he actually lost to the opponent that he had always beat before.  Now there were some extra problems in this match.  The scoring was not the best and when the coach went up to complain, the ref reviewed the scores written down and said, yes, there should have been a tie between the two and they should have gone to overtime, but he already declared the other guy the winner and he was moving on.  Also, when they replayed the match, the ref had forgotten to give Sam one point, therefore, Sam should have actually won.  Either way, he was given a good chance at a wild card, because of his record.  He came home a couple days later and said they had given him the wild card, but then decided that they had too many wild cards and cut two of them, him being one.  The next day he came home late.  He said at the beginning of the day they told him that one guy dropped out and so he was back in.  When he showed up for practice, they told him the guy was back in and Sam was out, again.  The poor kid- in, out, in, out!  It was horrible!  Needless to say, he stayed out and didn't get to go, but the team brought home the big win for the year!  European Champions!

Instead we had our sick Brother in law come down and have fun with us at Heidelberg Castle.

 They had an old Pharmacy museum in the castle as well- this is an Enema

 This is a mold for suppositories.

 Big wine barrel

 The biggest wine barrel- this is how the town paid it's taxes.

 Part of the turret fallen down.

On a beautiful walk to find the 7 old mills.

 We only had time for 2.

And to a Fasching parade.  

It got so cold we couldn't feel our toes by the end of this very long and very witch heavy parade.

They did all kinds of tricks like taking the laces out of people's shoes, taking their shoes, stealing the kids and carting them away- that happened to one of our group,  (They finally let them go about 2 or 3 blocks away (he was 7!)) and throwing lots of confetti.  Every once in a while they threw candy too.  There wasn't as much candy as I remember.  We left a little early and headed towards the car, which was along the parade, so we ended up seeing the whole thing.  We also bought some of the special Fasching  donut, the Faschingskrapfen.  It tasted like a 3 day old rectangular donut- which is very well might have been and why it was on super sale!  Overall a fun Presidents day weekend.