Have you ever seen a picture of......

a kidney stone? Yikes. I had no idea they were like bits of rock candy. I always thought they were like blood clots because you peed out blood when passing a stone, but you actually pee out blood because of the sharp points scraping your ureter. OUCH! (not her actual stone)

After we sold our our house in Bountiful the Pink One started to have some night time pee accidents and often complained about having a pain in her side. I took her to the Dr. and she tested positive for having a UTI. Round 1 of antibiotics complete and we were headed to the UK. Shortly after arriving here the pain returned and the pee accidents started again, but this time we had no health care. We quickly learned that everything here takes twice as long as you would expect. We lived here 4 months before they came to install our home phone and internet. Yeah, that long. Long story short, the Pink One was finally seen and diagnosed with hydronephrosis in her left kidney. This means that the kidney is filling with pee, not draining, and stretching which is causing pain. After her second ultra-sound which was performed at the Children's Hospital in London they found that she has a large kidney stone blocking part of her ureter. The Dr.'s believe that the stone has formed because the kidney is not functioning properly. It is very rare for a child to get kidney stones. We knew that with her prematurity some problems could come creeping up over time, so the Dr.'s are looking to see if the problem is related or if she is just terribly unlucky. 

There are many things that I think are wonderful about socialised medicine starting with the fact that everyone gets to be cared for free of charge. I hate the idea of sick children going untreated because the parents don't have insurance. I think it is crazy how much prescriptions are and love that I can get mine for free. On the flip side of this, you wait hours for a visit even when you have a scheduled appt. The Blue One made the devil himself jealous with his naughty behaviour on the train, by screaming 45 minutes straight at rush hour. The passengers wanted to throw us off. I wanted to cry. 5 hours after our journey started we returned home completely knackered. We will receive in the mail our next appt. time for the Pink One to have the dye test, blood test, 24 hour urine collection, and then she will have the stone shocked. In order to shock the stone to break it up and pass, they have to put the Pink One out.

I am amazed how strong and brave this sweet girl has been for the last 6 months. I can't even begin to imagine how she must feel and have felt for a long time. I am praying that they will be able to schedule us in sooner than later. In the meantime, I am washing lots of panties :) Poor thing. I am positive that once they get the stone taken care of they will figure out how to fix up the kidney. She is on a low dose of antibiotics that she has been taking for the past month and a half. All in good time. I am learning to be more patient and to have greater faith as the length of time to get things done here continues to grow.

Road Trip Day 10: Raimes to England

Raimes is a cool little town with a very open piazza, cafe's and bars, and has a major socialising feel. It would be a lovely place to hang out if you were child free. We stayed in the city centre which is like the "Gateway" in Salt Lake, great walking area, shops, food, and not a lot of cars driving on the narrow cobbled streets. The best part of the evening in Raimes was going to Subway for dinner. Subway? Yes Subway, and why would this be awesome? Because they had a soda fountain. I know this sounds lame, but I dream about going to a gas station and getting a 32oz. soda filling it with ice, diet pepsi, and a lime. Dream about it. Drooling right now. By now I am sure that you have noticed hubby getting more and more scruffy. No shaving until the trip was over. I think he looks manly, the facial hair certainly helped him out looking manly while wearing his Euro swim suit.......ha ha ha.

I took a couple of pictures on our way out.

Very happy to be heading home. Here we are boarding the Euro tunnel train to go under the sea and back to England.

Inside the train when the Pink One says, "Mooooom, you aren't supposed to be taking pictures!" Oops, there really was a sign saying no photography. No more pictures.

Road trip complete. There are a few places that I would like to re visit and spend more time in: Bruges Belgium 2 days, Leiden Holland a weekend, Heidelberg Germany a weekend, Hohenschwanau Germany 2 days, Interlaken and Alp villages 4 days, Raimes France 2 days. All worth seeing and spending a little more than a day visiting.

I had a great time on this trip and understand fully that the only reason we were able to have this road trip extraordinaire is because we live in England. I feel like this trip was my reward for the long and lonely days I spend at home sans friends or even an adult conversation. Hubby works 12+ hour days commute included and I am lucky if I get a "Hiya" from other mom's when I take the Pink One to school. I have felt the pains of loneliness deep into the marrow of my bones, but then I remember that I am here for a reason. My life changed drastically with this move and in some ways I feel like everything I loved and was good at was stripped from me, and yet I know I am here to be developed in other ways. 

Alrighty, road trip complete. Now it looks like it is time for me to start planning a long weekend trip up to Lochness Scotland......dum dum dum.

Road Trip Day 9: Raimes

Truthfully, I am tired of blogging my road trip. However, I blurb my blog for journaling purposes and so I must finish my last 2 days. I must also admit that nature saved some of the very best bits for last. Our drive from Dijon to Raimes was absolutely picturesque.

Our day today started at a water park in Dijon that was next to the hotel. The Pink One is part fish/part human and begged us to take her to the water park. We consented. When we got to the water park ready to swim we saw this sign......What? If you can't wear swim shorts than you..........oh.........no! John refused.

But how can you refuse when you have these sweet piggies dying to play in the wave pool, lazy river, and water slides? Well, you don't. I headed to France's equivalent of Wal-Mart in the shopping center attached to the water park and got both the Blue One and the Hubby their European Swim wear :) Don't worry, it wasn't a speedo, but a pair of the Daniel Craig- James Bond booty shorts (although there were plenty of men sporting their speedo's). The Blue One is sporting his in the picture. Hubby flatly refused to let me take a picture of him, but don't worry, just picture Daniel Craig in his and that is pretty much what the hubby looked like. Be jealous. 

Hubby ;)

He would however, let me take a picture of him holding them up. This man truly loves his family and would literally do ANYTHING to make us happy, I don't know many men who really would.

And last of all it was time to get in our car to head to Raimes......ours is the silver one. Okay, okay, behind the other silver one.

The fields of Rapeseed were in full bloom and so bright that at times they appeared fluorescent.

Again we travelled away from the highway and through the small villages and little country lanes. As you drive you have little villages and then fields and meadows, and then another little village and then fields and meadows all the way to the final destination of a larger city.

We decided to visit a Chateau called Chatuea de Bussy-Rabutin. Favourite place I have been next to Neuschwanstein Castle. There are a number of reasons why I loved this place: 1st- we were the only people there, 2nd- It was a gorgeous warm day with beautiful skies and clouds capturing beautiful pictures and taking pictures is what I love to do, 3rd- this Chateau is filled with amazing art work which is another passion of mine, and 4th: the owner of the Chateau was exiled there in his day for mocking Louis XIV "the Sun King." I am sorry, but I love anyone who has a sense of humour and Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy certainly had one.

Each room was beautiful and the art work amazing. I could see Pemberley from Pride and Prejudice looking like the inside of this Chateau.

Ceiling art.

Ceiling art.

I thought that this person looked like George Washington :)

The Fam

The Hubby and piglets.

Me with piglets.

"Lone Boy at Chateau" Can't you just see this as a painting? I think it is so funny, I laugh out loud every time I see it. Buddha belly.

There were lizards running all over the stones and the piggies decided to try to catch one. The lizards won, but it kept the piggies occupied for quite some time. There was also a chorus of frogs on lily pads in the mote, we counted about 20 fat frogs singing very loudly.

Pointing out the lizards tail sticking out from the rocks.

Team work. The plan was to surround the lizards so they couldn't escape. *snicker*

After seeing all of the Chateau and spending a good amount of time enjoying the warmth and beauty, we headed out to Raimes to enjoy the last night of our Holiday.

Road Trip Day 8: Dijon

We left Lyon bright and early and headed for Dijon, France. We had no agenda and nothing specific to see in the Burgundy countryside, we were just winging it to Dijon. We decided to avoid highway's and drive country roads all the way from Lyon to Dijon, realistically, this is the best way to see the little villages and countryside.

On our way we stumbled on the Chateau de La Rochepot. Wowsers. You could only tour this Chateau with a guide.....and in french, but they had a paper in English for me to read. The Chateau was beautiful, in an amazing location, and has been used for defence.

The Hubby and Piggies.

This well was as expensive to build as the Chateau. This reminded me of just how important water is, people were willing to spend extreme amounts of money to have a water source.

A view from the top of the Chateau over the Beaune, Burgundy countryside.

One of my favourite photo's I have ever taken.

Our Family

The reason why we have a family :)

Going on 11 years of marriage and 16 years of friendship.

And so we begin the tour of random Chateau sight seeing.

Village street.

Church tower.

More Roman Amphitheatre ruins. 

Look mom, a stage!

Forget that.....a bigger stage!

Man made ;)

Random Chateau

The Pink One has a health issue that we are finally able to get taken care of, but the nature of this issue means a lot of sudden having to pee. So we pulled into a little park for her to go and have her pee. While parked I decided to take a family picture with this lovely Chateau in the back ground and told the Pink One to head into the grass and have her pee. Such a good girl, she did as she was asked without question. Unfortunately, the grass was not only grass, but stinging nettle. Thankfully she hadn't pulled down her panties to find out that it was stinging nettle *ouch* She did in fact cry for a bit until we were able to wipe her legs down.

The Burgundy countryside is among the most beautiful I saw in Europe, actually a tie with the Bavaria bits.

More Chateau.

I couldn't help but fall madly in love with the blue sky and puffy white clouds. The older I get, the more  I have a thing for clouds.

I have always been a lover of road trips. I loved today because we just went willy nilly, saw what we wanted to, and then headed to the hotel. I loved seeing all of the Chateau's which are basically the castle's of France, but with a different look than those of the UK. Tomorrow's adventure in Dijon before we leave for Raimes is one of the funniest of my life. Let's just say we all had a great time in Dijon except Hubby (who was a good sport), bless him.