Groundhog's Day!

Mon. Feb. 1 & Tue. Feb. 2: We were utterly dismayed to find out last night about 10:00 that Craig and Sarah had to take Analyn to the hospital yesterday in the middle of their ice storm (part of a giant winter storm affecting 1/3 of the nation) because she was having trouble breathing. She was admitted with a common respiratory virus called RSV and a touch of pneumonia. RSV isn't usually much worse than a bad cold and is easily shared by small children but it is more serious for infants, particularly if they are high risk to begin with, which luckily Analyn is not. But they gave her antibiotics and fluids through an IV and did breathing treatments through the night and into today. They usually have to put infants on a respirator but they wanted to hold off on that as long as possible. They had brought her in very early and they were reassured that she was in better shape than they often see. She had a relatively good night and by today they no longer were talking about the respirator. In fact, they stopped the breathing treatments and all agreed that she was doing better than expected. Sarah just let us know that they are going to give her a feeding tube so they can put Sarah's milk right into her belly; she is still too congested to nurse but it's better for her than what she was getting through the IV. Craig and Sarah are both staying there with her as his mom, Connie, is at the house taking care of the boys. I think she had planned on leaving tomorrow, but even without this, I'm not sure she could get back to Columbus because of the storm. We have helped with the Habitat build in West St. Tammany Parish for the last two days. We worked yesterday in off-and-on drizzle but 70 degree temps, putting up siding until about 2:00, when the cold front went through with a vengeance. We were concerned about the camper and working under a drip edge with no gutter so the water was coming down on our heads and running down our sleeves and necks. So we left then and learned that they all gave up about 3:00, when it really poured. Last night it got down to 30 degrees and we have unhooked our waterline because it is supposed to be colder tonight. It never got over 36 degrees today and was very cold and blustery. We had a hard time staying warm enough as we finished the siding left undone yesterday on one side of the house. We took a couple of breaks to walk up and down the road to get hands and feet warmed past being numb! We went out for lunch at the Abita Brewhouse with two other workers we have met here and none of us had beer--just coffee or tea! When we got back to the worksite Marv and I worked on putting up soffit trim on the other side of the house and found that it was a little warmer there. Nonetheless we knocked off about 3:00 rather than staying until 4:00 as a handful of others did. With Marv recovering from a bad cold and me on my second antibiotic for bronchitis we have decided it doesn't make sense for us to work outside tomorrow in the predicted sleet and mid-30s temperatures. We'll hope they have something we can do for the next two days inside their Re-store shop and then return to the house on Saturday when it is supposed to be sunny and in the forties. As Marv said, "It doesn't seem right that I had to come to Louisiana to find out how frustrating it is to work with vinyl siding in frigid temps." Turns out the siding cracks and breaks very easily when we try to cut it to fit. Still we have gotten a lot done on the house in the last couple of days and met some very nice people both local and from NC and WI. By the way, Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow, which means Spring is right around the corner. Yeah, right!!