Bee Sting Business

Every summer since I can remember I have encountered an angry bee, wasp, or hornet and came out a sore loser.  I've had multiple stings on my ankles, a sting on my face, thigh, arm and hand... Friday, I went for a walk up to the foothills and took a little adventure along the river trails.  On my way up the final hill, I felt a sharp stinging sensation radiating from my knee.  As I bent over to take a look at my knee I rested my hands on my shorts... inadvertently I trapped the stinging bugger under my clothing.  The hornet stung me again higher up on my thigh.  I was a little over a mile away from my apartment and decided to run home.  The running helped lessen the pain and irritation.  But I think it might have helped make the venom spread a little faster. Thinking the sting would go away on its own, I ignored it.  I woke up in the middle of the night with severe itching.  The redness and swelling around the upper part of my thigh was 3'' in diameter.  I took some medicine and hoped for the best.  The itching got worse and so Michael got me some generic cortizone 10 cream from Walgreen's.  The itching continued all day Saturday.  I tried Ice, the cream and benadryl with little success.  Actually the ice felt really good...I just ran out of ice.  Saturday the swelling/redness measured 7" across.  Here is a picture of my itchy inflammation/battle wounds (please ignore my thunder thighs).  I am guessing that my immune response heightened it security the second go around... probably why my inflammation is so much larger on my upper thigh. Sunday the redness and itching had lessened.  The skin is still tight and inflamed a bit but at least its getting better.  Imagine what I would look like if I had gotten stung 50 times!

Updates Finally

Our blog was greatly overlooked this spring and summer and now that we are back in the swing of things and settled into our new apartment, I thought it was time for a brief update.

• Chelsi Left on her Mission to the Alpine-German Speaking mission in March.
• Sister Megan Hernandez is already half way done with her mission in Bolivia.
• We got baby DUCKS in the spring and raised them over the summer. Now they are laying eggs!
  
• We recently moved back to Boise and enjoy the North end environment.
  
• We had our annual Hernandez Family Camp at Indian Springs in Aug.
• We enjoyed the Cassia County and Western Idaho Fair Food....mmmm.
  
• Michael is finally a BSU Radiography tech student.
• I am in my last year of nursing school.
• And now for the most EXCITING news... We are going to have another baby niece or nephew in March from Juliana and Josh! I'm hoping for a nephew.

Easter Egg Hunt

Shoshone Falls

Crazy Lilly

Baby Ducks

Little Aurora wouldn't smile for the camera.

The stream at Indian Springs kept all the kids entertained.

Holly's Family Photo

I survived Valentine's Day!

This was my first year helping out at the flower shop on Valentine's Day.  It was crazy!  I thought we had way too many flowers and I really wondered how on earth we would sell them all.  Here is how the day panned out.  An hour before the store even opened the phone was ringing off the hook and we had our parking lot filled with men and women waiting outside.  We had close to 200 deliveries and many carry out orders that it was difficult to keep up.  Dad was the all star delivery person along with our newest employee Camile, a senior in high school, who skipped school for the day to get the real feel of V-day! Boy, were we glad she could help out! We had a lot of good help which made things work in our favor.  We sold out of every color rose but 1.5 dozen orange.  It was amazing.  The cooler looked empty by the end of the day.  We worked so fervently during the day that we were able to get out of the flower shop by 6:00 pm. Valentine's Day was a success.

Following the long day at work I made my way back to Boise to get ready for nursing clinical Tuesday morning.  It was sad being away from my sweetheart on such a fun holiday, but I survived.  Michael wrote me a very sweet Valentine's Day card which definitely helped make my day brighter. 

Chelsi got her Mission Call!

Chelsi recieved her mission call this week!  We all gathered in the flowershop to watch her open her letter and to discover where she would go.  She has been called to the Alpine-German speaking mission.  Little Chelsi bug is going to be near the beautiful Alps! Her mission covers southern Germany, parts of Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein.  She leaves March 23, just intime for her to finish her internship in San Diego.  Michael will now have someone to practice his German with once she gets home.  We are very excited to have two missionaries in our family serving.  Megan and Chelsi are a great blessing to our family.

Football Season: Another Name for Fall

Boise.... State..... What fun we have watching Boise State football.  I love getting all geared up for the games.  Here are some pictures from the Hawaii vs Boise State Game.  Go Broncos!

Gotta love the student section...

Future Kitchen or Dinning Room Idea

This is such a fun idea.  I love the different designs, textures, sizes, and colors of the plates.  I've collected a few plates over the years but would like a few more.  My collection includes 2 plates from Mexico, and 2 from Israel.  If we ever get a chance to travel to Germany, I would like to incorporate some from there as well.  I've always admired how Carino's displays many colanders of all sizes and colors along their restaurant's walls.  I think it would be fun to incorporate in a dinning room or kitchen in my future home.  I'm always tempted to purchase the unique plates they sell in Anthropologie, but I also would like my collection to tell a story of our travels.  It is going to take time to travel to enough places to create my plate collection. But hey, by the time we get into a house, maybe we will have collected a few more plates!

Boliva or Bust

Megan is going to the Santa Cruz, Bolivia mission and reports to the MTC in October. We are all excited for her. I am jealous of her opportunity to be forced to learn and speak Spanish. Learning in class in helpful, but it is so much easier when you are forced to use it everyday. Bolivia should be interesting. It is a very poor, land locked country in South America. It has variety of rugged mountains, the beautiful Amazon forest, and the altiplano landscape. Megan is going to the land of extremes and superlatives. When I was doing some research on Bolivia shortly after she received her call, I ran across an article in the National Geographic about the Bolivian Wrestlers. Apparently, the women get dressed up in their culture's traditional attire and wrestle it out in the ring, letting their braids, skirts and peticoats fly. I just love Culture!



This will be an awesome growing experience for her spiritually, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Sunday, Megan spoke in church along with a good friend of hers that is called to serve in the Guatemala City, Guatemala Mission as a nurse. They both spoke beautifully. We were wondering if Megan was going to speak long enough because she wrote out a rough outline the night before and had not practiced or timed herself. She did just fine. Following the meeting, the huge Hernandez family got together and had a giant feast at Steve and Gloria's place. It was good to see a lot of the family there. It is evident that Megan has a lot of love and support. She will be missed but truly blessed.