Catching up

What a wild couple of weeks it's been! The last time I updated, we were about to head off for Tricia's big surprise. Well, unfortunately, she surprised us. With Swine Flu...

...or not. Tricia came to work on Friday feeling horrible and running a temperature of 101.8. They decided this was high enough to send her to the hospital to be checked out (our school is extremely concerned about swine flu - it's been popping up quite a bit in Korea). After arriving at the hospital in the morning, she was told she had to wait until 1:30 to even be checked for the Flu. When that time finally rolled around, the doctor decided to not even test her, because she had so many symptoms (cough and fever. That was it). He told her she had H1N1, gave her some Tamiflu, and sent her on her way.

She recovered quite quickly, so we're still not convinced it was The Pig Bug, but the school didn't want her to return until Tuesday, just in case. So we didn't get to go apple picking (which was her suprise) and when she came back Tuesday she had a wicked bad case of cabin fever and just wanted to work. Well, she got one day.

Also on Tuesday, I was pulled out of class around 11:15. Rachel told me that all my Kinders' parents were gathering in the first floor and were coming up to take their kids home. Apparently Philip was diagnosed with Swine Flu and the parents were extremely concerned and wanted to test and quarantine their kids (understandable, after Rachel also explained that lately quite a few children have been dying in Korea from this unmanageable virus). So my Kindergarten was shutting down until the following Monday. My first concern was that my kids were all going to miss Halloween on Friday, and I was so heartbroken for them!

Just after Kindergarten on Tuesday, we had a teachers' meeting in the office. Rachel told us that since the parents found out at least one LCI student had swine flu, they were yanking their kids out in droves. She said the best option for LCI was to just shut down the school until Monday. It was a shock, but probably the best business decision for them. The most reassuring part was that we would have Halloween the next Wednesday, so no students had to miss it!

After school I realized, "Holy Cow! A 5-day weekend!" Ben, Emily2 and I, after much discussion, reserved tickets and a beach resort in the Philippines, to leave the next day :) We spent this surprise vacation basking in the sun on a beautiful white sand beach... it was fantastic. We called it our "voluntary quarantine."

On our return Monday, we got the update that the Korean Government is discussing shutting down all schools for at least a week. Rachel told us that the schools are doing their best to prevent this, but she wanted us to be prepared, just in case. I'm really impressed with how forthcoming she's been with us about everything, considering before now the business culture at LCI has been one of secrecy and misinformation.

Tuesday night we stayed late to get the school ready for Halloween. Wednesday was a blast, and multiple children cried in the haunted house again! So far the school is still open, and I have one of the only Kindergarten classes where everyone is showing up every day. I'm going to call that a good sign :)

Ok, this has ran long - picture posts to follow of the Philippines and Halloween!

Love you all!