Confucius says ...

I swear I'm not making this up.

Ellen caught herself a common virus at some point in the last 3 weeks, and then had a very uncommon reaction and became jaundiced last Wednesday - the day before we were all supposed to leave for Fort Worth to visit my TCU friends. Long story short, we spent all of Thursday afternoon at the hospital and missed our flight. We had take-out Chinese food because our fridge was empty and this was in our fortune cookie. A good cosmic reminder, me thinks, and also, perhaps, the theme of parenthood.

This is a picture Aunt Betsy took when she was so kind to come over and take care of Ellen on Wednesday after she was sent home from school.

And here was yesterday, Ells in full play mode. She's not quite her normal self, but really not too sick. Yellow though, for sure.

Erik was sweet enough to encourage me to keep my ticket to Texas, so I modified the plan and flew out early Friday morning by myself. We all missed Erik and Ellen a bunch, but still managed to have a good time. More evidence to come ...