Mary, Martha, and Katherine.

June was a month I've been dreading for some time.  Our company attached a four-day drill "weekend" onto our two week annual training.  Meaning, I was going to leave my baby for almost three straight weeks.  Initially I was told that I would be able to come home every night to be with her, then that I wouldn't, then that I would, then that I wouldn't, etc...   It went back and forth like that for weeks leading up to this dreaded training event.  Thankfully Sarah volunteered to take Vivian in and make her a Hexberg for the duration, and was very flexible about the whole "maybe we'll be home this evening to spend the night with her, and maybe we won't" kind of scenario that ensued throughout the duration of the training.  In the end, the longest I went without seeing her was five days.  She didn't really seem all that affected by my absence since she had all her little Hexberg cousins around her to keep her company.  She was returned to me in her usual healthy, happy state.

Immediately upon her return to our home Vivian started showing signs of a cold.  She wound up with a set of ear infections, and an eye infection.  We had a couple of sleepless nights, but now she seems to be doing quite well.  I, on the other hand, immediately contracted her illness, and I guess the long training hours, limited sleep, no days off, crappy food, no physical exercise (this training was a lot of sitting), followed by a couple of sleepless nights with a sick baby caught up with me.  I found myself with not just a cold, but one that came accompanied with chills and fever, sore throat, muscle aches, nausea, and exhaustion.  I spent an entire day, wrapped in a blanket on the couch feeling like I had been steam rolled, while my baby ran around the house making more messes than I even knew a person her size was capable of creating.  Yesterday I woke up, and to my relief was feeling more myself.  The fever was just kind of slight, the sore throat wasn't as bad, the nausea was gone, and I had enough energy to put my house back together again.  After that I was feeling so good that when Justin said he was going to get off work early I suggested that we take a little hike.

I have read about this particular hike several times, and have kept telling myself we need to do it this summer, so this seemed like an ideal opportunity.  It's a 4-mile round trip hike with only a 1,200 ft. elevation gain.  So, not that bad, and you visit three alpine lakes along the way.  Lakes, Mary, Martha, and Katherine.  I threw this out there to Justin and he expressed some hesitancy, seeing as how I still couldn't go more than 5 minutes or so without blowing my nose, and my voice sounds like that of a man, but I reassured him that I was up to it.  So we loaded up and headed out.

Literally 100 meters or so into the hike and I started to feel like I may have overestimated my recovery a little.  A quarter of a mile in and Justin was subjected to unrestrained whining about how I wasn't going to make it, and we would definitely be turning back after the first lake.  I finally dragged myself and Vivian (because she still refuses to allow her dad to carry her on the hikes) up to Lake Mary, and after a few pictures parked myself on a rock to take a break.

On the opposite end of the lake, getting ready to continue on to Martha.

After my brief rest at Mary I decided that we should continue on to Martha, and secretly I already knew that even if I had to drag myself there I was going to make it to Katherine, because one does not simply crap out two lakes into a three lake hike.  

Martha, the smallest of the three lakes.

Lake Martha is actually very close to Mary, but much smaller.  What surprised us is how few people actually continue on after Mary.  There were a fair number of people at Mary, but none at Martha and only one fisherman who was packing up for the day when we arrived at Katherine.

Katherine was well worth the effort.

Lake Katherine was beautiful.  We weren't able to linger too long since our daylight hours were starting to wane a bit, and my energy seemed to be slipping away along with them.  We started the descent down, and immediately I knew I had probably overdone it.  By the time we got back to Mary I was exhausted and we attempted to move Vivian over to Justin.  That was short-lived.  Her screaming and writhing around showed no signs of letting up, so we strapped her back on me and continued our descent.  

It's been a super hot month, and yet there's still big patches of snow up there.

There were tons of wildflowers growing along the trail.

About a quarter mile from the parking lot my fever returned.  I felt like I barely stumbled back to the car, and made Justin drive most of the ride home without any air conditioning because I had chills so bad that in 80 degree weather I felt like I was going to die of hypothermia.  When we finally got home we showered, ate dinner, and we're getting ready for bed.  Vivian was cuddling with me in our bed, but unbeknownst to me, because I was sick and too stuffed up to hear or smell anything, had suffered a massive blowout, the first in months.  So at midnight we were bathing her and changing sheets.  Justin went to bed around 1230, Vivian and I were up for another hour after that waiting for her to calm down enough to drift off.  I went to bed still running a fever, but I feel much better this morning.  that being said, lesson learned.  Today I'll just be taking it easy.  In hindsight I'm glad we went yesterday, in the moment I was kicking myself, and I promise myself that I will never again tackle something like this unless I'm all the way recovered, not just mostly.