The Mr. Gets the Shings.

Let’s talk about how not to wrap up a romantic weekend, shall we?
In our experience, it’s really fairly simple. Just do your best to steer clear of SHINGLES.

Oh yeah. I just said that.

A little back story for you:

Several months ago, we got a coupon in the mail for a gift card that essentially amounted to 50% off of a stay at the beautiful Hotel Park City. We decided this would be a wonderful and affordable way to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. Between my running in the Dirty Dash and Paddy’s busy work schedule (even on the weekends), our June weekends filled up fast, and this last one was the first time we had a chance to sneak away.

With the Bug safely bundled away to Nana’s house, we first headed up to Currant Creek on Friday afternoon to do a little fishing. The hubster and I used to do a lot of fishing on the weekends before I pushed Bug into the world, but since that time, he’s had to enjoy his fishing trips alone. Daughty’s little legs are just too short to hike around a river bank, and visions of her flinging herself into a lake or gulping down a couple of treble hooks have kept me safely at home with her since she was born. For Father’s day Paddy requested a joint excursion, and since we were headed up the canyon anyway, the timing worked out perfectly.

The drive was gorgeous, although we did miss our Jeep when we hit the unpaved section of the road. We caught a few pretty little trout—in this instance, ‘we’ refers almost exclusively to ‘Paddy’—and then headed back to Park City. The gift card was also good at the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse located in the hotel, so we stuffed ourselves full of yummy steak until they basically had to roll us out of there and up to our bee-you-tee-ful room.

In the morning, we ran over to the outlets to do some shopping for the dads in our lives, and raced home to see that one little Bug we had been missing so much. After her nap, we hopped on Trax with our best buds the Ortons to check out the chalk festival that benefits the Utah Foster Care Foundation. Paddy and I stumbled on the show 3 years ago, and we’ve loved checking it out every year since. This year, luck was on our side, and the show was Harry Potter themed—perfect for Stacey’s deep love of the magical series.

I dumped an entire cup of ice water into Bug’s lap at dinner. Other than that, the visit was fantastic.

Did I mention that this story was going to end up with SHINGLES? Yes? Well, I'm getting there.

Schmoopsie had been complaining of a strange skin pain on his back and around one side to his abdomen for a week or two. We didn’t know what to think about it since there was no sign of a rash or bruise anywhere.

Until there was.

Sunday morning, Paddy had a small patch of blisters on his stomach. A quick visit to WebMD and I was confident I had the right diagnosis, because, you know, who needs medical school when you have WebMD? That's how I diagnose myself with spinal meningitis everytime I sleep poorly and wake up with a stiff neck. Anyway, in this case it was hard to know for sure, though. After all, Paddy was experiencing symptoms a full TWENTY THREE YEARS before the average person gets shingles.

Did I mention that part? The part where my 27 year old husband has shingles?

Don’t worry, I’m picking up his walker and a package of Depends at the store later today.

Instacare confirmed it. Paddy’s got the shings.

Let’s all count our many blessings that Bug got her chicken pox vaccine in October. (Vaccine haters, go ahead and bring it. Frankly, I think you’re freakin’ crazy anyway.) Let’s also count our many blessings that Stacey, whose immune system is busy helping to growing a baby, had no reason to touch Paddy’s bare stomach over the course of our outing. That’s all we need—to give our pregnant best friend the shings, too.

Really, he's not contagious, especially now that he's been gobbling antibiotics FIVE TIMES A DAY for the last 2 and a half days. Basically, someone who has never had the chicken pox or who has a weak immune system would need to rub his naked blistered stomach like a magic genie-lamp and then lick their fingers, and then they might get the pox. Let's hope he keeps his shirt on when he hits Chuck A Rama at lunch today.

And that’s the way we rock Father’s day around here, herpes zoster style. Recreate, relax, and can I have a side of SHINGLES, please?