You guys will not believe what happened today...the wedding went fine, and when I got home from the reception, Tim still wasn't back from the men's retreat. It ended at noon, and it was around 5pm when I got home. I thought he was probably just having a good time with his friends, and hoped that nothing was wrong. Wellll...about 20 minutes after I was home, I got a call from Tim's friend, Rod. Rod told me not to freak out, but that Tim got bitten twice by a cotton mouth snake!!!! After the retreat, Tim, Rod and Jason, decided to go on a little hike through the woods, right by the camp. Tim has always been fond of catching little snakes, and he saw the cotton mouth, said "Hey! There's a snake!" and he went running up to it. He went for the head of the snake, and it turned around and starting lashing at him wildly, and bit him twice in the hands, and the guys told me that it looks like he got some other scrapes from it trying to bite him some more. He is OKAY though...they got him to the hospital in Lexington, Tennessee, and the doctors are taking good care of him. He is staying over night, and the guys are been such sweeties!!! They are staying over night there, and will be driving him back tomorrow! One crazy thing though...Tim took our digital camera with him, and they were smart enough to take a picture of the snake so that the doctors could identify it for them. They first went to see the park ranger, and this ignorant man couldn't really tell what kind of a snake it was! His advice to them was to just go on home, and that it probably wasn't poisonous and that the hospitals normally can't do much for you. I'm so thankful that they didn't listen to that guy...they went on to the hospital. Even the doctor was able to identify the snake right away! I think we need to make a call to that park ranger's boss!! So, back to the story, poor Tim was so sick...he was throwing up a lot on the way to the hospital. I told the kids what happened, and Joshua started crying. It was so sad!! I assured him that Daddy is okay, and that the doctors are taking good care of him :) I haven't been able to talk to him yet. He's been asleep the two times Rod and I talked. They have him on some pain medication. This means that Tim will have to take a few days off of work, though. He is a computer programmer, and with those snake bites on the hands, I doubt he'll be able to do much work! I'm going to go ahead and go to church tomorrow, and then take the kids to a birthday party that we were already planning on going to. This is good, because Josh was a little upset that we weren't going to be able to go, if I had to go and pick up Tim in Lexington. It's about two hours away from Nashville.

Anyway...that's the news!!! Please do be praying for Tim, and that he'll have a quick recovery! :) ***Note: The picture I posted of the cotton mouth is not the snake that bit Tim. It is the same kind, though. The one that bit him was more of a grey color.

**Update** Tim called me this morning (Sunday) and they will be leaving Lexington around 1pm. That means he'll be back home between 3pm and 4pm. He said that the venom had taken over his arm, and it is all swollen now too, and he can't really move it. It was just in his hand, last night. He was saying that it will get better though!

**Update #2** November 10, 2002, Sunday evening: Tim is home now!!!!! He feels horrible, and is so swollen! The swelling is all up his arm, and has moved to the side of his back and a little into his chest. I just got back from getting his prescriptions filled. They have an antibiotic for him, and a pain killer. The pain killer really knocks him out, so that's good. I have him laying on the couch right now. He doesn't really want to be alone upstairs, in the bedroom. I'm sure that no where is really going to be all that comfy for him :(