A month?

Wow!! Time sure flies when you are having fun - and we have been having lots of fun! Let's see if I can get you caught up with our busy lives. On August 20th the girls were in a great play put on by the Arden Players Club. They both had speaking parts and singing and dancing parts. It was really a cute show and they had a fun time over the summer going to practice 2 - 4 days per week and learning a lot of music from the 70s and 80s.

The 23rd of August was the first day of school and the wonderfully forgetful mom that I am forgot all about taking pictures. So you will just have to believe me when I say they were the cutest 6th grader, 5th grader, 3rd grader, 1st grader and Kindergartener that I know!

They had a great 1st day and now it has been a few weeks and they are still enjoying going to school!

August 27th I took Vilate on a date to the mall to get her ears pierced! She was so funny walking around the store trying to decide if she was brave enough. She was so nervous that it was going to hurt and she hates to get hurt. After about 20 minutes of coaching from me and the lady who worked there, she decided that she could handle it. She held on so tight to that teddybear and my hand for the first ear, but then once she realized that it didn't really hurt, she did the other ear on her own! Way to go Vilate!!

Faith is my big 6th grader this year and is loving it! The 6th graders at our school have the privilege of having one of the teachers being a guitar fan. Mr. Martin has, for years, taught those 6th graders with a desire to learn, how to play the guitar. Faith was so excited and her Dad took her to a couple of music stores where they located the perfect guitar for her. She is supposed to bring her guitar to school on Fridays for class, but she brings her guitar everyday so that she can play during recess and after lunch. She is constantly cleaning the house up so that she can have some guitar time. So far she has learned: Mary had a Little Lamb, some of Jingle Bells, some of Smoke on the Water and some other parts of songs. She is loving it!!

Let's see what else have we done? We went to the Chili-Cookoff/Pie-Bakeoff at the church a few weeks ago and the kids were bobbing for apples. They were having so much fun. Nephi kept trying to do it - he kept just dunking his head in the bucket of water and was so proud of himself.

On the 31st of August school started for David and I - yes I am going to school again. I need something to do that is a challenge for me and that I enjoy doing. I am taking 2 classes. One is online and it is a class on the family in society and the other is in class two days per week and is a child development that covers infants through adolescents. So far I am enjoying them. David is taking 4 classes (a full load) and his are communications, economics and math classes. So we are busy - but it's a good busy!

I love this picture of Nephi. He came in my room one evening and climbed under the bed and was using the bedskirt as his blanket. I thought he looked really cute laying there!

So that's our month in a nutshell and now we are just plugging away with our routine every week of taking kids to school, going to school ourselves and picking people up.

As for a health update, I saw my doctor a few weeks ago and my bone marrow was too suppressed to do chemo right then. So, today I went and had another blood test and I am at about the same levels, in some areas I am a little worse than last time. I go see the doctor tomorrow and I think he was hoping to do chemo this week, but I know with the numbers that I have now, that it would not be good, so I get a few more weeks off of chemo. I am enjoying feeling almost normal and I love that I have energy to be a part of things. I don't really want to go back to doing chemo so right now we are debating it deciding the pros and cons and counting the cost. I feel good, although I am still very tired.

Life is good, family is great and I am loving every minute of it.