Sept.1, 2009

Well, what a great month August was. We did a lot (once again), and had great weather. Early in the month we had the Johnson family visit us from San Diego. The kids always have a blast and play so well...the parents do too I must say! :-) We went to the aquarium, swimming, celestial seasonings tour, and had lots of play time around the house. It was great to see them and the adults even snuck out one night for dinner and a stroll on Pearl Street!

School started this month so it's been busy once again. I'm loving it as I have more "free time" during the day with Evan. Life gets busy this week as soccer starts, violin is in full swing, and swimming starts again too. In fact, the first violin concert of the season was last weekend. It was on an acreage north of town with a "country" theme. The girls wore cowboy hats and had fun on the farm with the other kids. From there we went to the airshow. Wow, a lot more people than I expected! The kids had fun and I think I wore them out!!!

Our summer season, in respect to triathlons, is coming to an end. Looking back we had a great tri-sport summer. Between Ehren and I we did 7 triathlons and had several independent running, swimming, and cycling events as well. Ehren just finished his last triathlon this weekend and we are now done until next summer. The fun still goes on though! Hockey starts next week so we have one more piece of fun to throw into the equation. I'm a fair weather biker so I won't bike past November...Ehren will probably cycle through the winter. We're hoping to do an organized ride in a couple weeks...Buffalo Classic which is a 100mile ride in one day. I'll check out my endurance.

Not much else to say at this point. We're just really enjoying this late summer season and waiting for Levi's 1st birthday party next week!

Count My Blessings

It's been a long time since I've had such an emotional day. It started with sending my baby to her first day of "full day" school. She was so excited and it went well...except for the fact that they lost her lunch. I believe it bothers me more than it did her, as I was hoping her day would go flawless. Minor detail. I also find out today that my evening babysitter broke her back a couple days ago. OMG. At least she's ok and can walk...but is out of commission for 6 months. She can count her blessings. So the hard part was my patient today...7 years older than me, two children the same age (approximately) as our older two. She's currently dying of breast cancer after fighting for 4 years. She spoke so matter-of-fact about her "6 weeks or so" before she dies. Her goal was to see her daughter start kindergarten (tomorrow). Today she almost gave up on us...feeling really ill she assumed it was her liver disease...until labs showed her liver was doing better this week. She thought she had her decision made...to quit chemo...finally, then this happened. I was not surprised when she told me she was almost disappointed b/c she was ready to be "done". It was so hard to talk to her with tears on the verge of flying, but being the amazing person she is, gave me the strength to have the conversation. It appears the chemo, which was working, was making her sick. So, does she take a couple days added on to her life with sickness or take quality of life and a few weeks to live? At the end of the conversation (by now the Dr. had joined us), she decided she had to be treated today. For my own greedy reasons, I'm so glad that she chose to be treated. I didn't want her to "quit on my shift". I often leave work dealing with the good and the bad, but today it was different. I truly wanted to go home and just hug my kids and tell them I'd never leave them...