Officially Summer!

May 28, 2013

Today marks the first official day of summer -- in my book anyway. I always observe this most important of days on the first-day-we-would-have-gone-to-school-but-we-didn't after Memorial Day. That's today!

My last post was about my dad's health, and I'm sorry to say that he isn't improving. He may, in

fact, be worse. We were told this would be a very long process of treating this fungus, but it's very discouraging to see absolutely no improvement. He is so very confused and is frequently agitated.  Your continued prayers are appreciated. I am continuing to pray that his kidney will hold up against the medicine and that his brain is not permanently damaged. My dad would hate to know that this is his reality, so his complete unawareness of what's happening is a blessing to him. It stinks for the rest of us, but at least he doesn't realize what's going on.

We've also had some other things happening around here lately. Parker turned sixteen. I'm not OK with it at all. She's legal to drive now. I'm not OK with that either. I suppose I'm going to have to get over it, but for this particular moment I am resistant to the whole idea. She doesn't have her own vehicle yet and I'm in no hurry to provide her with one. The plan is that we'll have something for her around the time school starts in August, but at this point she's just using my car if she needs to run somewhere. And, that isn't happening very often. Parker is a decent driver, but I just don't think we're ready for her to have the freedom to jump in the car and go whenever she wants. Plus, have you seen the price of gas?  She has no income and I'm not increasing my current gas budget...

We did manage to surprise her on her birthday, though! Park had really wanted to see Dave Matthews Band in Dallas on May 18, but that just wasn't going to work out at all, so we shot that down. She thought any DMB was out of the question, but we went ahead and got tickets for the St. Louis show in July. Surprise! She'll get to take a friend and Jamie and I will go, too. We'll spend the night and visit City Museum and the Arch and maybe the zoo as well. We'll eat good and find some good shopping. I think it will be a fun way to mark her Sweet Sixteen!

We also had some big storms the night before Parker's birthday and found ourselves in the closet for a good portion of the evening. Our hearts were broken by the destruction we saw in Moore, and we weren't taking any chances.

I burned my feet by spilling hot grease them. Long story. Big flames. Dropped pot. Ouch. It's taken them a few days to blister, but this is what the worst burn looked like last night.

Our passports came in and Jamie and I are 19 days away from our trip. I'm nervous and excited. I'm praying that this is everything we want it to be and that everything at home is fine while we're away. When you don't travel like this ever, there's a lot of pressure for things to go well! I hope our passport photos (which I will not share with you) are no indication of what to expect!

We've also celebrated PJB and Anna's birthdays together, had a kindergarten field trip, had a Hollywood themed birthday party at MovieLounge, and finished out the school year. Overall it was a good year for the girls and about 50% good for me. I have whole blog posts whirling around in my head about several things that will probably never be written! Anyway, here is the rest of our May in photos. I hope you're enjoying a great start to your summer!