Today Dave shared with our church some of his testimony of his journey with cancer. It's good to hear him tell what he went through. I tend to talk a lot more than Dave and I have blogged my way through the last 9 months so everyone has heard his story from my point of view, so it's good to hear him tell the story of his physical and spiritual battles over the past months. Maybe he will let me publish it here so those of you who want to hear from him can read his story. Anyway, it was really good today and he will finish it next Sunday. He is still feeling pretty tired and needs to rest alot in the afternoons. He had to come off of his blood thinner for a few days because his blood was too thin. He should start that back tomorrow. We are all adjusting to being home. We are planning to start back to school on August 3. Wow...that is soooo soon. We need to get a good couple of weeks in before we go back to Houston for surgery. I have already bought all of our books and the schoolroom is organized and ready for it's little pupils to sit in their desks. So my goals for this week are 1)  get on the couponing bandwagon and start saving some bucks at the grocery store.  2) get my booty up and exercise everyday. 3) plant a tree in my backyard 4) clean out my garage.  We are in the process of having our downstairs bathroom converted from a half bath to a full bath. So I am without a laundry room right now.  I have been going to the laun---dro----mat once a week and getting all of our laundry done in about 2 hours.  The drawback is that it is HOT in there.  The good thing is I can wash all of our clothes which is usually about 6-7 loads in under 2 hours.  I'm pretty sure our power bill is alot lower too. But I can't wait until this project is done and we have a bathroom and laundry room again.  This bath remodel will be much needed when Dave gets home from surgery.  It will keep him from having to go up and down the steps. All we will need is a small fridge and he could live downstairs :)  Well I have rambled on and on.  I just heard it thunder, so I think I'll enjoy a good Sunday afternoon thunderstorm curled up in my comfy recliner.  It's good to ramble about everyday normal stuff!!  :) 




This is the top of Dave's head.....look at all that hair coming in. 



As I sit here tonight watching an old Christmas movie(Samuel insists we watch this every time we spend the night at the lake), watching my 3 babies sleeping on sofa's, with fans blowing and a really loud AC cooling off the room, I am thankful for a fun weekend filled with family and friends, yummy food, boat rides, jet ski rides, swimming,  being lazy in the swing, kids laughing, fire works on the lake, and fishing with bread and catching catfish right off the pier.  One of the funnest....(is that a word).... things that happened today was all of us piling on two boats and going to watch fireworks.  I'm pretty sure we exceeded the weight limit on both boats.....but it was fun and we laughed alot.

 Dave is doing really well. He is alot more tired than he thought he would be.  He went back to work last week and was pretty tired in the evenings.  He looks good and is even getting some hair....it looks pretty white...but we won't talk about that because Dave doesn't want it to be white...shhhh..don't tell him I told you.  :) 

New Surgery Date

Today we found out Dave's surgery date has been moved back to August 23rd.  This is the day before his 38th birthday.  This is good and bad.  Good because he will be able to get the school year started...Bad because it means he has to have this tumor in longer.  So now I have to change our flights and all that stuff.  We are busy busy busy.  The kids have me keeping the roads hot.  I have been their personal taxi this week.  They are loving seeing all their friends.  Dave is feeling good, just gets tired out easily.  There are so many things I want to do this summer.  Spending 8 months away from our house has left us with lots to do around here and I'm enjoying every minute of it.  Dave started back to work and is super glad to be back.  Now for a relaxing evening at home.

A Little Bit of Normal

We have almost gotten everything unpacked and put into it's place.  We are TIRED tonight.  Big news....Dave mowed the grass today.  I know it was good for him to be able to do that.  It's amazing how far he has come since we were home at the first of May.  His surgery has been scheduled for August 2.  So we have a little over a month to just live...to do our normal boring stuff...and we are thrilled about it!!  The kids have already scattered to their aunts houses and couldn't be happier to be with their cousins.  I've still got lots of work to do tomorrow to finish unpacking.  It's amazing how much stuff we accumulated over 8 months. It feels good to be home, but I think it may take a while for it to sink in that we are home for good.

He just had his last  radiation treatment....... He rang the bell...... We are headed home!

Erin Rebekah

Yesterday Erin turned 10.She is excited about turning 10.  What can I say about Erin?  She has always, since day 1, been a mama's girl.  She is the spitting image of me when I was her age.  She loves to draw and write. I love finding stories that she has written.  She is so creative.  She is learning to play the violin and this makes her Daddy very proud.  She is also my textbook middle child. :)  She still loves to play with her baby dolls.  She also loves playing with Samuel and building with Lego's.  She loves dancing and singing with Abby.  She likes to read and works hard in school. Dave loves the fact that when you give her a task, she does it to perfection.  I started calling her "Little" when she was a baby, and sometimes I still call her that.  She has always had a distinctive little voice that we love so much. I will now quote from our favorite Disney show, Good Luck Charlie....."You're gonna love who you turn out to be.....hang in there baby!!! "  I am proud of you Erin and hope your 10th birthday is awesome.  I love you.

Dave will be having surgery sometime in the first or second week of August. We will come back out a few days before for pre-op stuff.  We should know an exact date in a day or so. The surgeon has to coordinate with the urologist who be there for the surgery.   They need  Dave to have a full 5 weeks for the tissues to recover after radiation. Speaking of radiation, it has gone really well.  He has 4 more days.  This time next week we will be home. : )  I can't believe it's almost time.  Our apartment is a mess!!  We have half packed boxes all over the place.  Most of what we have to do will have to be done next Tuesday.  We have a full week planned until we are ready to head home.