Life after Spring Break

Life has been hectic since Spring Break. The bad thing about vacation is it seems it takes forever to get ready, then that much more time to get back in the groove when you are home! The weekend after Spring Break, Jeff and I attended a marriage retreat in Nashville. The messages were good and we enjoyed spending time with friends. The girls had a great visit with grandparents in IL. Ollie had a bit of a stomach bug, but otherwise enjoyed baseball and Grandma and Grandpa D.

It was good to get back to church today! A month is too long to miss our home church. The kids were at church most of the weekend. They participated in a 30 hour famine and didn’t eat from noon Friday until the evening meal on Saturday. There were some brave sponsors, because I know the wrath of hungry teens and preteens! The kids collected some money and food and learned about the hungry. It’s hard to help with every cause, but with rice (and other commodity) prices skyrocketing our hearts go out to the people in third world countries. I can’t help wondering about the loving women who used to make a little money as foster moms in Guatemala. As the government has moved to orphanage care, they no longer have that source of income.

Back to the home front…I’ve nearly sorted through all the junk and treasures from the old attic. I’ve been going through the same process at work. Why would any company own a few hundred Sharpie markers? Did you even know there were Brown Sharpies? Anyway, we’re planning a big yard sale for the weekend. It’s so cleansing J

We spent some time earlier this week marking dogwood trees on the edge of our property. We knew we had several, but we were thrilled to mark at least 50! We hope to clean out some of the scrub trees and really let them shine next year. We also have a crabapple tree which smells wonderful.

AnnaMaria is doing well with walking. We are down to physical therapy once per month and I suspect that will end soon. She was evaluated for speech therapy again this week and qualified for services. The therapist was surprised by the amount of sign language she knows, but concerned that she uses so few words. We will probably start weekly speech therapy soon. As for signing…AnnaMaria knows the signs for more, all done or all gone, banana, hat, please, dog, and drink.