OK, so I am still a slacker

Been a little while, so here goes nuttin'. Peri and Ella both got straight A's for the first trimester. Way to go, girls. Peri is busy with dance, cheerleading, cross-country. She hasn't run in a meet since her knee injury in the first meet that she ran. She is planning on running next week in an invitational. We are not expecting her to burn the course up due to the fact that she has only practiced on a very limited time schedule. Ella is doing conditioning for swimming which starts the end of this month. She is taking the SAT this Saturday, so good luck to her. Peri has just signed up for the Washington DC trip with her school in May. Sarah has been busy with work, home, aerobics and hauling Peri to all her activities. I assist when I can. I have been nursing a shoulder issue and it appears I might have rotator cuff tendinitis. It is just kind of painful, but I can still play ball and do stuff, except my shoulder has some weakness. I really noticed it affecting my jump shot, and that just isn't going to work. So, I started some physical therapy last week to strengthen and loosen the tendons. It seems to be going well. It may take a little time, but I will get it there. Last weekend I had my 30th year reunion. I had a good time and Sarah, well, at least she knew a few people and there was a live band that she seemed to enjoy. Anyway, that is about the extent of our life in the ville for the moment and I hope all are doing well and love ya'll.

Libby Update:
Libby finished her last round of chemo after they did not find any cancer from the tests that she had. The reason she still needs it is because it is protocol for this type of cancer. Sometimes with neuroblastoma there can be microscopic cells that hide. The chemo was quite a bit stronger than the regular rounds and she got rather sick. She came home Sept 24 and has limitations on where she can go because her immune system is low. Her mother is due with child this month. After the baby is born, Libby will have one more round of chemo that will be stronger than the last round. Just keep her and the family in your prayers.

Weekend fun

It was fun seeing everyone this weekend and as always the food was extreme... Thanks Gary and all else who made all that food. It was all wonderful. I just wanted to also post a few pics from the weekend and also a picture of our new driveway that Sarah continues to fret about. I hope everyone had a glorious weekend and good luck to Josh and Abrah as they begin their move. Love to all.

There's a new driver in town....

Congratulations to Ella who passed her written test and is now an official licensed driver. Yeah. OK, so she still needs a car(which she reminds me about every minute), but we are looking. I have also included a picture of my friend at work Le'gretta's baby, Keira, whom I visited this week. She was born 6 weeks early, but she is doing fine, as is her mother. She is 1 1/2 weeks old in these pictures. Also included is a couple of pictures of Ella, who got bonked in the face yesterday at swim practice while they were playing a game. It broke her goggles, but she is fine. Ella swam this weekend in Seymour at an outdoor meet and she did fine. It was rather brisk out there for the swimmers, but not bad from a spectator point of view. It did not rain either. While we were at the swim meet with Ella, Peri had a cheerleader lockdown at the middle school with the other middle school cheerleaders. She was there from Friday night through Sunday morning when her grandparents picked her up. I have also included a couple of pictures from Peri's camp. I hope everyone is doing fine and have a good one!

Weekend over

Wow, what a busy weekend. Saturday Ella had to be in Columbus at 6:45, so we departed our house before 6. Ella swam in 4 events on Friday and 5 events on Sunday.
3:08.72 200 IM
1:13.58 100 free
3:08.68 200 back
1:40.73 100 breast
32.73 50 free
1:23.55 100 back DQ
2:58.00 200 free
1:42.48 100 butter
3:36.40 200 breast
These events are in meters, which are different from high school. Good job Ella, although we know you dreaded having to swim so early!
Peri had her dance competition on Saturday and received a gold for their performance and she attended the swimming with us on Sunday, which also merited a gold.
We also attended numerous Senior graduation open houses over the course of the weekend. It was busy, but we survived. I hope everyone else is doing the same.
Have a great one.

Peri's Birthday Weekend

Happy Birthday to my newest teenage daughter, Peri. She had some friends spend the night Friday night and then we had a party at West for approximately 25 of her friends. We played a blind man musical chairs, which was pretty fun. We also played dizzy ball. Everyone seemed to have a nice time and no one got injured... At least to my knowledge. A success. It has been a very busy week at work. I spent the night at the Westin Thursday for selection stuff for the tournament. I have been on call all weekend and I am at work on Sunday night, also. It is all good. I am looking forward to going to the final four in Detroit. Well, need to do some work for a little while and head home and then probably do a similar thing for women's basketball tomorrow. Have fun all and be good.

{Libby Update}
Emma says Libby is eating, and sleeping well and Erica is being a little mother hen. Keep praying that everything keeps going up hill for them.

Our brush with fame

Sarah asked me to share the "burden" of taking the girls shopping this weekend. How can it be a "burden" if it is something you enjoy doing?... Anyway, I got off track there.. Did I ever mention that I hate shopping... Sorry, another off track.. Anyway, we(we in this case meant me sitting in the shoe department at Dick's watching the big screen of Purdue and Michigan State, and Sarah and the girls shopping for clothes) were looking for something for Peri for her upcoming birthday, and I figured shopping wasn't all that bad at this point, until Sarah tells me I need to go with them because they were done at Dicks, and the reason at this point doesn't matter, because she is just reminding me of my second off track mentioning above. But, as we were checking out, the cashier at Dick's mentioned that Miss America was in the mall for a few more minutes. I've never met a Miss America, although I did know the 500 queen one year, a girl who graduate with me. So, we decided that we needed to have our brush with celebrity on this lovely Sunday afternoon in the Bloomington mall, outside of Target.
I think it was all just a ploy just to get me down to Target. Ha ha.. We met Miss America and she gave us all a signed photograph, and she seemed genuinely nice. There were only a few people waiting in line, so we waited like 2 minutes. We thought about having the girls pose for a xmas card photo with her, but they weren't allowing any posed pictures. So, that was our brush with fame, and I was able to snap off just some regular photos of the girls talking with her. I will add them later. So, shopping wasn't as unbearable as I thought, well, as long as you have some beautiful young lady to speak with of some fame or notoriety, besides my beautiful daughters and wife, of course. Or, you have a big screen television to watch some sporting event.

(Libby Update) This weekend, Libby got the flu and an infection in her central line. She has lost another 8 oz, and is down to 15 lbs. She was put in isolation at Riley.
Today, Libby's white blood count is at 0. They are giving her medication to get it up. The meds are making her sore, so she is not wanting to be held or touched. The white blood count needs to be up to 1000 before she can have her next chemo. treatment in a couple weeks. Emma said that they could be up there for 2-10 days.
Keep her in your prayers.

Great to see you all this weekend

It was nice to see you all this weekend. Josh, I hope you are feeling better. We made it home after stopping in Indy for a "quick" Target stop and then to Cracker Barrel for dinner. I am so glad to be off crutches. I am still doing exercises to strengthen my Achilles, but it feels fine to walk on. So many people are telling me I should quit playing ball that I will consider it.. OK..... I considered it. I will continue to play ball. I know that someday I will have no choice but to quit, but I just don't think that day is here yet. I do enjoy playing basketball and I hope I can play for a few more years anyway. Thanks for all your concerns.

{Libby Update}
Libby has gone through her chemo treatments Fri. Sat. and Sun. with another today. She seems to be doing OK and will have a chance to go home tomorrow for a couple of days if everything works out. Emma said that she got a little sick after treatments yesterday, but did eat last night. Just keep Libby and their family in your prayers.

Live and play hard and try not to get an Achilles injury :)
Love Y'all !!

MLK weekend

Friday night, we attended the Catholic spaghetti dinner. Ella was waiting tables there until we got there and then proceeded to eat like 3 plates of spaghetti. Way to go Ella. Peri had a friend with her because she had spent the night there the evening before because they did not have school on Friday for records day. It is always fun to watch some of the older people that we know that attend this event each year, because they haul in their coolers of wine and beer and make it quite a party. They are all wonderful people.

Saturday, Ella had a few of her friends over after swim practice to make posters for Senior night for her fellow Senior swimmers, which is this Thursday. Peri cheered for her 7th and 8th basketball teams, which both ended up winning the Morgan Co. basketball tournament.

We went to the bodies exhibit on Sunday and it was very interesting. It was quite graphic and I think the first full body we saw was a posed person dribbling a basketball in all his glory... minus all his skin. And, as Sarah pointed out, they didn't hold nothing back, as in privates and all. It made me think of the quote, "Mom, I ride the bus". So, that was the beginning of the self walking tour which had so much. It pretty much covered the spectrum of the body. It was muscular, skeletal, nerves, organs, reproductive systems, fetuses.... Quite a lot I thought, but the girls thought it was pretty cool and nobody got queezy to my knowledge. There was no touching the bodies, except at the end, we did get to pick up a human and monkey brain, but that was the extent of the touching that was allowed. There was nothing that surrounded any of the bodies, so you could get within 1mm of any of them. The organs and nerves were encased, but it was pretty amazing. Of course, this exhibit was beneath the Webber Grill at Circle Center Mall, so we enjoyed a meal there and being so close to the mall, we had to, of course, go there (Hmmmm, I wonder who's idea that was?). That was the weekend in a nutshell. Don't forget to hug someone.