Yes--it's September

First Day of 5th Grade
Well I can hardly believe it: Summer appears to be gone...and Fall is in the air. The house is actually cold at night. The trees are starting to turn magenta and orange and gold. To seal the deal, we are actually going to a Seahawks game tomorrow. If that doesn't scream "Summer's over!" at you, nothing will.

We went to the Puyallup Fair on Thursday, for our annual "Get out of an Afternoon of School" day. Once, several years back, I was able to leave work early and I scooped up Jack and we went to the Fair. Now--it has become a family Fall requirement. I remember a sermon Earl Palmer gave one time, about how you do something once...and it becomes a Family Tradition. So true, but I kind of like it that way! Anyway. Jack got an elephant ear, and Bill & I each bought a WHOLE PIE at the Young Life pie booth. That'll help the diet!

Kari and Lisa are coming home from Africa today. It's been a loooong 2 1/2 weeks for me! Imagine how it's been for them.

Jack & Nick got parts in the Fall play: The Music Man. Jack, my little lotus blossom, is suddenly involved in everything: The Play! 5th Grade Choir! Boy Scouts! Safety Patrol!

Mentioning The Music Man reminds me that I need to give you a Mom update. (The M.M. is her favorite musical of all time.) Let's see: this week her platelets have ranged between 19,000 and 52,000. Her white blood cell count was alarmingly low a couple of weeks ago, but that appears to have righted itself. And when she went in for her whole blood transfusion last Saturday, Sept. 17, there was good news and bad news. The Good News was, it had been three whole weeks since her last transfusion. The Bad News was, her body was starting to reject transfused blood. I cannot find any kind of prognosis attached to this anywhere; all I know is this condition has a name, alloimmunization:

Multitransfused recipients of random donor platelet concentrates frequently form broadly-reactive human leukocyte antigen (HLA) antibodies which restrict the pool of suitable donors to those who are HLA matched with the recipient.

So what this says, I think, is, she can get blood that they call "scrubbed".....proteins are taken off of red blood cells, and/or white blood cells are removed (?). But in the short term, it means her wait in the hospital before a transfusion remains hours and hours and hours long, and very tiring. Before, she just had to wait forever to get regular old donated blood. Now, they have to find this special blood. Makes me a little crazy.

But: she did not need a transfusion this week, so a big YAY! and Thank You Jesus! for that.

Two and a Half Weeks

Today's the last day of vacation. Oh, how sad, sad, sad we are. Because we've been SO happy, happy happy without having to work. I can hardly wait for retirement.

Vacation began on August 19th at 5:30 pm. I hopped on a plane and flew over to Missoula to meet Jack & Bill, who'd spent part of their day golfing in the Bitterroot Valley. Jack stayed with his Nannie--Bill & I got to stay at the cutest bed & breakfast in Stevensville. One of the coolest features was the night light in the bathroom. It looked a lot like this:

What makes this so incredibly cool is that it glows a whole rainbow full of colors--it'll change from red to green to purple, etc. We really wanted to take it! But instead, we asked our kind inn keepers where they got it...and of course, the answer was: Costco. So now we have five of them in our house.

Anyway.

After a lovely time with our relatives, including a golf outing with my great grandfather (who completely waxed us--even Bill!) and a great float trip on the Clark Fork, we came home, did some laundry, and headed down to Laguna. The weather was perfect. Jack worked on his sand castle building and I worked on my tan. Bill worked on...well, nothing. Which is the whole point of a vacation, yes? One fun element to it all: we rented a Toyota Prius. It was very fun, and very cool to drive. We averaged 40-miles to the gallon, which was fabulous, since gas in California costs even more there than it does in WA!

We ended up heading over to Riverside a little early: mom needed both whole blood and platelets just one week after her last transfusion. Very scary. Phil called--and we went straight to the hospital Friday evening. She ended up spending the night in the hospital, since it took them SO LONG to get the necessary blood & platelets. (Note to Parkview Hospital: it is NOT good customer service to leave an elderly woman with leukemia waiting for EIGHT HOURS to get blood. And this was not the first time this has happened...) But she felt pretty great on Saturday, since she was back on "full"... and we had one of the best weekends with her in years.

Welcome to the AbraHAM's! Mom made us the best ham we'd ever had. And...I learned the secret of the 3 Bean Salad: Equal parts sugar, oil & cider vinegar. 

Chipper's Clocktower Kitty Condo. 

Jack knows how to crack up his cousin Andy. 

Grandma, Andy & Chipper 

Before..... 

....after. I could have wrung out my shirt and my pants. We were dripping wet! So Jack deemed this the best ride on the California Adventure side. 

The happy family at California Adventure.  

Bill always says I drive too close to the people in front of me. Jack now agrees. 

Jack conquered his fear of the Matterhorn. He deemed it his favorite ride in all of the Magic Kingdom! 

The Bug Boy. 

The fireworks at Disneyland were spectacular. This is a Lego artist's rendition. Pretty cool, yes?

These goofy photos were taken in the "A Bug's Life" attraction. It was a 3-D movie complete with splashes of water, pokes from your seat, and the smell of stink bugs! 

And so ends a truly perfect vacation. This was the last ride of the day...before we headed over to our lovely room at the Disneyland Hotel.