First Day of School

 August 12-

First official day of school was today, but the kids started official sports practices on Monday.  All the summer practices were "optional". :)

Kingston went first and started his freshman year at Eagle high.  He is on student council and the football team and is really looking forward to this year!

Julienna is much less excited about entering 6th grade at Eagle Middle, in fact, you could say she is dreading it. Word on the street is that she got stuck with a bummer of an English teacher and she got her for 2 periods (spoiler alert: she had a terrible first day of school and really really doesn't care for that teacher).  But she's got her locker all figured out and she has it decorated just how she likes it. She is trying cheerleading and got another sparkly bow to add to her collection and has a handful of really good girls that she hangs out with.  Wish us luck with this year!

McCall 11

 August 7-9

An uneventful weekend, but we got in some much needed relaxing.  We had a neighborhood HOA meeting and then the boys paddleboarded/fished the river while Julienna and I joined Jonathan's family for dinner and hanging out.  Sunday we played some board games and watched a movie before getting in the long line of traffic to make it home.

Lovely hollow farms

 August 6-

I did a fun girls night out with Joy and somehow managed to not take a single picture.  It was 100 degrees and we were dripping sweat so maybe that's why.  But we did metal stamping on a pair of earrings and then picked flowers!  It was a fun night, but mostly that was because of the company.  My flowers only lasted 4 days, but at least they were pretty!

Cheer Camp

 August 1-

Julienna did an all day cheer camp to get her ready for middle school cheer.  She's being doing 2 practices a week for the summer with just her school, but this was for the whole district and there were a lot of girl!  It was a big day for her, and she learned a lot. They had a little show for the parents at the end which she wasn't thrilled with but after going back to grandma and grandpa's house and eating a big bowl of noodles, we couldn't get her to stop cheering!! And she even got a giant purple hair bow!! But man can that girl kick!

July Extra

 July 31-

Deer in the backyard, cats, and Julienna's frames made from shells she collected in Hawaii!

Round 3

 July 31-

Last day of the third round of chemo!  We got the PET results back and it showed a decrease in the soft tissue metastasis from the scan in early June.  The liver was the biggest change, but also the lymph nodes were improved and the area under the scar, so that was nice to hear.  The boney mets, however, showed an increase in size, but since they aren't causing any discomfort we can just kind of wait on those.  The main areas of concern were the scapula, spine, and hip.  When they start to cause dad pain, we can re visit radiation, but for now we will just continue with the chemo regimen.  One more round after this, followed by another PET scan, and then we start immunotherapy.

My work girls are so great and always cover for me to go to the appointments and then I can pop in and visit between patients while dad is getting his infusion.  I hate the situation we are in, but I do feel very lucky to be a part of it all and to be so available.

McCall 10

 July 24-26

Tried to get out of the smoke by heading to the mountains, but the air is bad everywhere.  The kids' practiced keep getting changed because the air quality is too high for them to be outside.  It's a real fun ruiner, but it does make the sun, sunsets, and moon look pretty amazing!

The boys did some fishing at little lake while Julienna and I climbed rocks and trudged thru the river!

On Sunday we did a river float trip from the bridge to our neighborhood.  They had much better luck fishing and found some really good fishing holes. We saw lots of wildlife..snakes, osprey, bald eagle, blue heron, elk, deer, and a mama duck with babies.