Mark and the girls are now home...we all survived the separation. I think they were as happy to be home as I was to get them home. I'm so grateful they had the opportunity to go spend a good amount of time with Mark's family and I know they had fun. A also had the opportunity to go on an official tour of BYU and she enjoyed that. It's hard to believe that college isn't that far off for her.
And now they're back and life has resumed its craziness. Mark went back to work the day after coming home, A started cross country practice, and B starts soccer on Saturday. No rest for the weary (travelers) but I think they're all happy to be getting back to their normal schedules/lives.
Interesting timing on one thing...just a few nights before they came home, I expressed gratitude in my prayers that nothing had gone wrong with the house while they were gone. Oops -- spoke too soon! The next day as I pulled out of the garage to go to church I noticed a huge, ugly water spot on the wall/ceiling of the garage. Not good. Dad, Thomas, and Bryan came over to look at it and found that the problem was something simple that had been going on for quite some time, and they were able to temporarily fix it until Mark could get home to do the permanent repair. Mark will have to replace part of the wall/ceiling (inside the garage and our laundry room) but that is within his handyman skill set so it will be fine. At first I was a little put out -- after all, hadn't I just expressed gratitude that nothing had gone wrong with the house while Mark was gone? And then it was pointed out to me that the problem had likely started long before Mark left and that the timing was actually good, because he should have time to do the repair work before school starts...had the problem not been discovered until after school started, it would have been harder for him to find a good chunk of time to work on it because of his work/coaching schedule. So it was still a blessing.
During the last week of their trip I was able to fly up to Massachusetts to help my sister and her husband and daughter move down here (YEA!). It was a very rough flight (not fun) but I made it safely. We had fun in Boston even though it was raining lightly and the start of our day in Boston was delayed by me leaving my wedding ring at the hotel (don't worry -- it was recovered -- another prayer answered!)...I loved Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall...the waterfront was beautiful...the Mother's Walk through the downtown area was absolutely lovely...and the Holocaust Memorial was incredibly touching. I hope to go back and spend more time exploring the city. We made the drive down here in two days -- no sightseeing along the way. I was struck by how beautiful North Carolina was. Mark had told me that numerous times before, but having seen it for myself, I can now say he was right! It was so pretty. Maybe next summer we'll do a vacation where we travel up and then back down the east coast and do a lot of sightseeing. Mark has wanted to do that for a while...and now I want to do it, too. We're so grateful to have Melissa, Bryan, and "Adorable" (not her real name, but very fitting) living down here with us now!!
Wow...a long post... My final news. I had a medical procedure done this morning to try to get answers about my longstanding stomach problems. I have had this procedure twice before but it never turned anything up. This time it did and I am so grateful. I have an ulcer, hiatal hernia, gastritis (already knew about that) and apparently some inflammation of the upper small intestine. I know it sounds strange to be grateful for that, but I am -- because I feel like we're finally getting some answers. Maybe we've finally taken a major step down the road to resolving these problems. I am very excited (and still quite groggy from the anesthesia).
