Something of a Plan, Finally

Hello everyone,
Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. We sure did. We opened Romp n' Roll up for open gym and let the kids have a good time. The crowd was pretty good.

Charlotte's numbers have been so good lately that we have come off the germophobe box which is great because I'm no good at being a germophobe. We even had visitors from St. James The Less. The Shiffletts came by with a Mother's Day present from the Sunday school class. Annabel (or "Annablell" as Charlotte calls her) is one of CJ's favorite friends and they had a lot of fun tickling Annabell's sister Piper on the knees!

We also took her down to Romp n' Roll to play and met up with The Hayes family from Montessori House. Anja is another of CJ's favs.

We then went to Panera with Granny and Uncle Kolby (walked from RNR in fact!) for Mother's Day dinner and then to Coldstone for dessert!

When we came home, I gave the princess a bath and settled in for the evening. A little bedtime drama having to do with a thrown book and not being tired but nothing too bad.

Overall, it was a very nice Mother's Day and as we've stated in various places, seemingly extra special.

The history of Mother's Day came up in conversation and after a little online research (We're kinda geeks that way), we found some very interesting information. I always went with the prevailing wisdom that it was just a fake holiday invented by Hallmark to sell cards. "NOT SO LIZZARD BREATH!" (there's your trivia question for the day) Turns out it's more of a peace movement/community organizing event with various religious roots. Here's one website that chronicles just a bit if the history.

http://www.momscape.com/articles/momsday.htm

As for the more serious side of things, no final word yet on anything.

Nothing.

Zip.

Nada.

Zilcho.

Feel left hanging? Us too. We're at that stage again where we really can't plan anything until we know more.

We'll let you all know as soon as we do.

Happy Monday.


OK, so we finally have something of a plan. And as usual, it looks very little like what we were hinting at last time I wrote.

After a good amount of back and forth between Rachel and Dr. Tye, it was determined that the MD Anderson team could, indeed, use the samples Dr. Tye removed during Charlotte's 2nd surgery as well as the last MRI scan so she doesn't have to have surgery this time until after we go to Houston.

That makes flying much more attractive as we won't be worrying about how she is going to handle travelling a week after a major brain operation although I was quite looking forward to the road trip in Grandpa's camping truck.

We wanted to see about Angel Flight but they would only let one parent go and we actually found a halfway decent rate on Airtran.

We've had some very generous donations come in recently which will take care of our travel expenses. Another reason to thank everyone!

That makes the schedule look something like this:

Thursday, May 21: Fly from Richmond to Houston
Friday, May 22: Meet with MD Anderson Drs.
Saturday, May 23: Fly back to Richmond

Tuesday, May 26: Check into MCV
Wednesday, May 27: Surgery #3

We'll probably be in the the hospital at least a week post-op recovering. Time to stock up on Morphine, Tylenol, and Dora videos!

We're hoping to get various family members here to help with things starting the 27th (maybe the 26th) including Grandpa and Juanita, Aunt Phyllis, Granny (again but this time WITH Grumps...I mean Gramps!), Anyone else who wants to drop in.

The Staff at Romp n' Roll has been forwarned that they may be asked to do some extra stuff (as if they haven't been asked before!) I'm confident, we will be able to work something out.

Another note about our staff at RNR. Throughout this whole experience, they have been the best staff any business owners could possibly have any right to hope for. They've come in at odd times, covered myriad classes, volunteered hours of work over and over and kept the business going when we were balls of stressed out goo! They are more perfect examples of how we couldn't do it without our support network.

We apologize to our customers for the revolving instructors but at least the replacements seem to be doing a great job.

Other news: The Glen Allen Golf Fun-raiser has been tentatively moved to Wednesday, May 20th.

Big new Fun-raiser in the works! Dr. Anna Madland of Atlee Chiropractic and Bill Roberts at WHAN 1430am Radio and I did a little mind melding and hashed out a little more of the "Yoga-thon" idea. It will be 100 "yoga-ists" doing 100 minutes of yoga And we would like to try doing this during the Strawberry Faire in Ashland on Saturday, June 6th. People would sponsor yoga-ists for $1.00 per minute and if every person on a mat got every minute sponsored, that would make $10,000 raised! So that's our goal. "Can we build it? Yes we can!" (Who knew President Obama liked Bob The Builder?

We want to get it going relatively early in the morning to avoid the heat so it will probably start 8:30 or 9:00am. We need 10 instructors and 100 (or more!) people to do the yoga. I know with our network, Dr. Anna's, and the Greater Ashland listening and reading public, we should have next to no trouble getting it together.

After the event, stick around for one of the coolest days of the year.

As per usual, Jackie Plank is knee deep in this one as well. Contact her at jplank@oscient.com to sign up or to sponsor a minute. Day-of sponsorships welcome if there is space. So please spread the word!

Thanks,
Rog

With our church family again

Just a note from Aberdeen where I'm directing the All County High School Jazz Choir. These students are amazing and have worked so hard. They are better than most college groups I've seen. I've had very little to do with it. They do all the work and I come in and wave my arms a bit.
Also, Uptown Vocal Jazz Quartet performed at Radio From Downtown last night and it was by far our best overall gig as a group. One of the cool things is that Van Williamson, head honcho of the show, mentioned CJ at the end during the thank yous. I certainly didn't ask him to do it.
Running out of battery...

A not so lazy Sunday...Charlotte and I went to church this morning and we were greeted with such a welcoming committee! We went in just as Sunday School was ending and Charlotte got to see so many of her friends. Lots of smiles all around. She hung out in the nursery during the first part of service and did very well without Mom. Then she came up for communion and the whole church just beamed with smiles as they saw her. She was surrounded by well-wishers after the service and she greeted them with smiles in return. Thanks to our SJTL family for everything you have done for us! The pastor's sermon today was on "miracles all around us" and he actually stopped before the end of communion to comment on Charlotte's presence and what a testament it is to those Miraculous Moments in our lives. I couldn't agree more!We then had a wonderful lunch at Applebees (thanks Grandpa and Bonita) and then we were off to RnR to do some "work". Grandpa installed a new box to store the hockey equipment in the back. Charlotte did some art projects and explored the gym. She is really getting around independently! Then we returned home for a "break" of some TV but she also wanted to pull out her lap desk and make some pictures. She has been drawing and cutting paper all evening. Just as she was starting to get grumpy and uncomfortable, we were greeted with a very sweet surprise: The St. James the Less Middle School Youth Group stopped by and FILLED our kitchen with songs, laughter, and lots of Dora-themed and girl-themed goodies for Charlotte. Such blessings! She laughed and smiled and we enjoyed reading all the handmade cards afterward. Now Daddy is home (finally!) so I will sign off.