Update

We haven't posted anything for a long time so here's a little update. Caleb and Alia are doing well in school and are loving second grade. At parent teacher conferences Alia's teacher said that Alia is very helpful and sweet in class and is where she should be at this time of year in reading and math. Caleb's teacher said that he is "bouncey and pouncey" in class and is also right on mark with reading and math. I was happily surprised that he is at the same reading level as Alia because he doesn't like to read at home as much as Alia. Caleb and Alia are on their second week of swimming lessons at our new gym. They are at the same swimming level and in the same class. This also surprised me because until only recently Caleb has been afraid to swim so I thought Alia would be at a higher level because she has been swimming on her own for a while now. They both love to swim and I enjoy taking them to the pool. Last week I signed Caleb up for basketball, and Alia for cheerleading which starts in January. I'm excited to see how they do. Both are new activities for them and we hope they enjoy themselves. The cheerleaders will cheer at the boys b-ball games which should make the games more fun to watch. Alia has been doing well with her braces and her teeth are already much straighter. Next month she will get a stiffer band which I'm sure will be hard for her because she refuses to take medication for pain. She dislikes the taste of liquid and chewable medicine and would rather suffer. I'm going to try to teach her to swallow pills because it's hard for me to watch her tough it out without medicine.

These past two months have been very hard on me. Two months ago after I got back from NY, my mom told me that the chest xray my dad had recently was abnormal. My dad finished his treatment for Prostate cancer in July and since then I've been worried about him because the treatment was hard on him and he hasn't felt much better since ending treatment. His medical provider which is Kaiser, has done many things wrong all along and he was just diagnosed with Kidney cancer which requires surgery and they aren't able to schedule his surgery until January. Needless to say this is not okay and I've been dealing with Kaiser giving them the opportunity to make this right. I am praying that he will be able to get the care he needs outside of Kaiser within the next couple of weeks.

I'll let Jer post his update when he gets a chance. We are all looking forward to Thanksgiving in Irrigon.