I love my children. But is it ok for me to love them more when they are both asleep?

Yesterday Aaron had his 6th swimming lesson. He has a love/hate relationship to swimming lessons. Every time I tell him he has a swimming lesson he begins crying because he doesn't want to go. He usually cries on and off during the lesson, but after he always tells me he had a good time. You can see from the pictures that he is doing a great job kicking, getting his feet to come out of the water, and with the kick board can motor around the pool by himself pretty well! He still doesn't like to go underwater and wants to take a break every 2 minutes or have cuddles or sit on Chandler's lap, but he is getting better and we'll have a few more lessons and he'll do fine.


The lesson yesterday was in the afternoon and Paul was able to come with us so we finally have a picture of the beard to show you. I do think he looks handsome and I'm always amazed at how much red hair there is in his beard. I guess our kids could have any color hair!


We bribed Aaron yesterday that if he didn't cry, then after his lesson we could go to Chuck E Cheese. He's been doing "ok" with potty training (Only one or 2 accidents a day) and we thought he deserved a reward. Here's 2 of the pictures we loved. The first one was on a machine that rocked back and forth. Brian had never been on something like this before and he absolutely loved it. He had amazing smiles!


This last one is of Aaron in this tunnel system up above our heads. He had to climb up there and play around completely on his own. Once up there is no way for us to get up there if there is a problem. We forgot to make him take his shoes off before he got in and so he took them off somewhere in the tunnel system. We had to send him back up again to try to retrieve them!
It was a fun evening and we were all pretty tired when we got home. I'm sure we do it again soon though!

I spent the week of the 4th of July at Scout Camp. One of the blessings of my calling as Assistant Scoutmaster is to take a week of vacation to spend sleeping in a spider-infested tent during the sweltering Texas summer weather, and eating really bad camp food. It was so much fun! Six scouts and two Scoutmasters of Troop 1065 went to the El Rancho Cima Scout Camp in Fischer Texas about 180 miles north west of Houston. Technically this is the Texas Hill Country and is very pretty.

The boys that came with us all had a good time and each earned their nick-name. Shooter, Spider, Blade, Splinter, Bullseye, & Freight Train had a LOT of fun.

We got rained on Monday through Thursday. Averaging 2 inches per day. Our cheap store-bought ponchos didn’t hold up. But the 55 gallon trashbags sure did the trick at keeping us dry in a pinch. Our musty BSA issue tents kept our gear dry through the torrents of rain. That much rain raised the level of the river... and the current was pretty fast making the mile swim more challenging than usual. Freight Train pulled off the mile swim with a time just over 2 hours.

We took a short 5 mile night hike they call the “Death March.” It sounds torturous, but in reality was closer to a fast walk through a meadow. But it wouldn’t sound very cool calling it the Meadow Mosey. My hiking boots that I have had for 14 years met their demise on that hike, so I guess it was plenty vigorous. Breaking in new boots is never fun.

Seven days without shaving gave me a good start at growing my beard. I don't know how long I will keep it. But for now it is fun. Jen says I look handsome. And I think I am through the itchy phase.

As much fun as I had, coming home from scout camp gives new appreciation to home cooked meals a loving spouse... and air conditioning.

Paul and I will have been married for 5 years this next Thanksgiving so we are going to go on another honeymoon. We have booked a trip on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and will leave on January 20th for a 7 night cruise. Our itinerary is to travel from Galveston to Jamaica to Grand Cayman to Cozumel, Mexico and back to Galveston. We are so excited! Does anyone want to join us?

I was at my parents house this morning and Brian took his first steps. At first it was just one, then 2, then 3. Now if I place him in the middle of the room he will take 4 or 5 steps to get to me. It's totally cute. Of course now I'll have to keep a closer eye on him, but it's awesome. Here are 2 pictures, and if I can get the video on I'll do that too. Both of the pictures were taken midstep and the video shows him taking a few steps. Love it!

People ask all the time, so I thought I'd give a brief update on my dad here.

He's about to start his 4th round of Chemo next week. He should be having another PET scan soon, which will show us if the Chemo is working or not. The doctors say that they think it is working since his pain is being managed and they say if the tumors were getting bigger he would be in unbearable pain. Most of the time he has no pain though since he is on great pain killers.

He has all the typical side effects of Chemo. He has very little energy, he get nauseated, and he doesn't feel like eating much. Because of all that he's lost 60 pounds and needs new clothes! He's been quite anemic this past month and has had 2 blood transfusions to help that problem. He has been a little loopy sometimes (although it's not THAT different from his normal loopiness!). He'll talk about really random things and sometimes he sees things that aren't there, but usually it's just that he's drifting in and out of sleep so easily and talks about his dreams so what he talks about doesn't make sense to us.

We are in relatively good spirits though, except for the few times we aren't. We are very grateful to everyone who continues to offer their support through visits, cards, e-mails, and especially prayers. We love you all and continue to pray for the best. I'll let people know when there's more news to tell.