Hello faithful readers….(those actually reading this)

I feel like I have abandoned my blog and am determined today to update my readers and visit others!  It is a lovely day in MN.  I am sitting on the back deck and blogging away in the sun.   Nothing better – plenty of things to do in the house, but I really miss my xanga friends!  

School ended for my youngest son, Tommy the latest this year.  His last day of school was on June 12th.  That was the official start of summer at our house.  Tommy is attending daycare at Busy Bees the daycare center at the college where my hubby works.  The week of June 22nd, Erik was gone on a mission trip to Cortez, Colorado with our church.   He did ok, but unsure if it will work out for him to go next year.  He did get in trouble, but the youth leader did not have us come get him since it was late in the trip. 

That same week, June 22nd – Tommy went to Vacation bible School for the first time.  It never worked with my work schedule to get him there and picked up each day.   This year I dropped him off and hubby picked him up on his lunch break and took him back to Busy Bees.   That seemed to work pretty good. 

In June we accepted the bid to finish our basement.  We are adding a 5th bedroom to our house.  It is more of a suite than a bedroom.  Josh is moving back home in August and this will be his space until he is out on his own again, then hubby and I will take the room.  It is a very large bedroom with a seating area and walk in closet.  We spent most of May and a bit of June emptying out everything we had in our basement.   We started sorting it, but it was taking too much time.  Instead everything was moved into the garage and I will slowly go through it all as I bring the items in the house we want to keep.  But luckily we had the basement empty and the floor sealed by the time the  contractor was ready to start work. 

In the beginning of June, hubby’s brother, Pete came to stay with us for a week or so.  He came to visit as we were celebrating their parents 50th wedding anniversary.   We had a nice party at the party room at my inlaws apartment building.   Everyone was able to attend the my inlaws were very happy with the celebration!

Work in June was crazy for me with an emergency placement and just trying to get caught up to go on vacation in July.  So far in July I have only worked 2 days.  I must say this vacation was a very needed break.  Hopefully I will be able to work the rest of the summer and get things ready for budget season. 

Hubby, Josh and BIL worked very hard on getting the egress well completed so our window could be installed.  We had alot of rain and the well collapsed once before the blocks were in place.  OOPS…..they worked very hard and the results were great!!

JULY – brought our family vacation.  We went to South Dakota to attend my cousins wedding and spend a week in the Black Hills.   It was a hard trip for me.  Even though I saw a specialist and received my official diagnosis in May, travel was not much better for me.  Being diagnosed with IBS is the only thing in my life I would ever change.  My family was understanding, but I hate to be a bother to them.  I am blessed with an incredibly kind, supportive and patient hubby.  He let me drive when I needed to eliminate some of my illness and he put up with many bathroom stops.  If there is any silver lining in having IBS and traveling is that I lost 5 pounds in a week.  So once we were in the Black Hills I spent time at the cabin while hubby, BIL and the kids went out exploring the sites.  I was able to read three books and get a review or two written. 

Our evenings were filled with wonderful home cooked meals, hot tub, pool tournaments and visits with family and friends.  The trip home was not all it was cracked up to be!!  I got a speeding ticket in Highmore, South Dakota.   We also stopped in Pierre to visit my brother and his wife.  We were very late getting to my parents house in Aberdeen, SD.   We slept there and headed back to MN the following morning.  All went well until we got near the cities.   A fuel truck had been overturned on I94 and the freeway was closed going both ways.  ARGH!!  We refused to wait in line….so my amazing hubby studied the hudson map book and got us to a different exit onto the freeway by taking different back roads.   The freeway was closed for 9 hours, but it really didn’t slow us up too much since we found an open entrance to the freeway in Albertville.   It was very weird to be driving on the freeway we were the only cars on the entire freeway.  

It is good to be home…..I am person of routine and structure, more so as I get older.   Last week Tommy had Sports Camp and hubby was at a conference all day so I stayed home and transported Tommy.  Work was started on Josh’s new bedroom while we were gone.  It was great to come home to walls!!!  I went back to work last Thursday, but found I wasn’t ready to deal with it all.  So I took Friday off and helped move the library at Tommy’s School. 

Hard to believe we are already preparing for school to start!!  Where did the summer go?   Rooms are being prepared at the school for painting and the first MPTP (like PTA) executive board meeting is scheduled for this coming week!!  I took on a few more responsibilities at Tommy’s school and church in general.  I am the treasurer for MPTP and a Scrip Coordinator with the school.  Starting in August I will be assisting at the information desk at church a couple of Sundays a month. 

Isn’t xanga an interesting place??  Even though I have been away from xanga I must say I found my thoughts and prayers including a wonderful xanga friend, Cheryl.  She is going through treatment for cancer and I am amazed by her strength and love!   What a wonderful godly woman, I am blessed to have met on xannga!!

I will post a separate blog with some pictures from our vacation!  This one is jsut getting too long!!!  If you made it to the end of this post, please pat yourself on the back!!  Thanks for continuing to be a faithful reader.

Blessings,