Catchin' Up

Wow.

What a great summer. I had so much fun with my girlies this summer, I just didn't want to let it go. We had a wonderful vacation in Traverse City with my parents, my brother and sis-in-law and the four of us - I have say that due to the obvious 3 week denial around my home & office that we were back to reality, it may have been the best vacation we've ever been on!

That's right for the entire month of August, I think I was in denial about being back to reality. After all - it was still sunny out. We had fairly unlimited access to a pool at friend's homes and we made use of it. Grace is a FISH. She just loves to swim. We took her to a pool at the home of some church friends and she almost swam herself sick. 2 & 1/2 hours of swimming underwater on a 3 year old leads to one tired girl. What a great activity! I am proud to say both my girls are not afraid of the water and adore swimtime. I am so going to miss swimming this winter. Hopefully we'll get plenty of snow exercise this winter.

Another reason for the lack of blogging these past 8 weeks or so is my head. Add a fairly consistent headache to the denial & lament of vacation passing and you've got a very blah feeling woman. My sinuses were completely blocked and it was getting worse the month of August. The doc said my head was completely filled with polyps and waiting for September 10th to have them removed was not easy. At work (when I have the chance to do most of my blogging!) is the worst place for my sinus pressure. Something about my office or the building at Glen Oaks just set me off everytime I went in there, consequently, not much was done by way of blogging or work really - because I just felt lousy. Totally, completely lousy.

Had surgery on September 10th to remove them and the doctor did a wonderful job! No swelling at all - except for my glassy eyes from the Vicodin and anesthesia, you'd never have known I had surgery. Except now I can talk and breathe properly. Hooray! Seems to be all healed up now, except I still get a fairly dull headache when I get tired and am still blowing random chunks of crud out. But that's to be expected.

The girls have shot up so much this past summer I don't even know where to start to catch up. Annie is jibber-jabbering constantly and incorporating more words than ever, she walks like a trooper and is developing such a strong, funny, determined little personality. I am really enjoying her these days. So cute and funny. And she has more hair! It's getting thicker and curlier almost by the hour it seems! Hooray. I have a blond and a brunette.

As for Grace, well - she has fallen in love with swimming - underwater, eyes open, no goggles. Constantly pushes herself. She has conquered the playground, except for the monkey bars, but loves to climb, swing, slide down the pole, rock climb - you name it - she's all over it. I think my friend Rach called her "indestructable" one day on the playground, and that word has stuck with me. She falls & runs into things constantly, but hops up and brushes herself off. She really does not like to let pain get her down. I've never seen anything like it. "Jesus will heal me" is something I heard a lot this summer. And He always does.
I don't know who taught her, but she can spell her name, and write it now - she's shown lots of letter and number recognition, and lately we've been working on what rhyming words are. She has it mixed up right now - using the beginning sound of the word to indicate rhyming. i.e. The other day she told me that POPsicle and POPcorn rhymed. Not so much, lovey :)

So, a tearful goodbye to my summer, although currently it's almost 80 degrees outside and a hearty hello to fall. Hoping for some grand times and a lot more memories!