I'm still here!

Hello to my three faithful readers :)  Sorry it's been so long - life has been good and rough and busy.  We got some tough news about Mike's dad's health, so we got to go out to Colorado to visit last week, which was so good for us.  It's hard to be so far away when you just want to be there.  If you're a pray-er we would love prayers for healing and peace for Michael and all of us.

I know that I can be quite verbose at times, so I will try to give some brief updates and thoughts:

The week before last my mom was here.  She was so determined to see Lilly - and Mike and me, of course :) - that she got out of bed and flew out here, still recovering from pneumonia and all.

This morning I ran the farthest that I ever have - 4.57 miles.  It felt good!  I didn't die!  I didn't even feel like I was going to die!  Good progress.

Mike gets to give his first sermon at our church here tomorrow.  I love hearing him speak, but don't think I'll get to tomorrow - for my last (or second to last) week as the interim head of the children's ministry I will probably be filling in in one of the classrooms again.  Bless all the volunteers, but my goodness they're flaky when it comes to actually being there!  So I'm disappointed that I won't get to hear him in person, but I've gotten to be there for all the drafts.  There's so much that goes into preparing Mike's sermons, it's amazing to see what God does in the process.

We bought The Little Mermaid for Lilly for our trip to Colorado.  She and I sat down to cozy and watch a few minutes of it before she went to bed tonight.  Tory used to watch that movie incessantly, but I still couldn't believe that I knew so many of the songs.  Lilly finally told me in a loud voice, "Mama no sing, just Aribow." (Aribow = Ariel)

We had to board Addie while we were in Colorado, which is very traumatic for our poor, sensitive dog.  Even worse, she was bitten by another dog while she was there.  They just casually mentioned it to me when I picked her up, but when I looked at it at home it was an incredibly deep and angry-looking bite, so off to the vet we went.  Poor sweet puppy, she wouldn't hurt a fly and the vet said that she was probably trying to get away when she got bitten.  It had been too long to give her stitches, so she's now on antibiotics and pain medication and I have to squirt some ointment into it three times a day.  It makes me weak when I think about it too much.  But lucky girl gets to go stay with my uncle Bill when we go on our next trip and I'm genuinely concerned that she's going to love it so much with him that she won't want to come home.

Jen and Lauren are coming for a quick visit this weekend!  We are SO excited to get to see them, and it's so awesome of Jen to make the trip.  We'll get lots of pictures of Lilly and Lauren together.

The countdown to 30 is T minus 17 days.  Au revoir my twenties...

Tomorrow afternoon we go to a cookout at Amy and Thad's.  I love a festive holiday weekend cookout!  And Thad makes a mean pomegranate cosmopolitan - yummy!  On Monday we head to the Strawberry Festival and then the West Hartford Memorial Day parade.  The weather was beautiful today - after my run at the reservoir this morning we all walked into town for coffee and muffins.  The bushes and trees and flowers are blooming.  I'm dying to plant some flowers, but we'll have to wait a few weeks because...

We get to go on our amazing trip to Europe with my family in a little less than two weeks!  With all that's going on, we thought we might not go, but instead we are taking Lilly out to Colorado to stay with Mike's parents.  She will also have such a good time that we're afraid she won't want to come home.  I've only been away from Lilly for five nights of her life, and I will be away from her for twelve nights and when I think about it too much my heart hurts.  But I know it will be good for her and I know it will be good for me.  She and I fly to Colorado on Wednesday morning and then I take the red-eye back to CT that night.  Then I take another red-eye to Spain on Friday night.  That also makes my heart hurt when I think about it too much :)

There are a lot of really amazing things going on in our lives, transposed with some really tough things.  At times like this we just have to praise God that we aren't in control of it all and that He is.  No matter what, even when I don't understand, that makes my heart happy.