Family Photos Arrived

Thank God she'd rather kiss horses than boys! (smile)

Our family pictures arrived! (And quite frankly it still feels "odd" to see just three of us! Really - we ARE a family of four and I'm not counting Skeeter, hee hee!) These were taken about five weeks ago at the barn where Shayla takes riding lessons and where we lease the horse for her.






















As this weekend is now here, I can't help but reflect upon this weekend in 2005. We had just left NYC after a wonderful visit back to that great city with so many wonderful people and we went to Philly for Christi's scans at CHOP. That was when we learned of her dreaded progression - the words no one ever wants to hear. From what we'd learned, it appeared she probably had about 8 months of life left. (Christi ended up living 14 more months.) As we were stuck in the Ronald McDonald House over the long 4th of July weekend (because more scans were needed and they couldn't do those over the weekend) we tried to make the best of it.
Shayne knew Christi really wanted to take horseback riding lessons so from our room at the Ronald House he started making phone calls, looking for a stable that would give the girls a lesson. In Philadelphia on July 4th 2005, the girls had their first horse riding lessons. They both loved it! (PIC: Shayla, age 6)
They loved it so much, Shayne called to see if they would let the girls come back a second day - and they did.
Recently, we watched some of the video clips of their first lessons. What a hoot! While I know VERY VERY little about riding horses now, I knew NOTHING then and even though I thought they were "good" those video clips had us laughing with everything they were doing wrong. HAPPY 4th of JULY!

GOOD NEWS: I had some fabulous professional news happen yesterday! I received word that a proposal I submitted in April for a Peer Reviewed Reading Conference was accepted! I'm excited about sharing my reading research I conducted this year with my students with other professors - and about being with mom and Joe in Florida for nearly a week in December! (My tenure and review process at BGSU is contingent upon a few things, one of them includes publishing in peer reviewed journals. This counts! That's my first, whew! Thank you, dear Lord!)