this morning....her hip replacement surgery. Dad called and said she did great and no complications. She will be able to come home anywhere from 2-5 days depending on how she does recovery wise. We will be going up later this afternoon to see her. I am not looking forward to going to that awful hospital but I guess I will just have to suck it up. For those of you who don't know the story I will just say this....the nurses at this particular hospital suck! Yep....harsh I know but seriously when they can't tell that a patient has had a stroke...come on....get a different job! oops sorry, my rant is over but I guess it is obvious I have still have some internal issues to resolve.

The other day Andrew Thomas spent the day fishing...first official day of summer for him. And....this is what he caught. A 38 inch Muskie which is now sitting proudly in my freezer waiting to be cooked.

Nothing else new to report here just that the day is gorgeous and I am going to go sit outside and read by the pool!!

We finally woke up to some sun today....hopefully it will stick around. I am not complaining about the rain because it is good for all the plants but it can be depressing at times. I am so thankful I don't live in Iowa though!!

It is a Saturday and the house is quiet....weird! Maddie is visiting friends in Rochester. She really misses being there because there is so much for her to do. I am happy that she gets this time to visit before her work schedule kicks in. She is working in Lily Dale as a hotel maid. She has been putting in many hours already getting ready for the season to start and Monday she starts work officially on the 3rd floor of the Maple Wood....the most haunted of places in Lily Dale. She can already tell you many stories from her few weeks there. She is so funny about the ghosts!!

Drew, Andrew and Abby are over at grandma's and grandpa's. Grandma is having her hip replacement surgery this week so they are helping her to get things done before she does. As well as working in our garden. I think that the garden is going to be a godsend this year with the rising food and gas prices. Pretty scary to think of how ezpensive things are getting and how high they just may go.

Max and I are here being quiet. I finished painting my deck chairs and hung out a few loads of laundry and now I am going to scrap. I have been contemplating doing something this year that I always tell myself to do but just never end up doing it. I am entering the Memory Makers Masters contest. I have no hopes of ever being chosen but I really need to get over my fears and just do it! Nothing ventured....Nothing gained kind of thing. The hardest part for me is not sharing my layouts when I finish them. But.....I guess it will just have to be. Like I said I have no hopes of being chosen but I am excited about the challenge of it all.

Speaking of challenges: Over at MMFY they have a scraplift challenge every month and this month they actually picked a layout of mine for everybody to lift! I was so honored. Anyways I had fun lifting myself and this layout is what I came up with.....if you look back at my older posts you will see the original that we all lifted from. I have never lifted myself and now I just don't understand why not.....it was fun to do.

Paige just finished with her second round of chemo yesterday. She is amazing....her spirits are so high even after everything she has faced and will continue to face. Her hair is starting to fall out and she is going to be proactive about that and shave her head before it all does. I think that is awesome and I know she will be beautiful with or without her hair because how could she not!! Beauty from within radiates out and she is certainly beautiful with in herself!! Keep her in your prayers please so that she feels better quicker this time then last. I am posting her carepage link so you can all follow her journey. Then you will all see how special she is facing this dreaded disease!!

Have a great day everybody....hope you all have some sunshine to enjoy!!

Tomorrow morning bright and early we meet with the specialist about Drew's shoulder. I have been doing so much research and learning way more about how the shoulder works then I ever imagined wanting too. Our hope is that we can try a conservative approach which would allow him to play football with a few restrictions of course and then have the surgery done as soon as the season is over. Realistically Drew has already gone through football, wrestling and baseball with his shoulder as is. So we are hoping that maybe because we know about it now....can protect it better....he may still be able to play. That sounds terrible doesn't it? That we would let him play but again....I will never ever forget that look of total devastation on his face when he found out. So if you could all say some prayers that after hearing all of the options and scenarios we as parents can make an informed decision with our heads and not our hearts. Thank you!

On a scrappy note....MMFY had a sketch challenge using little squares of pics. Lisa M our wonderful team photographer had given us all these neat pics of the boys and I thought that it worked wonderfully for this challenge. I made the baseball myself but please don't look too close at the stitching because it is a little funky. I even "dirtied" the baseball up with some ink. I think it turned out kind of neat.

And I know it is kind of late but Happy Father's Day to everyone of the dads I know. We spent the day at home relaxing by the pool and had a rousing game of whiffle ball. No injuries this time....just a few welts from the whiffle ball hitting Max and Abby but everybody was able to get out of bed the next morning just fine. Not like last years thank goodness!

Yesterday was a pretty sad day in our household. No, nothing life threatening but a big bump in the road for Andrew Thomas. The doctor called with the results of his MRI done with the dye. It was suppose to just confirm the diagnosis of the lack of fusion in his shoulder bone....which it did. But it also found that he has a torn Labrum as well as a small tear in one of the ligaments. Surgery is recommended which means 4 weeks in a sling and 5 months without sports. He is just devastated. He has been working so hard to get ready for the upcoming football season. He has college scouts already interested in him and the plain fact that he just LOVES the game of football. We have an appointment on the 18th and we will discuss with the doctor all of the options....just in case there is a slim chance he can play football and then have the surgery. I know that sounds terrible that we would even think of letting him play but it is so hard to see the devastation this has brought him. Say a prayer please for him. Like I said this isn't life threatening and for that I am so glad but it truly hurts my heart to see him hurting so badly.

Yesterday before we got the news I was actually able to scrap. The weather has been awesome this week....so hot!! I love it!! But it makes it hard to stay inside and get any scrapping done....especially when you want to be in the pool and soak up those rays. But the weather was kind of iffy yesterday with several storms blowing through so I stayed put and in my scrap room. I made this layout with all the new papers and chipboard from the K&C recycled papers line. Love them!! This was Max and daddy way back in 2004 when the whole family was together at my brother Kerry's. This was the last time that we were all together before mom passed away. I have avoided scrapping any of the pics from this time because it was just too hard. But I think the time has come to do them. I don't want to forget those times and I feel now that I can actually remember them with smiles instead of sadness.

Last friday night the boys had their first playoff game. The game was going great, the boys were playing awesome and it was so much fun until....Max got hit in the head with a foul ball! It was the scariest moment not knowing where he was hit and how bad because I was not in the same place as him. He was playing with a couple of other kids and stood up at the exact moment that the ball came down and it hit him square in the top side of his head. He immediately fell to the ground and cried (thank god for that because we know that it never knocked him out) We called an ambulance right away because you just don't know with head injuries. He was such a trooper and he let the emt's work on him and after being checked out from head to toe they thought that he would be just fine. We did have to watch him through the night and wake him often in case there might have been signs of a concussion or worse. He didn't like being woken up but he like I said he was a trooper. He was even given the ball that hit him. This picture was taken after all of the excitement was over by Lisa....our team "photographer" Yes...It will become a scrapbook page...just have to wait to do it when my nerves settle down. But I just want to say thank you to all of the people that helped during this, the Emt's that were watching the game and came right away and of course the Sinclairville fire dept for getting there pretty darn quick. The poor fire chief got into a little accident on his way to the scene....get this....a deer jumped in his truck window!! He was fine but scared the jeepers out of him!!

On a brighter note...the boys won their game 19-1 and they play again tonight. Keep y our fingers crossed that they continue to do well and of course that Max makes it through without getting hit by any wayward balls. He isn't even scared about going. He still likes baseball is what he said!!