Coat Drive!

I am so proud of Jillian, my 13 yo daughter. She is in a new Girl Scout troop this year and the leader is a woman I went to high school with. Karen is a wonderful leader and really knows how to motivate the girls. Jillian is a Cadette this year, so that means they are working towards earning their Silver Award. She has the next two years to complete all the requirements to earn it.

Since her first meeting two weeks ago, she has been going through her scouting books non-stop! She has used post it pads to mark her spot on the projects she wants to complete and is using a notebook to organize all of the badges she wants to earn.

Anyway, on to the Coat Drive.... She has to do quite a few Service Projects taking the leadership position in completing these projects. Her first project is to organize a coat drive in our community. So, she made up a flyer and is planning to hand it out to all the other Girl Scout troops in the area! She contacted the local grocery store manager and asked him if she could collect the coats at his store on Oct. 20th, that way everyone can bring their gathered coats right to a central location and we'll take them to the local shelter for them to distribute all winter!

I am so proud of her!!! She honestly has done all of the work on this project. I haven't done a thing! I'm very anxious to see what kind of response she gets from the other girl scout troops and the community. I'm going to take a picture of her and a couple of her GS friends at their meeting on Monday night, holding some coats, and send it to the local newspaper. We're hoping that will really get the community to donate their coats too.

Wish us luck!

Happy Autumn

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff-- including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see. This was passed on to me from another pumpkin. Now, it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin. Happy Fall!

All clear!

Woo Hoo! We went for Becca's Bladder scan and everything was pink and beautiful!!! We were so excited to get that report! Even though she hasn't had any problems, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about this appointment.

He said he'd see her again in 6 months, then if it's all clear that time, he'll go to once a year. Becca was thrilled to hear that! lol!

So, at least we know that her bladder is good. We head back to Pittsburgh on Monday for her Endocrinologist appointment for her PCOS. She's kind of anxious to see this guy cause she's lost quite a bit of weight and wants to see what he says!

What a week....

Once again another crazy week in our household... yes, it was nice to have a long weekend over Labor Day, but it made things at work even more crazy than usual....

Becca has had a pretty crappy time of it lately healthwise.... She complained last week of having pain in her lower back, and we were afraid that it was her kidneys because she's on a pretty high does of motrin for her abdominal pain. Luckily, it wasn't that.... but it was a lower lumbar strain. Our pediatrician referred her to a massage therapist and she felt that that might help. So, we made an appointment with a woman that a friend recommended. She went on Wednesday. She spent over an hour working on her back and her head.

We gave her Becca's whole medical history (boy did that take some time!) from her daily Headaches which are going on almost 3 years now, to her abdominal pain since last October, to them finding her bladder cancer in November, to being diagnosed with PCOS in January, to the continued abdominal pain.... anyway, she tried several types of deep massage that she hopes may help her. She worked on her back, abdomen (because there are back muscles that actually can cause pain in the abdomen) and her neck and head.

She warned us that she'd feel like she got hit by a Mack truck 24-48 hours after she worked on her, and she was right.... Becca came to my office after work Thursday in tears. Her head pain was about 8 and she couldn't even think straight. She was supposed to go to work, but she called in sick and went home... she couldn't make it to school the next day either because the head pain was so bad. She also could barely move her neck. Luckily by Friday afternoon, things started to ease up and she started feeling better.

This morning, she said her head is pretty much back to normal (normal meaning pain but tolerable) but that her abdominal pain was actually a bit better and the back pain was gone! So I guess it was worth it, besides the two days of hell she went through.....

Unfortunately, her therapist had emergency gall bladder surgery Saturday morning! Can you believe it??? Not sure what we are going to do now.... We were supposed to call her Monday and let her know how things were going.

Please keep Becca in your prayers on Tuesday as we head to the Urological Oncologist for Becca's second bladder scope since her surgery. We needs lots of prayers that there is no sign of the cancer returning!!!!

Hope you all have a great week!

Angel Tomato

This was at the stand of Brenneman's Produce. Vicky Brenneman had sliced open a Tomato and this is what she found. She put it on display for all to see. I thought this was awesome, to see something simply to uplift our lives and make us smile. Photo by Dennis Ober.

Friday night football!

High school football on Friday nights is pretty big in our neck of the woods... Of course, I'm always excited for half time when our fabulous band performs!

Here's Jillian playing her flute. She's the flute player right in the middle.


Here's the whole band. We're 95 members strong this year!



Go Bobcat Marching Band!

Becca Won!

Becca enter two photos in the Fair photography competition and she got a 4th place on one!!! Woo Hoo! We are very proud of her! Here is her picture:

There were about 30 entries there and some of them were really, really good. I'm so excited that she won a ribbon! She's going to put this in her portfolio for college. She wants to go for photography and graphic design!

Here's what the actual picture is that she entered. There's a lot of glare in the photo above, so it looks better here:

This is just one of the 150+ pictures she took of flowers when we went to Florida. It was so hard to decide which ones to enter but she could only enter one 3 x 5 and one 5 x 7. She made this one the 5 x 7. Isn't it gorgeous!