BASKETBALL 2011

Basketball this year was quite an experience since Cole had to play in the 8-10 year old age group. We got beat nearly every game since we were rather small in comparison to the rest of the teams that were predominately 10 year olds.

Uhhh...Yikes!

We only had 6 kids since Nathan and a guy from fall baseball formed their own team. The poor things wore out so quickly.

The kids tried their best though and actually toughened up towards the end of the season. Next year should be a little more exciting and not such a beating.

CANCER FREE

I'm so behind on blogging and will probably end up skipping posting about lots of our random family happenings but, I can't skip mentioning a couple of things related to Nathan's thyroid cancer.

Nathan got me lots of great presents for Christmas this year but one was by far the best. It was this beautiful bracelet that he secretly ordered for me that is made with the Swarovski crystals in the colors for thyroid cancer (teal, blue and pink). I wore the yellow livestrong rubber bracelet for a while but once I started working at a law firm and having to look professional, I didn't think it matched so well. This bracelet is just perfect and oh so pretty! This cell phone picture doesn't do it justice. The last week of 2010 came with a bit of stress. Nathan had three different days of testing done to find out if he would require more radiation or not. He had to be off of his thyroid medication for three weeks prior to the testing in order to get clear results. He was really low on energy that entire time and worrying every day that he would have to go through radiation again. I kept reminding him to think positively and try to stay up beat instead of dreading it. I truly BELIEVED that the first round of radiation got all of the cancer because the doctor mentioned that the first round was almost more of a precaution since there weren't a large amount of cancer cells floating around his neck...Just enough to make it necessary though.

The day of his testing he insisted that I stay at work since the hospital was nearly 45 minutes from my office. I thought about it a lot and finally decided to go but, I didn't tell Nathan. I couldn't remember where to park at the hospital and ended up having to call Nathan and ask where he was. He said he'd just gotten out of his car. I asked him to wait there and tell me where to go. He just about flipped out on the phone and when I got out of the car he broke down a little bit and hugged me so tightly. It was such a sweet, heartfelt moment. Even though all I did was sit in a tiny waiting room by myself, it meant so much to him that I came. It took me a week of short lunches to make up the time I was gone but, seeing Nathan's face when I pulled up was more than worth it!The waiting room for his full body scan was very small and private but yet still had a tv playing soap operas that I couldn't help getting sucked into and wanting to know what was gonna happen next. You can miss months of epidsodes and still pretty much figure out what's going on. Stupid soap operas.

It's hard to see but that sign says NUCLEAR MED ROOM. Uhhhh those really aren't the most comforting words to see. But the machines that are in there are meant to save lives regardless of how scary they may seem.

I stared at this cart of drawers a lot (during commercials, of course) and was really annoyed by the fact that they had the name of the colored drawers on each drawer. I mean, why do they need to have purple written on the purple drawer? Oh wait...I've had this picture for months and didn't realize it until just now as I'm writing this that it's probably for people like my dad who are color blind. My bad. Nathan wasn't supposed to get the results until the following Monday but, they were so clear and obvious that it didn't take long to read them and, the doctor ended up called him within 30 minutes. So luckily, we didn't have to start the new year without knowing. The doctor said there were no more signs of cancer and that he was well on his way to being cancer free. CANCER FREE!!!

Only 3 month check ups to test his cell count that determines the dosage of his daily thyroid medication. He will also have to do the 3 day testing including the full body scan once a year for the next few years to make sure the cancer hasn't returned.

I'm so proud of how strong Nathan has been through it all. I know that there have been many times that he's tried to hide how tired or ill he's felt because he didn't want it come across as being weak but, really, he's been so strong and such an amazing example...And the kids and I are so very proud of him for it! Love this guy!

CLOSET STORY AND SUCH

While Nathan was in Florida for work (back in February), the kids and I got to go in the closet during a heavy rain storm accompanied by a tornado warning. I realized once we were sitting in my tiny "master" closet that there is no door on the closet, it's right next to the glass shower door, and not too far from the window in the bathroom. Hmmm...Maybe that really wasn't the safest place to be. I guess we could have gone in the kids' bathroom in the hallway but I really wasn't up for throwing pillows and blankets on the floor in there since my son apparently still hasn't learned to control his willy. I'm so glad that he's well trained on flushing and putting the seat back down but, good grief...POINT AND SHOOT! Simple as that.

Cole was surprisingly really sweet to Brooke and read her a book while we were in there. They didn't even notice I was recording them.

Brooke slept in my bed that night but only because for some reason she had her mind set that the next time Nathan was out of town, she would get to sleep in there. I agreed to it for one night and one night only. We have a king size bed and I stuck her far away from me and still got kicked and bumped and laid on all night long. And that makes for a grumpy mommy in the morning. Not good. She does look cute though.

Cole knows better than to ask to sleep in our bed since he was in there until he was 3 years old. And he long overstayed his welcome. Brooke had no choice but to sleep in her bed when she was born because there was no room but, she did come in there every once in a while when I was too tired to wait for her to fall back asleep during the night. Often times Nathan wouldn't even realize she was in the bed until he woke up. Neat how men can sleep so well, huh?Brooke was 2 in the picture above. Notice the same purple bear in both pictures. All together now...Awwww.

STRAIGHT LINE WINDS SAY WHAT???

If you haven't already heard, West Tennessee was recently hit with some very bad storms. Tornado warnings and heavy rains night after night after night. It was really ridiculous. All the towns around here look pretty beat up but it was only straight line winds of 100 mph or so. Granted, our damage is nothing compared to the people in Alabama...Thank goodness.

I snagged all of these pictures from our local newspaper's website. I wanted to take photos driving around but it was too dangerous with all the trees, power lines, and other debris lying around. Plus there always seemed to be some sort of on lookers tailing me. The storm clouds were nasty. I didn't see most of them because there are no windows in my office. My office is on the 2nd floor of an older bank building in the center of town so, when the bank president came upstairs and told us all to get downstairs into the bank vault, I figured something hairy had to be brewing outside.Trees this size and much bigger are down all over the counties. It rained so much that the ground was so saturated and just loose enough for the high winds to bring so many of these huge, old trees down. This is one of the big bankruptcy attorney's house in Jackson. One of lawyer's at my work actually goes against him all the time. Our firm represents the banks trying to collect their money and this guy represents the people trying not to pay their debts. These trees that fell and ripped down the power lines are right by the kids' school. The kids and I got to see them because I didn't know that school was closed. We didn't get a phone call or anything. Grrr!Nathan left for St. Louis that morning so I had to take them and go into work a little late. I pulled into an empty parking lot at their school and was instantly ticked. We don't have the local news, we have Memphis news, which is an hour away, and they didn't have any school closings listed on there. I had no other choice but to take them to work with me. Grrreat. I went back home and grabbed a bunch of stuff to occupy them, and hoped the lawyers wouldn't be too upset that I brought my kids and that I was an hour late. The kids really were very good and everyone highly complimented them. And my lawyer sent me home early because he said it was too boring for the kids to be up there any longer. Suhweeeet!

Super cool office chairs, eh???