What I Haven't Posted About

So, there are a few things I haven't posted about that I'll share now.

Mike's sweet Granny died this weekend. Oh, how we love Granny. She was this beautiful, smiling, engaged-in-our-lives lady who always had a gleam in her eye.

It's weird to use "was," "had," "loved."  I'm not sure I can quite say "loved" yet. We love her; we always will. She was 92 years of love. This picture of Mike and Granny was taken at her 90th birthday party. 90th!! Can you believe it? She was ageless and gracious.

 

Mike loved his Granny. He still does.

 

Tanner has pneumonia and it's caused his kidney disease to flare for the first time in a long time. We've postponed our departure for the funeral in the hope he stabilizes enough that I feel comfortable leaving him at Mom & Dad's while I accompany Mike and the other kids to Granny's service. I'm, of course, completely comfortable with the care he'd get at Mom & Dad's. I'm just not comfortable being away from him when he has so much going on.

This was Tanner without pneumonia, at one of his football games this fall, deep in remission, right where we like him.

This is Tanner rockin' a mullet during his show choir's "Rock of Ages" tribute performance. Yep, 80s music is the thing of elevator music and school choirs now. I don't feel old at all.

Adam's been here a few weeks and will be here a few weeks more before he heads to Utah to live, and begin his post-South Africa life. I'm very excited for him.

 

Here he is with cousin Megan and sister Macy at the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix.

 

Here he is with Mike at the mall. (Mike is Pops to Adam, but he's Mike to me.)

 

Here he is with Karlie, giving her a kiss on her 13th birthday.

 

Here he is with Macy lurking like a creeper behind him, and Sadie our sweet dog enjoying the summer heat. (When Adam left South Africa in August it was winter there. Flying into Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in the blistering August heat represented a bit of atmospheric shock, I'll tell ya. Thankfully, in our high desert corner of Arizona, summer is a bit less punishing.)

 

This is Adam with Mike, Tanner and Macy, fresh off the plane from South Africa. I may or may not have breached the boundary stanchions and ropes in my eagerness to hug my sweet boy after his 2 years away.

 

 Dad had cancer last year, and he got through it with just fatigue. No other horrible side effects. He's so grateful to have it behind him; so am I.

He was a little tired when Macy and I picked him up from his two weeks of radiation in Sedona. (See that red mark? That's where they aimed the radiation 10 times. The spot's gone now; so is the cancer.)

 

Soon after we got him home, he was back in his garden, and all was well.

 

One of my dear, dear friends is having a baby after a struggle with infertility -- I'm so excited to meet miss Nora when she arrives in April! (I don't have a photo for this little note, obviously. Note the not arriving until April part.)

My sister's baby, Ellie, turned 8 on Christmas Eve and was baptized in January by Mike. I can't believe the baby of our family is not a baby anymore.

Finally, I am feeling good. Better than I have felt in years and years. It's fabulous. Right up until about 2 weeks ago, it had been some tough years of illness. Each day the past couple of weeks has felt better than the last and I am so grateful.  (Even with my fantastic fall in the chicken pen last week, which I am completely over by the way. All scabs are almost gone.)

I'm a little uncertain what to do with all the energy and good moods. But, I'm accepting it all greedily and loving it. And the kids and Mike are adjusting to my goofy extra energy. Well, they'll just have to adjust. Because I don't plan on giving it up.

And that's a synopsis some of the events that I don't necessarily write about, but they add the color and shadows to our lives here.

Love from the farm,
Teri