Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Remember you're her favorite and all it took was some pop.

These first two pictures from last weekend are two of my favorites. I love these next two because of good 'ol memories they stir up.

I am so grateful to have reconnected with you after all of those years. I love that my kids look forward to visiting you. I only wish we lived closer so we could enjoy those visits more often! Hope you had a great day today with all of your "kids"!

Elliott Yamin & JDRF

What a cool guy!! Elliott Yamin was at the Short Pump Chick-Fil-A this afternoon raising money for the JDRF and meeting his fans. After receiving this info from the JDRF and having heard so much about Elliott Yamin of American Idol's Season 5, I decided to check out his Myspace page (since we only started watching AI this season). He lived in Richmond for many years and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 16. We decided to go and meet him and I am so glad we did. He is such a great guy! As soon as he found out Jordan was a diabetic and on a pump he wanted to take a picture of the two of them and their pumps. Jordan is smitten with him. We'll be adding a new artist to our iPod.

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Happy 41st Birthday, to my sister!! The first picture appears to be Rachel's 10th birthday (at least that's how many candles I counted). Don't you love the Andy Gibb t-shirt!! I love looking at the details of these older photos (like the lovely chartreuse shade of Louie's sweater). The second photo is during the time of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, OMD, etc. If I remember correctly, I think we were on our way out to one of those concerts.

Rachel: I hope you have a wonderful birthday despite the fact that you are knee-deep in preprations for Shelby's high school graduation and seeing her off to college in the fall!

Barefoot in the grass.

We are really enjoying the ability to play in the yard without the worry of fire ants! Jordan and Madison don't wear shoes after school now that it's nice outside. We opted not to put in a pool at this new house, but it's still too warm here not to get wet. Maddie talked me into buying this cute little kiddie pool a couple of weeks ago and they sure do have fun with it.

Meet the newest member of our family.

This is Jillybean (or Jilly, or JB). We found her scrounging for food (from the bird feeder) on our deck earlier this month. She pretty much camped out at our back door for the past three weeks. After all of those days of having this cute little kitty peering in our back door "meowing" for our attention, we made it official. Jordan and Madison raised the money for her initial vet visit, where we found out we have a girl (the boy's name would have been Murray) and she's just under a year old. We'll slowly introduce her to our two other cats over the next several days.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Does that phrase count for second place? Jordan entered two photography contests this school year. The first Reflections contest, entitled WOW! she entered (last fall) this mushroom photo she took shortly after moving to Virginia. The second she entered just last week. This contest, hosted by the Ecology Club, was entitled Green Reflections - What does nature mean to you? She took this foliage picture last fall when the leaves were changing. I always had admired her "eye" for this photo. I wouldn't have looked up the trunk of a tree to get a photo, but she sure did. It got her a second place ribbon and prize. Oh, and that arm with the "thumbs up" you see in the photo? Maddie just couldn't be left out of the photo.

A lot can happen in a month.

Jordan has been one of the first people in this area to want to be on an insulin pump so quickly after diagnosis and actually have it happen. She wanted the pump, I wanted the sensor (which will come tomorrow), the doctors and clinicians felt she was ready, and the people at Medtronic were ready to send us a pump. After going through "pump" school, she was ready for the installation. March 3rd was her day. A little more than two hours of information, help programming the pump, filling the reservior, and finally inserting the infusion set into her abdomen, she was on an insulin pump. This means no more insulin injections, freedom to sleep in on the weekends (before she needed to have an insulin injection between the hours of 6-8:00 a.m.), regular pizza, anything she wants for a snack (before the pump she could only have a snack with 15-20 carbs), and no need to carry an insulin pen with her. She now can live like a normal teenager.