Cyprus

Andrew had the exciting chance to go to Cyprus for a week, early in June. I got the excitement of staying home with 5 kids, getting thru all the last week of school activities. I think he got the better deal. These are all the pictures he took. They are mainly of some ruins he visited on his sightseeting day.

Lots of updates

I've realized that I have been a bit slow with the family updates lately. Andrew pointed this out, asking me if I had ever posted a picture of him and Cammie working in the yard. Apparently he sees this as our online family journal. So here are some pictures from our last month or so, along with a tiny bit of information.

Here are Cammie and Andrew working in the yard. He was re-doing a bit of landscaping, she wanted to help him. The amazing thing is that she spent the whole afternoon out with him, helping him shovel and put a border in. I think she was more dedicated to the project than he was.

Kyle has a project going for a few days of trying to make Fletcher be a "Cool" dog. I had lots of pictures of him on my camera and phone.

The boys planned a family project to wash the cars for one of their merit badges. Everyone in the family was supposed to help. Note there are two extra kids here. This is a warning. If your children are at our house, when something needs to be done, they very well may have to help. This isn't the first time kids friends have had to help with chores.

School Ended

Cammie graduated from pre-school. She was the first one in her class to be able to count to 100 on her own. We are very thankful to Ms. Bekky and Ms. Susan for being her teachers all year.

In Mindy's class she was voted the person with the prettiest eyes.

Travis graduated from Middle School

Kyle had to play in the band at the graduation ceremony ( I know, why why why a big production for middle school?). Note how thrilled all the band kids are to be there. They had to sit facing the sun. I had to have a conversation with his band teacher about Kyle not taking band next year. It was lots of fun.

The girls survived the ceremony, that we couldn't hear in the hot sun. I was nice and bought them all Tootsie Pops to help kill some time.

Travis walked and got his paper saying he could officially leave middle school.

Travis and Max look so happy to be done with it all. I think they are actually happy to be moving on, even if their parents aren't so sure about them starting high school in a few weeks.

As we were waiting around to leave, Cammie managed to fall and scrape her knee. Doesn't she look adorably sad?

Andrew and I sort of celebrated our 16th wedding anniversay. He still had to go to work, I had to teach a class that evening. At least we didn't have any swim practice, so he was able to go the class with me. Afterwards we went to the gyms hot tub. I made him these yummy yummy cookies. We are hoping for a better celebration this weekend, when we have more time.

Swim Meet

Saturday was our first swim meet of the season. We swam in Walnut Creek, as is normal, it was cold and dreary there, until the meet was over, then the sun came out. Because both of our teams are big, the kids only swam two individual events. They all swam Free and Fly. Yes, our kids are all alike.






Sandra conferring with Coach Serge before her fly. She popped her time by 2 seconds.


And looking cute before her relay.

Kyle's fly race. The boy has speed. He also popped his best time by two seconds.

(Kyle is in Ln 4, with the gold cap)

Mindy's cool dive.









Other than the cold, it was a good meet. I rewarded them all for their hard work with a trip to Crepes A-Go-Go, for a yummy lunch. I hope we have more Walnut Creek swim meets.

How to legally torture a child, aka, TrialNet Phase 2

We got the results of Cammie's retest for the TrialNet study and she definitely is positive for the GAD Auto antibody. We now had the option of saying that is nice and leaving it at that, but no, I opted for choice number 2, which was to enroll her in Phase 2 of the study. Because of course my kids are great and they will have no problem with me choosing to have them poked and have lots of blood drawn.


For this part, Cammie had to be fasting overnight, then go in for several hours to take a glucose tolerance test, you know that horrible test you have to take when you are pregnant and drink that gross gross disgusting super sugary pop. Fortunately for her, she only had to have about 4 oz. Unfortunately for Cammie, she had to give lots more blood, every thirty minutes for 2 hours, and 3 draws before drinking the gross stuff.



To prepare we bought a special bottle with built in straw for drinking the special stuff.














After patiently waiting for a long time while paperwork was filled out and equipment was readied, she had a hep-lock inserted. Luckily she had a good vein and the first try was a winner. Sadly though it was in her right arm, so she wasn't able to color through the rest of the day.

Cammie was great for this part, she just barely flinched once, and was a bit tense until they pulled the needle out. She actually had to watch, despite me trying to distract her. After the IV was inserted the blood draws started.

For this phase of the trial, they retest for the auto antibodies, they test for insulin in the blood, they test for c-peptides (which is a way to measure the amount of insulin the body makes itself), they do a genetics test to look for a protective gene that some people have which greatly reduces their risk of ever developing Type 1, and they test the blood glucose levels.

These are all the vials for blood, after the first round was over, in which they took another 4. 25 in all. Lucky girl.

After being there for over and hour and totally starving she finally got to have her special drink. She said it was very good.

We took books and a portable DVD player to keep Cammie entertained. She also got a few toys at the beginning. She patiently watched her movie and tolerated being bugged every 30 min for them to suck a little more blood.

At the end she was rewarded with a trip to the prize box and a water bottle full of little treasures.

We also got these fantastic t-shirts for everyone in our family.

After it was over, she said she wanted to do it again, and was wondering if it could be tomorrow. I think we will definitely go on for Phase 3 in which she gets to go every six months for the same testing to monitor any changes in her body. The nurse in charge said she was the best 4 year old she had ever had and she was better then many of their older kids.

Yeah for kids who like to give blood for a good cause.