On The Road to Mississippi

Well, shortly we will be anyway. Last night we came over to Briana’s and spent the night in order to pick her up. She’ll get to go with us to MS, where we will be visiting James’ mom and my granny, who is in a nursing home. It’s about a 6 1/2 hour drive from here. The interesting part is that we didn’t have anyone to keep any of the dogs this time, so they are ALL going with us, even Briana’s. Briana’s and Ashley’s dogs are pretty big. That’s 6 people, 2 big dogs, 2 little dogs, and luggage in a Suburban. AACCKK!
It has been a super busy April. Two hikes up in the mountains, a trip or 2 over to Briana’s (without my calendar I’ve lost track!….maybe it was just one. haha), and lots of fun family time. Briana got to come home for 2 nights at Easter and 5 nights later in the month. In April we also celebrated Daniella’s 9th birthday. The day of her birthday was one of our hikes. Briana and my parents were all there for that.
The next day she had a party with 4 friends. Our outside festivities were rained out, so we had to do some last minute, quick planning. Nothing that some plain white paper on the table with crayons, nail polish, and a craft didn’t help cure. She had fun 2 days. I can’t believe she is 9. When we were just about to sing Happy Birthday, someone said, "Next year you will be a double digit." My heart went, "TEN!" I cried through the whole singing Happy Birthday.: )
I have a very hectic May coming up. This trip to MS starts it off. I would have loved to have planned it another time, but this was the only time Briana could go this year, and she didn’t get to visit them last year with us. Marissa’s birthday is 3 days after we get back, and I have a house FULL of silly girls coming for Marissa’s first ever sleepover the next night. AACCKK……again! I also have another trip back over to Briana’s, the younger girls are in a musical at church, Ashley leaves for camp, and we may go on vacation starting the last few days of the month.
Speaking of Ashley~ #1 PLEASE pray for her. She injured her shoulder last year in Kenya. It had gotten a little better, but a couple of months ago, she was playing ball with the family, and it started hurting….a lot. She’s had another steroid shot and physical therapy, but neither has helped at all. She will be having an MRI, hopefully in the next 2 weeks. We will first use that to try to pinpoint better another, perhaps stronger, steroid shot. If nothing works, we are looking at surgery. The orthopedic dr. believes she has a tear in the rotator cuff. #2 The last week of May she leaves for 11, possibly 12 weeks of summer camp, working on staff. She will be doing this with a very painful shoulder, unless we can get her a steroid shot and it works. Even without pain, this is a very exhausting, strenuous job. Please pray for her endurance, and me because I’m temporarily "losing" another child! She will get to come home most weekends. I’m off to finish getting ready for this road trip. It could be interesting!