What am I getting into now???

I think that I have found a new group that I want to be part of... This weekend, the Texas Jewish Historical Society is having its quarterly meeting in San Angelo. The group chooses different cities throughout TX with Jewish communities to hold its meetings. We are lucky enough to host them this time. The group is very friendly and welcoming, and focuses on keeping Judaism alive in TX, even in the smaller communities, as well as preserving the Jewish communities' histories. Fits right in with my scrapbooking tendencies, and gives us a reason to go to services at different synagogues, at least quarterly.

Is Summer supposed to be relaxing??

I thought so. But this summer, not so much.

John had two back surgeries in June, one 6/2 & one 6/9. We knew going in that this was a two-surgery procedure, to correct his kyphosis. the surgeries went very well, correcting his 78-degree spinal curvature to a 28-degree curvature (normal is 20-40 degrees). What we weren't counting on, however, was that John had an allergice reaction to one of the antibiotics while in the hospital, which caused his blood platelet level to drop dangerously low. After removing John from ALL meds for 36 hours, the level finally started to come back, and continued to until it was back to normal. However, while he was in the "danger zone" of the platelet level, he developed sores on his heels, that have turned out to be bed sores. After one of them started to ooze, we went to the emergency room, like we were told. We have now been going to the wound clinic at least once a week (down from every other day) for the past 6 weeks. And I have been cleaning/redressing them at least once daily. ugh! Poor John has to wear an orthopedic boot, as one of the heels is healing fine, but the other one is not doing as well. The boot is to keep ALL pressure off of John's heel. To my untrained eye, it does seem to be helping. We'll see Monday, when John goes back to the Wound Care Clinic.

WITH all this going on, Megan had her Bat Mitzvah on July 11. I have imagined for years what the event would be like, and it was exactly as I'd pictured, but better! Megan did an amazing job reading her torah portion and haftarah portion, she an dLeah (the other girl Bat mitzvahed that day) sounded GREAT together, and most of our closest family and friends were able to share the weekend with us. The event could not have been better. I'm SO glad it's over! Tons of work, but worth every minute. Time to move on to Matthew and Leah's sister, Elisha.

Life did slow down after the Bat Mitzvah, but got busy in a different way. One of my best friends, Vivian and her daughter came for the Bat Mitzvah, and her daughter Jordan, who is Megan's age, stayed with us for two weeks. The girls, who have literally known each other since they were babies, had a very good time together. One of the highlights for me was a photo album that Jordan and Vivian gave us that had pictures of the girls from the time they were babies until last year. Hopefully I can continue to add to it. (Although I didn't do a good job of taking pictures while she was here this time-- It's okay, though, we are planning a trip to Carrizon Springs next weekend).

This past weekend was very, very busy... Megan and Jordan had Basketball Camp, and Matthew and his friend Dalton had Computer Camp. They all had so much fun~ M & D learned lots, and M & J were exhausted- in a good way.

This afternoon, I took Jordan down to Sonora to meet Viv and make the "switch". We had a fun (but short) visit at DQ, before we headed back to San Angelo.