Summertime and the living is...hectic!

So. Here we are. We've had quite the couple of weeks. Let's begin with the major efforts which was packing up the house upstate. I know, I know -- you're sick of hearing about it. Me too. So let me just give a big shout out to those who sacrificed weekends and holidays to help us make this thing happen.

• Evelyn & Carlo/Titi Evelyn & Uncle Carlo
• Karena & Jonathan
• Mom & Dad/Bubbie & Zadie/Dona Ruth & The Good Dr.
• Art & Terry/Titi Terry & Uncle Artie
• Josette & Nick

WE LOVE YOU!!!!
WITHOUT YOU, WE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO ALL WE DID!!!!

That said, it's really strange for us to no longer have our beautiful place to go to anymore. Sad.

Moving on. After packing up the house into a Pod and having it picked up and put into storage, we brought several boxes, our luggage and a set of golf clubs back with us into the city and have been staring at them since. We've been able to unpack a couple of the boxes...but a few are now playing the role of "ornamental cardboard." Perhaps a coat of paint and they could live there? The luggage and golf clubs have been strategically camouflaged behind Amelia's therapy equipment in the corner of the living room...lurking under her therapy ball. Not too bad tho considering.

Because Amelia was off of school for a week and a half (6/24 - 7/6) before her summer session started, we took off for a couple of days (packing yet again!) for Baltimore to visit my family down there. We had a nice getaway and got to see everyone. BBQ at my cousins, Mitch, Barbara & Hannah's on the 4th and sparklers in the backyard. Lots of time with my sister, her husband and kids -- whom Amelia adores!

The big bonus for me was getting to see a friend of mine from high school, Jodi who has become such a wonderful friend and huge support for Amelia and I through our blogs(see Amelia's Friends link to "An American Mom in Tuscany: Jordan's Cochlear Implant Story"). She is a dynamic and fearless advocate for her son, who has Cochlear Implants and has inspired me beyond words. Also, I actually got to meet her son and daughter too (I've only read about them on her blog) which was really cool! I think she felt the same way when she met Amelia. We've become invested in each other's lives through our stories and tales...to actually meet the person who inspires it all -- and ourselves -- is really.....cool!

We came back a couple days ago and Amelia started school again. Monday night, Amelia spiked a fever. Tylenol and motrin kicked it. Then, yesterday I got the call from school that she had 99.8, so they gave her tylenol and off we went to pick Amelia up from school and take her to the Drs. office. They did bloodwork and sent us to the hospital to get chest x-rays...and as we suspected, pneumonia. A very small case of it, as we caught it very early. Allow me to give you the back story that a couple of weeks ago Amelia was spiking fevers so we took her in for bloodwork and it showed her white blood cell count was at 33.4 (15 being the norm and 20 considered high) -- so her count was very, very high! Knowing there was infection somewhere( we would have had to have done a battery of tests to find out exactly where -- so we decided to treat the whole person rather than put her through more studies), we put her on 10 days of Biaxin. That cycle ended last Wednesday...so you can imagine that 5 days later, when her fevers started again, we were disheartened -- to say the least. But, we caught it early -- 10 days on Augmenten and she'll be good as new. Amelia seems herself, just with heavier and thicker secretions -- but jolly and happy overall.

I also wanted to mention that I was able to attend the Bris of Judah Shai Leshin a couple of weeks ago and felt so blessed to sitting among all his friends and family. Carrie, Scott and Sam, he's going to take great care of you! My heart is bursting for you all. (See the Leshin's blog "In Through The Out Door" from Amelia's Friends.)