Rip Van Winkle returns

Fresh from my blogging slumber, that is. I've been mysteriously quiet here for the last week or so. Well not so much around the house, but online I've not had much to say. Here's an update on what's been happening in the Morris family (for the four of you who read this).

• Sammy got neutered yesterday. Yep we castrated the poor guy. He looks sad today, like he lost his best friends. Guys know what I'm talking about.
• Kasey had her first gym "meet". Even though it was just with her gym and not a real competition, she still got nervous. Understandly so, considering she was still having trouble on the bars. She did well on her floor exercise and vault. Still needs some work on the beam and bars though. If dad would quit lounging and build that practice beam that he agreed to many moons ago...
• I celebrated my 34th birthday on Friday. I'm solidly in that "thirty-something" mode now. I still don't feel like an adult but I definitely know I'm not young anymore. What a strange place to be in.
• Kim's sister, Lynda, has been with us for the last week and a half. It's been fun having her here with us. My girls love having their aunt here to play with. She is as tall as I am now, which just isn't right. Kim's mom and stepdad arrive in Florida tomorrow and will stay for a week or so, then they all head back to Idaho together.
  
• Kim's stepdad, Theron, is no longer getting treatment for his brain cancer. No, that's not a good thing. It appears that the treatments are failing and so there is no need to subject him to the side effects of the chemo. It's difficult even to write these words. I certainly don't mean to be fatalistic, but unfortunately that seems to be the reality of the situation. We prayed and hoped for a miracle. Though the healing hasn't come, he has been with us longer than the doctor's originally projected, which has given us the opportunity to fly out to Idaho a couple of times to be with them. We are definitely thankful for that.
  
• I got called out for work spur of the moment last week. I was sitting at home looking forward to a nice relaxing day, when I got the call. "How fast can you be at the warehouse?" It was 10 a.m. when I got called. I needed to take the satellite truck, pick up the engineer on the way and be in Jacksonville, FL by 2:30p.m. Though we drove as fast as we safely could, we still didn't get there until 3:15p.m. Our "hit" time was 4:00p.m. so there was little time to spare. We did the hit, packed up and rolled out of the parking lot at 4:30p.m. Yep, we drove about 10 hours round trip to spend an hour and fifteen minutes on site. Welcome to the life of a freelancer.
  
• The girls started home school last week. You might be wondering why we started so early this year - so did the girls! Basically we wanted to build allowances into the schedule this fall so that we can take some time off to go to Disney with my brother and his wife. Also, we were tentatively planning another Idaho trip this fall. A lot remains to be seen.
  

Well there it is. A glimpse into our household lately - and I didn't even mention church, karate, regular gym practices, birthday parties, overflowing toilets, leaking water coolers, flat tires, etc... Maybe another post!