Five on Friday

Happy Friday, y'all! Looks like I haven't really shared much about our August lately. Here are five things to catch you up...

1. Aunt Lill. Toward the start of the month, one of my favorite aunts passed away. She was such a joy and always a favorite with all of her nieces and nephews (along, obviously, with her own four kids and all of their friends). She was married to my dad's big brother (that he farmed alongside) and was great friends with my mom. I wasn't able to make it to her funeral back in Washington, but my mom sent me this picture of my dad's six remaining siblings at the reception. (He had one other brother who died before him. Aunt Lill's husband is the third from the left.)

I'm sad I wasn't able to see everyone but blessed to have so much family still around. And I'm so very thankful for all of the memories that include my Aunt Lill and her amazing smile. 

2. Micah catch up. It's been a busy month, medically, with Micah. He's had his annual eye appointment (where we discovered a small hole in one of his retinas that will need to be closed up surgically next week)...had to go to urgent care for a sub-dermal infection in his legs...had his annual well check (where he also had the infection looked at and deemed "on the mend")...decided he needed to go back on medication (remember that he's been in a research study where he went off all meds at the start of May)...so has been back to Children's to be evaluated again, have bloodwork and get a new prescription (he's changing his treatment plan for practical reasons). So, now I'm in the process of sorting out all the insurance and prescription things to get that in place...hopefully before September? Oy. Fingers crossed that the new medication plan works as well or better as the last one and that we can get it started asap. (Fortunately, we were able to get some "emergency" meds into him in the meantime, though they're not as good as the medication plan so he's still in some discomfort.)

3. Nathan's birthday. With everything else going on, we didn't have a big celebration for Nathan's birthday this year but we did have cake... :)

It was a tiramisu cake from Whole Foods and was delicious! 

4. Karate West. On the 17th, there was another big promotion at Karate West. Mr. & Mrs. Yee, along with three other advanced belt candidates, promoted to higher belts. As part of Mrs. Yee's body of work to merit promotion, there was a demo team reunion with multiple performances. (Over the summer, as many past demo team members as were able were invited to practice together on various dates to work on the routines. Both Micah and Asher joined in.) Given Micah's leg infection, re-emerging arthritis issues and hole in his retina, though, he didn't participate at the actual promotion. Asher performed in all but one of the routines and is always a joy to watch.  

This is a photo of all of the black belts (or higher) who were present. It was truly a testament to Mr. & Mrs. Yee and their influence. So thankful my boys have this community!

5. Asher move in. Yesterday, Nathan and I helped Asher move back to his same dorm room at UNC. Appreciative that the weather was overcast...that Nathan was able to help...and that the process was so simple (so much easier when you're just moving back into the exact same room so you already know what goes where and what will fit). We got him settled, met one of his roommates, got lunch and then left him to it. I'm super bummed that I neglected to take a single photo. (For what it's worth, his room looks pretty much the same as last year, other than a smaller/shorter desk, lol.)

So. That's some of what's been going on around here. We've also dealt with homeowner-type things like sprinkler repairs and consultations about our trees and finding a new tree to replace the one that died. Mostly though, for me, August has been about being incredibly thankful that my guys all ended up going to college within an hour...it makes moving and medical things and whatnot so much easier. Waiting now on a couple more medical things and seeing that class schedules work and getting college bills paid and all of that. And then I can switch from summer mode to fall...