Thankful Thursday on Tuesday

May has been a very long month. And it's not even over yet. ;P I know I'm behind on my Thankful Thursday posts--and I have a minute now--so here are some of the things I've been thankful for this month...

1. New things hanging on the wall. Nathan got me this awhile back and we finally updated it and hung it a couple weekends ago...

Technically, Nathan's been to one or two more but we only scratched off parks we've been to together. We've got some work to do, lol. It's nice to have the reminder hanging where we can see it regularly, and we're looking forward to making more progress on the list. 

Also on our walls...we try to pick up a magnet during our travels (has to be a place we've been to personally)...

As you can see, though, our shadow boxes were full. Obviously, this is great...it means we've done some good traveling! The downside was that at this point I couldn't find a matching shadow box and we had no room to add another one near these others anyhow. Given all that, we decided not to worry about matching exactly and to just start a new area...

So thankful for our many travels!

2. Science. At his last appointment with his rheumatologist (May 10), Micah opted to participate in a research study he qualified for and is excited to contribute to science. It's a study to evaluate TNFi therapies (the types of medications Micah's been on for his arthritis) for juvenile arthritis patients. They're trying to see whether the medications are being over-prescribed so randomly assign participants to either continue on their meds as normal, taper the meds (spread them out further--so, in Micah's case, have infusions every 6 weeks instead of every 4 weeks), or stop the meds altogether. 

Micah had been planning to try the 6 week intervals over the summer anyhow. In the randomization, he ended up assigned to the group stopping all meds (which he was pretty happy about). Soooo. We've canceled his infusion appointments (should have had one May 18th on the previous schedule) and accompanying meds. He'll need to see the rheumatologist every 3 months now instead of every 6 months but that seems preferable to infusions every month. If he starts having flare ups, he'll just go back on the infusions and that result will be logged for the study. Now we wait. 

Thankful, as always, for the fabulous doctors and opportunities at Children's.

3. Nathan's work trip. Nathan was in San Francisco again earlier this month, this time for work (instead of collegiate taekwondo). Thankful that he was able to have the face-to-face time with some of his co-workers and that things here were fairly uneventful in his absence.

4. That Asher was the one sitting in the chair. A couple of weekends ago, quite unexpectedly, Asher's chair suddenly gave out. The welds on the bottom and the attachment to the chair, itself, just failed. One minute he was just sitting at the table, and the next he was on the floor. Fortunately, he was mostly just surprised and is unhurt. 

Because we'd repaired the seat portion of one of the other chairs previously, we happened to have an extra set of the chair feet hardware. Nathan fixed the attachment point and replaced the hardware and claims that the chair is good to go now...

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried now about all of the chairs, lol. I may be keeping my eye out for new kitchen chairs. ;) In the meantime, though, I'm very thankful that it was Asher sitting in the chair when it failed, as I'm not sure the rest of us would have come away uninjured. 

5. A little help from my friends. This past weekend has reminded me how very appreciative I am to have the wonderful friends that I do. I won't get into specifics but huge shout out to Lynne, Deanna, Sarah & Molly along with my baby sisters...love you all! 

Also, enormous thanks to Michelle for placing some peonies at my dad's grave yesterday for me and my mom. (Mom was here for my niece's graduation and spent some time both here in Fort Collins with us and down in Longmont with my brother and his family.) 

So blessed to have friends still in Prosser who can help out with things like this at a moment's notice. 

Okay, that's what I've got for now. :)

Summer break is here

So, summer break officially started here last week. Last Tuesday, I moved Micah home from the dorms at CU. Despite his migraine issues (which thankfully appear to be done now that he's home), he finished the semester strong. He did not, though, do any packing before I showed up, lol...

Unlike with Asher, an evening check out time was not an option, so I was the only one available to go move Micah. (Asher resumed his YMCA after school job till the end of that school district's academic year so was also not available.) We got some lunch then started on the packing. Fortunately, Micah had a great number of varying bags to pack things into and the dorm had wheeled carts available that we could load up with stuff and push to the van. It took us just under three hours but we got everything packed up, loaded out and cleaned. Very thankful for those carts and for still having a mini-van (that currently only has one of the middle captain's chairs in it to create more cargo space in the main cabin). I don't think we could have fit everything otherwise, lol.  

Incidentally, Micah had a lot of stuff. Whoa. I really didn't think it would be so much. We moved him down there with just one mini-van load and he hadn't had a car all year to bring more back with him. Except that he did, lol. It seems that on infusion weekends he took back a bag here and a bag there. He ended up with a lot of bags...of sparring gear, climbing gear, extra gear, etc. But. We got it all in the van. Whew, all good. :) 

And, when we got home, Nathan and Noah were ready and waiting to help unload everything...yay! The front room got full again...

The first picture is after Asher's unload and the second one is after Micah's. Yup, very thankful that our front room is usually mostly empty so that there's room to pile stuff temporarily.

After unloading Micah and once Asher got home from work, we had dinner and then enjoyed some family game time. We had a great time with some CodeNames and then Noah found an online game of connecting two actors through their movies and other actors. Noah, Micah and I had a lot of fun with that one. :)

Since then, we've had conversations about summer expectations...Micah's been down to Children's (that'll be for another post)...Asher and Noah have been working...friends have been hung out with...Micah's managed to put away and/or store everything so that the front room is empty again...and plenty of other tasks and paperwork and such have been tackled. And now we're settling into our summer and adjusting to how to live altogether again. Whew.

Thankful Thursday

Happy start of May! Today's list, working backward in time a bit...I'm thankful for...

1. Finishing up at UNC for the academic year. So, tomorrow is technically the end of the spring semester for UNC, but Asher's last final exam was on Tuesday. Given that students were required to move out of the dorms within 24 hours of their last final and given that I wanted Nathan and Noah to be available to help, we moved Asher home Tuesday night. Wow, he had a lot of stuff, lol.

The top right photo is a look at the last two loads staged in the common area just outside of Asher's dorm room. The bottom right photo is our front room yesterday...keeping in mind that Asher had already taken a few things up to his bedroom, the mini fridge isn't in this photo, and the large standing desk was still in the back of the car at this point. (For what it's worth, Asher brought home a load of things the weekend before and then we had both our minivan and the SUV Asher drives to bring back everything Tuesday night.)

So, yes, very thankful that we had extra people to pack Asher out (particularly given that Asher's still recovering from his sprained ankle and since his room is on the third floor and a decent walk from the elevators).

I'm happy to report that the mini fridge is the only thing still left in the front room today! (Had to clear the room before we move Micah home next week, lol.) Asher and I spent yesterday clearing stuff out of his bedroom and sorting things before finding a place for everything (in his room, back in his car, in the guest room, etc). Yay!  

Thankful, then, for a successful move home...that Asher finished out the semester strong and is still very happy with UNC...and, oh!, for the incredibly fun shopping spree the four of us had using up most of the remaining money on Asher's dining plan at the convenience store in the student union building after we'd loaded everything up on Tuesday. :)

2. Micah's eye health. Last week, Micah started having issues with migraines. He's never had them before. On Friday, he finally went to Urgent Care to see if they could help. He was thoroughly unimpressed by their "help" (to be fair, they're maybe inundated with college students right now...still, they didn't really do much other than to tell him what he already knew and had been doing). But. In preparing to go to Urgent Care, Micah had been looking up whether his arthritis meds would prevent him from taking migraine meds. This prompted some back and forth communication with his rheumatologist's office and concern over his eye health, as apparently sometimes his arthritis can lead to eye inflammation that would present as persistent headache and could be rather bad news (leading to things like vision loss).

There was enough concern and potential downside that Nathan and I ended up driving the hour down to Boulder on Saturday, picking Micah up, driving back up here to have him seen at our optometrists' office (very thankful that one of them was able/willing to come in for an emergency visit on a Saturday!!) who have been monitoring for that since his arthritis diagnosis already, and then taking him back to Boulder. (Thankful, too, that our sons ended up close to home, as it's made dealing with health issues considerably easier than if they were out of state for college.)

Fortunately, after all that, Micah's eye health is excellent. Whew. Great and appreciated news, but we still haven't figured out what's causing the migraines. Since Micah has finals and final papers this week and next and since he's already tried Urgent Care and has ruled out possible eye health issues, the current plan is for Micah to just power through until he's done with the semester and then talk more with his rheumatologist at a previously scheduled routine appointment at the end of next week. Ugh. As of last night, though, Micah says he's starting to feel a bit better.

3. Not having a commute. With all of the driving lately back and forth to both UNC and CU, Nathan and I are thankful to not have commutes. Truly.

4. A good rain. Last Friday and Saturday brought a good spring rain. While I dislike the grey of it, I'll be thankful for the precipitation and how it's helped in turning things from brown to green around here.

5. Not having seasonal allergies. With everything turning green, I'm very thankful that I don't suffer from seasonal allergies. Nathan and Micah aren't as fond of everything turning green and have been battling allergies the last month or so. For Nathan, at least his allergies here haven't been as bad as when we lived in Eugene or in Durham. (It was pretty horrible for him from April to July...he was wearing masks when outdoors.) This year has been worse than others, though...enough to get Nathan to try other allergy meds. Thank goodness for Allegra, as it seems to be doing a better job than the Claritin he'd taken before. 

Okay, that's a good list for now. So much to be thankful for!