First off, I want to thank all of you for your warm comments, emails, well wishes, prayers and concern for our family. It truly means the world to me. We got the call last Tuesday afternoon that my dad was in ICU in Casper and would need a heart bypass ASAP. He underwent a quadruple bypass very successfully last Thursday and was actually released from the hospital yesterday, stayed an extra night in Casper and returned home today. It seems awfully fast, but I’m thankful for things going well enough that *fast* was even an option. He has some other serious blockages in his arteries to his legs and kidneys, but those issues will have to be addressed once he is healed from this incredibly tough surgery. There’s no explanation why he is even alive with a heart blockage of 95%, other than by the grace of God. He was in the right place at just the right time, with one of the top heart surgeons in the country (so we were told)  working his magic. Dad, I love you more than words can express and I’m incredibly grateful that you finally got the medical attention that you needed and deserved.

I feel very fortunate that Jason and I work for ourselves and had the luxury of spending the week with my dad and being there for my mom, not to mention getting all that extra time with my brother and sister in law. Aiden is over the moon about his Uncle Timmy and all of Timmy’s cool toys, namely, his iPhone. (Aren’t we all?) It was really tough on the kids to be out of their element for so many days and there were times when I thought I was going to completely lose my mind with Juliet acting so out of sorts and naughty. Let’s just say that no one in the hotel needed an early morning wakeup call via the front desk… Juliet was all over that with her shrill screams at the butt crack of dawn. It took a lot of huggies from all of us (not the diapers), books, crayons, treats and especially gum to quell her demanding moods. Give this girl a piece of gum and you can buy yourself a solid 10 minutes of distraction.

And as if there wasn’t enough ill-fated excitement for one week, I was handed an additional little gem of news.  As I was frantically trying to pack the four of us to head to Casper, I decided to check my bank balances and move some funds around to cover bills while we were gone. Online banking showed I had a whopping $186 in my business account. Apparently a man out of Nigeria decided to help himself to my debit card to purchase a $2200 online class, buy an assortment of goodies off of iTunes and some other miscellaneous, yet expensive online purchases. Nice. So, I’ve spent the past week dealing with the bank and online merchants trying to recapture my money. The kicker is that this is the 3rd card of mine to be stolen in the past 3 months. Whew! Can’t say my life isn’t exciting.

So, that’s that. Just trying to play catch up now and rework my crazy shooting schedule for the remainder of this month and into next month. Plus, I haven’t forgotten all of you out there that are interested in the mentoring. I was blown away at the response and have over 20 people in the mix.  It’s going to be this winter when things slow down a bit. I’ll be posting a questionnaire soon to gather info to help put the class together.

Alas, I leave you with a few more images from a few weeks ago that I’ve been meaning to edit and post. My little Junie-bird in all her precious toddler glory.