Family

I just got off the phone with my mother. This morning they had to put our dog, Gabby, to sleep. This is the second time that I've been unable to be there to say good-bye to a pet I helped raise right before Natalie and the boys were going to be making a trip to my parents, without me.
Gabby was not a young dog. While we never really knew what breeds she mixed, at 13-14 years old, she must have been old for any of them. She had a good long life, and I believe that she was happy for most of it. The only times it might not have been good were when Max was put to sleep, having to adjust to being the only dog in the house, and the last couple of years of discomfort from medical issues.
Today is even sadder, because it is not just not being there to say good-bye to a pet, but also the viewing of the mother of friends that we spent a lot of time with during high school, which was also this morning. I'm still a little stunned that the mother of of close friends is gone. She was someone I knew, and someone that cared for the whole group of us, treated all of us good enough to be family.

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About three weeks of Nat's and the boys' summer have passed. And everyone else is getting ready to leave for 3 weeks.
At the start of the summer, Natalie and I put together some activities that we wanted the boys to try do to keep their minds working through the summer. We worked hard through the school year to get the boys writing and to get them to learn how to keep themselves from putting all their work off till the last minute. This is something that we had problems with even getting into the end of the school year. One of the stated goals I had was to give them work to do, and to have them figure out how to meet the objectives for every week.

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A quick follow up on JB and the great epic trek into parental hell that started Monday.
He's doing much better. Much, much better.
Jacob's color is back. And he is now starting to tell me that he's bored. Which says to me that he wants something to do.
I expect that we'll start slowly returning to whatever passes for normal around here. The big problem is that we were not able to establish the new (read: summer) normal before a somewhat tiny vestigial flap of tissue decided it wanted everyone to pay it some attention. So, now we start trying to return things to normal, whatever that means.

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Forgive me if the typing is weird. I'm doing this on my phone.
Friday night JB was a little congested, but we live in Virginia Beach and school just got finished, so allergies and colds happen.
Saturday we went to the beach, and Saturday night JB was complaining he was dizzy. We figured he was dehydrated from being at the beach and in the sun for a couple hours.
Yesterday (Saturday) he ran a fever, but nothing else seemed wrong. At this point we were figuring it was a cold.
This morning, Nat and I slept in from the school year 5:30am start. It was 6:30 when we started to get up, and JB comes into the room telling us that his stomach hurt. There wasn't anything really wrong with this, until he curled up on the floor of the bathroom when we asked him if he was going to throw up.
Seems this the "my belly hurts" means "I am doubled over in pain and there is nothing anyone can do about it"
JB might be a bit overdramatic at times, but this was way different from normal.
We did get him back in bed for a bit. He started to act like he felt better. He even started to eat breakfast. And then he started with the discomfort again. At this point it is all way too familiar.

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Happy Birthday, to you! Happy Birthday, to you! Happy Birthday, dear Macey! Happy Birthday, to you! <br/> <br/> We all wish we could be there with you, sorry you're not feeling well.

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