dipping my toes back in

This is the longest break I've taken from my blog since my transplant, I think!  We were gone for 3 weeks, and ever since we've been back, I feel like I've been scrambling to get things organized for school and seminary, plus dealing with a trip to Houston, and an overall feeling of rebellion against the tyranny of the internet.
Anyway, it's been a great summer, although far too short.  Our trip was wonderful and I have an absolutely, crazily, absurd number of photographs to go through.  It's going to take me the next year to get through them all.  :-)
Here's just one.  Aren't we a great looking family?!

My trip to Houston was OK.  It's over, that's the best part!  I have to go one more time for a repeat MRI in September, and then I never, ever have to go back again.  And I just might not.  At least this trip was fairly quick.  My mom came with me which made everything much easier and less stressful for me.  I had a bunch of appointments, but my nurse was able to schedule them into just 2 days.  On Monday I had an echocardiogram, then a full pulmonary function exam, then bloodwork at the fast-track lab (where they made a mistake and only drew half the number of vials, resulting in them calling me back and sticking me again for the rest...), then a check-up with Dr. Popat at the stem cell clinic, then a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy (hurt much more this time than last time, but again, it's over, so all is well), and an MRI at night.  Phew!  The next day was easy in comparison-- bloodwork (16 vials!) and questionnaires with Dr. Hutton, then the timed walking test, hand dexterity test, and mental cognition test-- the math test which is my favorite since I can ace it, and finally a general MS physical.  Dr. Hutton is such a nice man and I will miss him.  But I will not miss the anxiety and stress that always surrounds visits with him.  :-)
My mom and I talked seminary, went to the Houston museum of fine arts, ate Thai food, and saw a great documentary about back-up singers-- all things that wouldn't have been huge hits with my husband and 3 boys, so it was really great having her there.
Since coming back, my cousin Deborah has been staying here for a couple of weeks until she can move into her apartment down by UT where she's going to grad school.  I love all of my cousins, and it has been great getting to know her.  She is 10 years younger than me, so I didn't know her as well as her older siblings, but she is awesome.
I reorganized all the books in my schoolroom (a big job!), and have been trying to get things organized for school starting next week.  It's complicated because I feel like now that the big boys are going into 7th grade, I need to be working according to a master plan to get them prepared for college.  So I'm trying to figure out exactly how to organize our studies for the next couple of years so they can be ready for AP exams and such when they are in high school.  I'm not doing Sonlight this year, since I think they need something a bit more rigorous, so it's been a lot more work for me.  But I'm excited and I hope it will be a great year.
The boys have been enjoying their last few days of freedom, doing entirely too little practicing and too few chores, but you know, that's OK.  My sister Rosalynde introduced me to the musical "Mathilda" while we were at our family reunion, and I got the soundtrack and we've been listening to it constantly.  Mosey loves it and has lots of the words memorized, including a big chunk of one of the best monologues I've ever heard onstage.  I need to video him for sure.  :-)  Brigham and Joseph had their last day of Primary on Sunday, since they are turning 12 on Thursday.  I get too emotional if I think too much about that, so I won't.  But it was fun staying up late with Brigham on Saturday night helping him master those last few articles of faith so he could pass them off before graduating from primary.  I have some really good boys.
I'm going to try to get the boys up early(er) tomorrow to start adjusting to our school schedule which is coming up in less than a week now.  Which means that I really need to get myself to bed earlier too.