Pictures from the past couple of weeks

Sorry, it's too late tonight to make any decisions about which pictures to post, so I'm putting them all up.  :-)

These pictures are of Mosey's chicken turtle, "Annie," which he got in Lake Austin when he was fishing a week ago.  He's made a home for it in a big plastic box with water and rocks in it in the backyard.  It eats crickets and bloodworms, and is a very pleasant-tempered and cute little thing.

My boy is pretty pleasant-tempered and cute, too.  :-)

And here are the NOT so pleasant and cute fish that the boys caught that same day.  A couple of bluegill and a catfish.  Joseph helped to clean them, and Ben cooked them for lunch.

I couldn't believe how big the catfish's mouth was.  And it was still alive, after being out of the water for a couple of hours!  I get the heebie-jeebies when it comes to dead (or almost-dead) fish, so I snapped these pictures and quickly made myself busy elsewhere in the house.  :-)

In honor of Pioneer Day, we attempted to make butter this afternoon, using store-bought cream and jam jars.  For some reason, the butter refused to come together.  It stayed in a thick creamy state even after well over an hour of shaking, and finally resorting to the hand mixer.  I don't get it!  The boys spread it on their biscuits at dinner anyway, and it was good, especially with peach mango jam.
Here's Joseph with Grandma, trying her luck in getting the butter to set up.

And here's the family letter for the week.

Hi everyone,
This week has seemed like a loooooooong week.  I'm really glad to be on this side of it.  I remember last week thinking about this week and how my Houston trip and MRI would all be over.
My trip to Houston was fine.  My friend Stephanie picked me up at 5:00 AM and we headed out 290 toward the big city.  We stopped at a CVS on the outskirts of town, and was met with the soggy, humid air that is Houston in the summer.  I laugh when people in Austin complain about the humidity.  Have they never been to Houston in the summer?  Anyway, I was nervous and sick coming into town, like I always am.  It's a Pavlov's response at this point, I think.  I'll probably be sick and nervous every time I drive to Houston, regardless of the reason.  My neurology appointments at Baylor were fine.  I did the 30 foot walking test (with crutches), the finger dexterity peg test, the math test, and then had a battery of other physical examinations with Dr. Hutton.  And 11 tubes of blood drawn.  Then it was off to MD Anderson.  I had more blood drawn there, and then a long wait until my appointment with Dr. Popat at the stem cell clinic.  I went to the hospitality center where they have soft couches and free cookies for patients and read and dozed for a couple of hours.  At one point a mother and her young-20's daughter came in and sat on the couch opposite me.  The daughter was obviously sick, and lay on the couch with her head on her mom's lap.  It reminded me so much of when I was there with Mama after my transplant, coming in every day for bloodwork and doctor's appointments.  I spent a lot of time sleeping, or trying to sleep anyway, on MD Anderson couches.  I talked to them for a while after she woke up.  She has lymphoma and is from Austin, not far from where we live.  She had just received good news, though-- her tumors were responding to treatment, and she got the go-ahead to continue her treatments in Austin.  Hospitals are such funny places.  No one wants to be there, but there is definitely a sense of camaraderie whenever you strike up a conversation with someone.  Anyway, my 2:00 appointment didn't actually materialize until 3:30 when I spent approximately 30 seconds with Dr. Popat.  I had to wonder how in the world he got an hour and a half behind schedule when he only sees patients for 30 seconds!!  (I'm kidding-- I am most likely his simplest case and I don't hold the slightest grudge against him.  Oncologists are a special breed and I'm incredibly grateful for all that they do.)  I did talk more at length with his P.A., Richard Lindsey, who has been there since my transplant.  It's fun to see people that I recognize that who recognize me.  As I was leaving the stem cell clinic, the fire alarm went off!  I have no idea what it was about, but they close all the fire doors between corridors during fire alarms, so I was stuck in the hallway for about 15 minutes until it finally went off.  I was up on the 8th floor and did wonder what I would do if there really had been a fire and all the elevators shut down.  I'd be stuck, along with lots of other people.  Do they have protocols for getting mobility-challenged people out of hospitals?  Anyway, right after that, I got a call from the Children's Hospital telling me that I could come in early for my MRI.  Yay!  They're also usually running behind schedule, so my hour and a half wait for Dr. Popat was made up for by the hour and a half boost for my MRI.  The MRI was fine.  The same guy is at the desk at the imaging center that has been there for the past 3 1/2 years, and he remembered me., of course, being one of 3 adult patients in the Children's Hospital.  :-)  The MRI itself was fine, although the movie goggles weren't working.  They did have headphones, so I got to lay there and listen to a pretty good lineup of '80's songs for the hour and a half I was in the machine.  I told them they better have the movie goggles working by the time I come back for my follow-up MRI next month.  :-)
The drive home was uneventful, and we got back to Austin right about midnight, which was much better than I had anticipated, thanks to them moving up my MRI.
The next two days were spent in agonized waiting for the phone call about my MRI.  Dr. Hutton's nurse told me if the news was good, she'd call me, and if there was a problem, Dr. Hutton would call me.  So when I finally saw that 713 area code on my phone early Thursday morning, I knew that the results would be clear depending on who was on the other end of the line.  When Susan's voice came through, you can imagine the wave of relief that crashed over me.  So, I'm done with all that drama for another year and I'm so glad.  :-)
We went to pick up Mama from the airport on Wednesday afternoon, and having her here has been so wonderful.  She's done so much organization and cleaning, and spending special time with the boys.  I sure wish we lived closer.  It was fun having her at church today, too, mostly because I get to listen to her insightful comments during the lessons. 
We had a little pioneer day celebration this afternoon.  The boys played some songs from the children's hymn book.  Mosey was particularly proud of himself for his right-hand rendition of the Oxcart song.  He's got a really good sense of rhythm.  We made peach cobbler in the dutch oven, and attempted to make home-made butter.  We shook the heck out of that cream for an hour or more, but it never turned into anything other than a really thick whipped cream.  I've done some online searching, and I think part of the problem was that the cream was cold, straight out of the fridge.  Also I think heavy cream, instead of regular cream will probably work better.  I used the blender on it for another 15-20 minutes with no effect.  So I'm putting it in the fridge tonight and we'll see if anything happens over night.  The boys used it as clotted cream on their biscuits anyway.
We're leaving for Utah on Tuesday, so tomorrow will be a big day finishing up our projects, plus piano lessons and flute lessons and packing. 
I probably won't be able to write another family letter until we get back in a couple of weeks, so meanwhile, I hope everyone has an awesome week!

Love,
Gabrielle