Catch Up Post Part 1

Hi bloggy friends! Life is a little crazy right now and I just haven't had much time to sit down and write out what all is going on - although I have been taking lots of pictures, so hopefully I can do more showing than telling. I found a post from a couple weeks ago that I never got around to adding pictures to, so I'm pretty backed up on recording what's been going on in our lives, so in an effort to not have one really long post, this will be broken up into 2 (or  more) parts.

First off, Mother's Day! {I told you I had a lot of updating to do} Derek had soccer games that weekend so we stayed in town Saturday, and I got to take pictures of all the craziness of soccer Saturdays. I have started editing them and am pleased with how they are turning out. Hopefully he will be able to use them for his website. I'm enjoying cropping and brigthening and making them look really good.

Sunday, we went up to visit Derek's parents to see his mom for Mothers Day. An update on Linda: She is in the middle of chemo treatments now. She should, hopefully, be finished by the end of July or early August. She gets treatments once a week, and they've found some medicine that is doing a pretty good job of managing the side effects. We're continuing to pray that the chemo gets rid of ALL of the cancer cells and that her blood counts stay high enough so she can continue her chemo schedule uninterrupted. She looked great when we saw her and had great energy. She really loves the Lord and is trusting Him with all of this, which is such an awesome thing to see.

Here are some pictures from the weekend. Fun activities include measuring Uncle Derek while Oliver watches through the window, and playing some baseball.

And here is Derek with his parents - I told you his mom looks great!

Ok, so that catches us up from Mothers Day weekend. The following weekend was our 5 year anniversary celebration, followed by the wedding of our friends Brad and Lauren {which I did not bring my camera to}, followed by the kick-off to graduation party season, which we are in the midst of right now. All of the guys in Derek's Bible study and most of the girls in mine are graduating, meaning graduation parties nearly every day, and some days multiple parties. I haven't been hungry in days, nor have I had to cook. I've had so many kinds of chicken tenders and dips and desserts, it's unbelievable. Graduation is this Friday, last night was the last baseball game. It's all coming to a close, and making me feel sad. I can't imagine how their parents feel. And most of them are going away to college next year, so we told their parents we could hang out together, because I'm not sure what we're going to do when all these kids are gone either. Of course I have no graduation party photos either. Bummer.

Finally, last item for today - I have a new office! Our office changed locations over the past weekend. So while my commute is a bit longer (15 minutes rather than 8) I love our new space and my office in particular. The way our old office was set up I got zero natural light. Now my office opens up to a wall of windows. And I can't tell you the difference it has made. I feel so much happier every day while I'm here. I took a little picture of the view from the window outside my office.

It even looks out over a signalized intersection, which is appropriate since I am a traffic engineer.  I love, love, love it! And we are super close to lots of restaurants and shopping, which is great because now I can use my lunch hour to run errands and I'm right there.

Ok, so that's it for this post. Next update post will include updates from the garden and other fun things.