More of the same

Hey everyone, it's Laurie, back from out-of-town. I spent most of a week in Boston for a conference on library/museum digitizing projects and then most of the next week in Cape Cod with my mom, sister and two nieces. I'm blessed that Mark was willing to have me gone for 10 days and be responsible for taking Sawyer to all his appointments while holding down the fort at home as well.

I took Sawyer to the clinic today for his next set of shots. Everything went smoothly and a bonus for me was that the hospital massage therapist was there and gave me a lovely chair massage. She offers her services to the parents and I jumped right out of my seat when she came along and asked if I wanted a massage!

After the appointment Sawyer wanted to have a late lunch at Sticky Lips, a BBQ restaurant in Rochester. I hadn't been before and very much enjoyed my lunch of their homemade macaroni and cheese with a couple bbq'd drumsticks. I highly recommend the place to anyone looking for a meal in Henrietta. On the way home we picked up one of Sawyer's friends who is spending the night; it's great to hear them chatting away about video games, books, friends and other general topics. Hopefully more of that will happen on a regular basis as Sawyer works his way toward a more normal life in the next month or so.

Part of the "normal" life will be taking driver's education this summer! Even though he has his driver's license (with restrictions) it will give him more experience as well as an insurance discount and an unrestricted license. The only downfall is the 6 weeks of time that needs to be blocked off; it means we will have to skip our usual week of camping and fun at Lake George in mid-July but we'll just plan on going next year.

After checking with the school guidance counselor, we found out that Sawyer is officially done with all his homework, final exams and regents tests! Free for the summer! (Not really, he's taking three AP classes next year and has summer homework for each of those.... but he's kind of excited about the assignments for those). We are very proud of him and what he was able to accomplish with his grades given that he wasn't in school except for a handfull of half days since mid-October. We are also very appreciateive for all the work that his dedicated tutor put in and the wonderful staff and teachers at school who were extremely accommodating and willing to work with us as things were in continual flux and uncertainty.



As we've said so many times before, thank you all for blessing our lives with love and support. It's such a bright spot in the world compared to the too frequent sad and discouraging news that's published each day from near and far. Life really is beautiful and we wish more people were able to experience and appreciate that (we know that all of you do!).