A Long Time

I knew it had been a long time since I posted on my blog, but when I came to look today I was shocked to see it was in January!  I really want to do a better job of writing here in the light of this weekend.  On Friday night, a mom I originally met at church and kept in touch with through homeschooling (even though she no longer goes to our church) passed away suddenly while doing laundry Friday evening.  She was 41.  What I've always known - that we're not guaranteed even one more breath - really hit me.

So, I'm going to try to quickly catch up and to do a better job of posting at least a weekly update! :)

February 28 was Landon's 19th birthday.  Where has the time gone?  The girls and I drove down to Orlando to take him out to dinner.  We ate at Buca di Beppo for the very first time and it was incredible!  I took along a homemade angel food cake and strawberries for dessert.

 I had my camera in the car, but didn't take it in, so this blurry picture from Chase's itouch is all I have.  Sigh!

On March 10, Gerren turned 17.  We ate out the evening before at Piesano's in Gainesville.  Greg took the day off and the boys went with him to the Gator Nationals.  So, we met them up there for dinner.  We loved the pizza we ate there this summer and were anxious to return.

 

The boys' college spring break weeks didn't line up so we took a day off one week and a day off the other week.  Ugh!

We all had dental check-ups in March as well.  On March 12, I posted the following on Facebook:

Overwhelming day. Took Gerren to sign up to take the ASVAB; took much longer than I thought. Then we had dentist appts. I need two fillings replaced and crowned (which I was expecting). My poor girls! Chase has two teeth (top either side of the very front two) whose roots were damaged by her orthodontic work. When her braces came off, one had 1/2 the root it should, one had 3/4. Well, the one with 1/2 the root, basically has no root now. She will lose this perfectly good tooth. UGH! Carys has a bunch of cavities!!!! This is totally foreign to me as none of the big kids ever had a single one. Off to the pediatric dentist she goes to see which need to be filled. (They are all baby teeth, but a couple look pretty big). SIGH!

Then on March 14, this:

Carys saw the pediatric dentist today, and it was worse than we thought.
1) She has 10 teeth with cavities! (How do you have no cavities and then 6 months later have 10?)
2) Two of them (the ones that were visible to me) were abcessed and had to be extracted.
3) Four of them need "baby" root canals and crowns.
4) The other four need fillings; two of those need crowns. 5) The two spaces left from the extractions need space maintainers.
Cost out of our pockets: $3245. (We do have dental insurance but it has a $1000/year cap which is reached after the extractions and root canals.)

April brought Easter.  Chase wanted to finish the skirt she and Erin cut over Thanksgiving.  I whipped that together in one day with her help.

 Carys loved her Rapunzel doll.  Skylar, one of her friends from church, calls her Rapunzel!

The Easter baskets were filled with great stuff!

 

Last week, Carys had an appointment with the Pediatric Dental Department of Shands Hospital (affiliated with the University of Florida in Gainesville).  This was just with the undergrads who referred to the residents (duh? - not sure why we weren't sent there first unless it's just procedure to do one before the other).  The dentist/supervisor told me he didn't think she'd need all the crowns the original dentist wanted.  But they'll have to see once they get in there.  She goes back June 4 unless they have a cancellation before that.  I'm dreading it.