Where's Waldo?

We were all all over the map this last week.

Literally.

Alannah was finishing up week 2 at orchestra camp, 40 miles to the East of home. She had a great time and played an amazing concert that her Daddy got to go see, but I missed for reasons that will be revealed later. I saw the video and it was fantastic and she had a blast!



Zachary was rescued from a week of more girliness than he could possibly stand or should ever be subjected to by Anissa and family in Georgia, 400 miles to the North of home. Mercifully, I don't have pictures to back this up, but, I am told there were BB gun shots fired at a gross dead thing. Somehow, this is cool. But, I have boobs and therefore do not understand how or why shooting anything, with or without maggots, is cool. But, he had a blast and owes Anissa BIG for saving him from....



Mandy and I were up to our eyeballs in bedazzled, glittery, foofoo pageantry this week in St Pete, 40 miles south of home. The ridiculously sweet and absurdly gorgeous Miss Pinellas County, Brittany Wardell asked four girls from the Children's Cancer Center to be her Sunshine Princesses in the Miss Florida pageant. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I could not be further from the stereotypical pageant mom type than I am. My kids left the house today in a dirty t-shirt he picked up off his floor, unmatched socks since she couldn't find any that matched and with only one having brushed her teeth. Had you asked me if I ever thought I would find myself backstage at Miss Florida or any other pageant for that matter, the hysterical laughter that would have ensued would have caused me to fall unkempt head first into my huge pile of unwashed laundry and died from dirty sock aspiration, but... if you build a tiara, Mandy will come.

Through the generosity of several amazing groups and people the girls were treated to gorgeous princess dresses.



And a week of princessing, the likes of which they had never seen.



And our Miss Pinellas county, loved on her girls every chance she got and could not have been sweeter to them. Mandy, who takes a while to warm up to anyone, simply adored Brittany within 5 minutes of having met her. And Brittany? Girlfriend can rock a bikini, lemme tell ya. If I looked even 1/8 as good in a bikini as she does I would wear it to Target, church, to shovel snow(ya know, if we lived somewhere that had snow), the grocery store, PTA meetings and Starbucks. And? She was sweet. And smart. I know, right??? If she weren't so darn nice, I might have to hate her just a little.

It was some long days, but Mandy LOVED every second! And I? Managed to not punch any pageant moms, which I think showed saintlike restraint on my part.




Thank you to everyone who made these four super special girls feel like princesses! And Brittany came in second runner up! Mandy said at least 732.5 times, "I am just so proud of her!!"

I put nearly 2000 miles on my car in a week, delivering and retrieving my kids from the far reaches of the planet, but all my scattered kiddos are now back where they belong, at home!

And a huge event today...I made Mandy's end of treatment MRI appointment. Twenty months of chemo will come to an end on September 30. The tumors aren't gone, and likely never will be. And due to her Neurofibromatosis, there is a fair chance we will have to treat something again, somewhere down the line. We are explaining it to the kids as an indefinite break from chemo. I wish I could promise it will never happen again.

I can't.

But, the bell is about to ding on Round One and she will have won with a knock out.

Love to all~