Paparazzi, Cinderella, Father's Day, and a blessing

This weekend was a full one!  We went on Saturday to The Family Cafe which is a bunch of mini-conferences for families with disabilities.  It was at one of the Disney conference centers this year.  It's really a neat thing, it's put on by the governor and is open to anyone in FL to attend.  In fact, if you live further than 50 miles (I think) then they will even put you up in the hotel!  We only came for one day of it and didn't even attend any of the mini conferences, but we came to the exhibit hall to see what was there and to meet people.  We got some great info on wheelchairs, the Inclusion Network contacts, and met up with some friends too! 

The picture above is our crew plus an extra KC.  KC's the same age as Emma and she lives in JAX.  We met once before when Brianna was just  a few months old but her momma will always hold a special place in my heart since she was a God-send during those first few days when Brianna was diagnosed.   

The Paparazzi- this just cracked me up.  While at The Family Cafe, we started with this one photo of KC with our crew.  Immediately a man in an official shirt with a camera and flash longer than my arm squatted down and started flashing away as well.  We were only there for a few hours, but we had to have seen that same camera aimed at us 4 or 5 different times.  I guess if you're looking to take pic's of a group of people with disabilities and ours are all together- all the time- then our little crew makes for a decent photo op!  I wonder if we'll ever see any of those pic's again?

We relaxed a bit this weekend and just spent time with the kids as well.  There's nothing like this feeling of mixed dread and relief we have over Emma's upcoming surgery.  The song Steven Curtis Chapman wrote about his daughters wanting his time and his learning to stop and "dance with Cinderella" because he knows that "soon, the clock will strike midnight and she'll be gone" has always been one of my favorites, but then when his young daughter was killed just a few weeks ago it brought a whole new aspect to the song.  No longer was "midnight" referring to that day when she grew up... her midnight suddenly became the the day she would exit this world and snuggle with her Heavenly Father.  So this weekend we danced with Cinderella... all of our little princes and princesses... and Mike will have a bit more to do during the day today to finish up his paper that's due tonight at his class. 

We had a very low-key Father's day but I hope Mike enjoyed it.  We went to church, put the kids down for naps and he worked on his paper some.  In the afternoon I worked on cleaning up broken glass that was ALL OVER the play room.  K broke a mirror then decided to clean it up himself thus spreading it all over.  DEEP cleaning time!  That took a better part of the afternoon but now the playroom is safe again.  We had some chicken 'n dumplings for dinner and then went to check out our surprise blessing.

During the day on Saturday I balanced our accounts and found out what we already knew.  In the past few months we had a lot of "one time expenses" that have slowly eaten away at the 'extra' we had in our checking account-- namely our tax stimulus check.  That's not the biggest deal, since we knew it was going to happen to an extent, but we had hoped to be able to put some away toward the cost of a riding mower.  We're at a bigger house now with a lawn that takes a lot longer to mow, especially with the small push mower that we have from the other house. 

Well, we got a phone call from my parents that their next door neighbor's mower broke and they know it'll cost about $100 to fix but don't feel like putting the money into it so they're giving it away.  Do we want it?   It's a riding mower.  Blessings.  God provides for even the smallest and most insignificant needs like providing a mower that will take less time to do the grass with so Mike will have more time for family, work, and school.  Thanks God- and thanks to the family that gave us the mower too!