Anybody out there?

We're not sure if anyone is even reading our blog anymore, especially since it's been a couple months since our last post! We've been a bit preoccupied the last month or so. Erin's sister gave birth to her first son at 24 weeks of pregnancy; that's about 15 weeks early. Our nephew was 1 pound, 9 ounces at birth and is still in the NICU at a hospital in Austin. Erin is able to go down to help her sister for a week at a time since she never got an internship. Obviously our thoughts, focus, and much of our time center around our nephew who is still in critical condition.

Our vacation to Colorado in June/July was interrupted the day after we arrived with the news of our nephew's birth. We stayed only two more days before driving back to Texas to be with Erin's family in Austin. The few days we were there were nice. We got to visit with John's family, went on one hike, Erin learned to knit, and we enjoyed some great food. Erin has promised John that she owes him about 7 days of vacation now.

That's right...Erin still has not found an internship (although the whole search has been put on hold since the end of June). We decided a few weeks ago that it is just not worth it to take an internship that is a volunteer position, work 40 hours/week for free, pay for the cost of gas driving to/from the location, and perhaps even pay $100/week or more for a supervisor. This all works out OK right now anyway, so Erin can pick up and go to Austin whenever she's needed. This family situation will most likely last at least a few more months. She is volunteering at a pregnancy center and determining how many and what kind of other volunteer opportunities she can commit to.

John is enjoying work right now. The hours are normal and there are lots of free dinners and parties with the interns right now. We guess since this time of year is not quite as busy for everyone, the company decides it's a perfect time to pile on the extracurricular activities, dinners, and parties. With all this free time, we've started remodeling the house little bits a time: taking out carpet, cleaning the wood floor underneath, painting, demolishing a bathroom and redoing it, cutting down trees, trimming bushes, etc.

This is not to say there are not lots of funny little stories that have taken place in the last two months: being forced to change phone service, shipping a keyboard via UPS, getting a free 2008 Ford Focus, Time Warner debacles, air conditioner wars, and the chaos that happens when John has to live by himself for a week. It's too much to catch up on. Life is not ever normal. Unexpected circumstances are making life a little stressful and different right now, but we are reminded how blessed we are to have such a caring, loving, present family in tough times.

We know we still owe everyone a post summarizing our time overseas. We promise it's coming...soon!