An Olympic hopeful, a child on the mend, an attempt at a skipped birthday, and a missed girls camp.

Since Mark has been sick, I feel so out of the blogging loop. I have missed reading blogs and can't wait to get caught up. Mark is doing better. He is slowly but surely improving. He is finally able to eat a little more but it is basically a bland and smooth diet. He cannot have any chocolate, soda, citrus, tomato-ey or fried foods for one month. I made him smile for a quick snap to ensure everyone that he is still among the living. :) Well, as hard as I tried, no one would let me skip my birthday. I received several lovely cards, a few emails and a couple of phone calls. My mother sent me a cute little doll (forgot to get a photo as she is safely tucked away already in my curio cabinet) and a pretty necklace. I got a funny card from Craig's parents with some money inside....Hmmm, what shall I buy??? Fabric, wood??? Craig's sister sent me a card with a stitchery pattern inside. She wrote a little note saying that she wanted to see it finished and on my blog in a week. Sorry Michelle...I don't think it's gonna happen. And finally, a cute little handmade card from the leaders of the women's group (Relief Society) at my church. Craig recently returned form the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon. He is happy to report that Jillian Camarena made the Olympic team in the shot put event. So, he will be leaving for Beijing on August 8th. We have had news reporters calling him and doing news stories on the both of them since he's been home. They have been the subject of many newspaper articles as well. I feel sort of famous....vicariously through them of course. Because of Mark's sickness, I regrettably had to miss our churches young women's camp. Ragan refused to go without me and even though I felt some pressure to MAKE her go, I knew she would not have a good time worrying about her brother the entire time she was there. I feel so bad about missing it, especially since I had made the commitment to go several months ago. I hope that none of the other leaders were cussing my name. I worried about it all week. Now that Mark is on the mend, I hope that we will be able to get back into our usual routine. At the moment, I feel a bit like a deflated balloon, but I just wanted to let all of you know how your prayers and kind words REALLY helped us through this rough patch! Thank you for them! :)