This is the day (really weekend) that the Lord hath made....

I could not have asked for a more perfect birthday weekend. I met Doug and the girls up at Lake Eufaula (my absolute FAVORITE place) on Friday after work. They left Thursday afternoon to go up and play on Friday. I arrived to a big sign posted to the front of Doug's truck wishing me a happy birthday that the girls made for me. They had dinner cooked and ready. They had gone to Rubo's grocery in Ft. Gaines (this grocery store has the owners game that he has killed stuffed and hanging from the walls - deer, hogs, turkeys, and more! It is quite an adventure when you visit there) and even cooked me a hot fudge cake in the camper oven (the girls made me a "birthday cake" above in clay). We had a perfect evening just relaxing by the lake. The weather was so beautiful - we had a cool front come in and it was 60 at night and 80's during the day.

We spent the rest of the weekend swimming, boating and just spending a great time together. We had a sandcastle building contest - Doug and Hannah vs. me and Sarah. Sarah and I did a fancy castle and Hannah and Doug did a very functional castle. Interesting.... It is so much fun to watch the girls go into imagination world. They created fishing poles (even though we had real ones)

and were "catching" fish in their jammies! As you can tell from the pictures, our dog Sallie never leaves their side. At the lake, we boat out to an island and swim and play - we got to watch the sunset coming in on Saturday night.

Now on to the real reason that I am sending the link...

Mom and Laurie are going back to Shands tomorrow morning - they have had a good weekend getting back to normal. Laurie is doing a great job taking care of herself. She realized that they never took her blood sugar levels at Shands on Thursday. She went to her nephrologist, Dr. Doll on Friday and asked them to take it. It was very high - they gave her insulin and sent her home with a glucosemeter. Her blood sugar spiked again on Saturday and she called the Dr. on call for Dr. Doll and he called her in some insulin to give to herself. A man at Shands, when she was there, was actually blinded by his blood sugar getting too high so she is very cautious of that. It is a good thing it appears. The high dosage of steroids that she takes causes the blood sugar to get very high.

Please pray for her visit to Shands tomorrow - that her creatinine level is down. If not, they will do a biopsy and see why it is not dropping again.

Love,H