Hello Everyone,
I have several newsworthy items to report. Lets begin with Mandy this time. As if there was ever any doubt, she rocked her interview and was promptly offer a position with the Fairfax County government as a foster care/adoption worker. While she is excited about the position and looking forward to working in her field again, for now it’s hard for her to be really excited about anything. Foot surgery is for the birds! She’s in pretty bad pain and has been sleeping on the couch for the last week because I normally kick her 30-40 times in a night with my spasms. We are a sight! She’s using crutches, I’m in a walker or chair. My handi-honey is getting a taste of disabled life and it’s no fun. Please post some words of encouragement for her on the message board. I love you baby.

I finally uploaded some photos from the Cross Country trip back east. With almost 500 images, it was really tough to cherry pick, but we managed to get it down to 126. You can check it out in the Photos section. I’ll be including some of the unposted 300+ photos in the upcoming video (god knows when this will get done), but you can get a good idea about what went on with the photo album. Not long into the trip we named the RV the "Birthing Wookie", because of the noises it made when you turned on the water. Use your imagination. The trip itself was amazing. We saw San Francisco, Napa Valley, Redwood National Forest, Crater Lake, Shoshone Falls, Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, gambled in Deadwood, stopped in Jackson Hole, ate a 13 pound pizza in St. Louis and sooo much more. The most painful part for me was calculating the 8.5 mpg carbon footprint we left as we drove. With a total trip mileage of over 4300, well, let’s just say I’ll be putting off getting a car as long as I can.

We are settling into Virginia life and have spent some time with a few friends we haven’t seen in a while. The most frustrating part of the transition is locating qualified doctors and medical suppliers within a reasonable driving distance. My mother in law, Eileen has helped out immensely by driving us to the several appointments we have had thus far and has signed on for a ton more in the next few weeks. Thank You!!! I did start the process of obtaining my drivers license, however the first appointment for driving school is not available until August and I cannot get an appointment until I obtain a doctor’s note (wish I would have know that last week when I was at the doctors!). Needless to say, it looks like I won’t be driving until well into the winter months which is a tad frustrating considering Mandy will not be able to drive me anywhere once she starts work.

In other news, the house has still not sold. We have begun the process of removing the oil tank, which will hopefully make it more appealing to buyers. We would have done this sooner, but our insurance company would not allow us to remove the tank prior to the one year ‘waiting period’. It looks like we will have to dump more money into it to get it sold (destroy the deck which was stupidly built (not by us) on top of the tank, remove the tank, replace the deck). What a nightmare! It is still empty, not staged for sale, God knows what the yard looks like, or the driveway. And now with Mandy going back to work full time on the 14th, things feel really chaotic. If I can work it out, I might hire an aide and go live up there by myself for a while to help sell it. No one does what they say they are going to do unless you are sitting on top of them!

Exercise has kind of taken a back seat to solving the house/doctor problems which is tough, but I do have a trainer coming next week for a trial workout (thanks to Ann McGavin for making the connection). Hopefully I can get back into a routine, my sanity depends on it. That’s all for now, thanks for checking in.

Rob