Ok, Ok, Ok... I am the worst blogger ever!

It' s true, I have been a horrible blogger ever since Gracie came home from the hospital, but I have been inspired by my friend Sarah who is so good at keeping her blog up to date so I am really going to try harder to stay on top of our family blog.

It has been 2 1/2 months since my last post... a lot has gone on since then. Shortly after my last post in May our cat Figero passed away. It was very sad for our family especially Miranda. Figero was a good cat and will be missed.

Our new dog Ranger has been keeping us very busy. If you thought our backyard was bad before you should see it now! Yikes! He is finally potty trained! He also just got his last set of shots so his vet said we can finally take him out for walks! I am hoping that will help him burn off some of his energy so he will be more mellow around the house. Yes, I know I am living in a fantasy land.

Ranger sleeping behind the bathroom sink 6/2008

Miranda and her friends on the last day of school. June 2008

The kids are doing really well. Miranda is still busy with soccer. Coco just finished up a two weeks summer theatre program where she got to play the mouse 'Luke' in the play Cinderella. It was a lot of fun for her and she did a really good job. She is looking forward to the next one. Adam still goes to Tae Kwon Do and he finally earned his yellow stripe. He is now working on his green stripe. Other than that he and Grace just tag along wherever I go.

Coco as Luke the mouse

Coco & her friend Katelyn (Jaq)
Coco & Grandma Truhe

Coco & Grandpa Truhe

Dee & Jamie came to see the play as well.

Coco & Pops after the final performance

The girls have been back in school for about three weeks now. They both LOVE their new teachers and classmates. We have already run into a few homework issues with Miranda but we seem to be getting back on track - I HOPE! I expect both girls will have a really good year this year.

Coco and her second grade teacher Mrs. Daily

Miranda and her forth grade teacher Mrs. Clark

Miranda & Megan at SNEAK A PEEK. They meet at sneak a peek 5 years ago.

Gracie's health is really good right now. Dave and I recently learned that Gracie has pulmonary hypertension (PH). It seems that she was diagnosed with this back when she was about 2 months old, but somehow it was never fully communicated to us. I have read a lot about it on the Internet and it looks like there are varying degrees of PH. I can't seem to get a clear idea of how severe Gracie's case is. When I ask her cardiologist or nurse I am told that Gracie is a "work in progress" and we'll have to "wait and see" - very frustrating. I found something on the Internet that said children with this condition can usually live 15 to 20 years from the time they were diagnosed; at which time you'd have to consider a heart or lung transplant as a last resort. Not great news, to say the least, but we still don't know exactly how severe Gracie is and 15 years in the medical world is HUGE, so we're remaining relatively calm... for now anyway. Gracie is due to go back to UCSF at some point to have a lung profusion scan (It's not as bad as it sounds). The Doctor who will do the test is also a PH specialist so we will know more then. We do know that she can not travel to high altitudes or go on a plane ride. We can not even drive over the Grapevine! I looks like this could be for the rest of her life but again we are told that we will just have to "wait and see". For now she is just like any other baby. She is finally crawling on her knees and no longer doing the 'combat' crawl. She is starting to pull herself up to a standing position and cruise along the couch. Her physical therapist and her Early Interventionist are both very happy about that. She is beginning to pronounce some words that actually sound like what she is trying to say :) She has been going to a Baby Sign Language class and has picked up a lot of signs has been using them to communicate.

GRACIE BEING SILLY...A colleague of Nurse Megan (one of Grace's nurses at UCSF) is writing the cardiac chapter in a nursing text book and asked if they could use Gracie as one of the cases. I had to send her a bunch of pics from back when Grace was first born and now. Above are a few of the now pics that I sent.

Miranda just celebrated her 9th birthday! Dave put together a really fun tailgate-birthday party prior to the San Jose Earthquakes game at the Oakland Coliseum. They played the LA Galaxy with David Beckham. San Jose won, so that made the day even better for Miranda.

Bye for now,
Jackie