Whew. It’s been awhile since I’ve written one of these. The last time I did an update on the Hodge Lodge, Cal was a year old. At the end of this month, he’ll turn two. Whew again.

We’ve been puttering along as usual. Mike is still employed at Integris Health. He’d like to transfer from his current position there but nothing has opened up. I’m still at home with the kids.

Duncan will be heading to the third grade when school starts this month.  He’s been enjoying Tae Kwon Do. I didn’t put him in t-ball or soccer this year because he’s never seemed to enjoy them all that much. So we’ve kept up with Tae Kwon Do, three times a week and I imagine that will be his sport of choice for the time being.

Cal is talking now. One and two words only though. We haven’t really delved into the realm of conversation quite yet. He can answer yes and no and give commands but he’s not verbal enough yet to be at that ‘asking questions about everything stage’. He’s a good kid but more of a handful than Duncan was at the same age. Some days Cal absolutely lives up to his Lord of Chaos nickname.

Let’s see...I had a lovely time with surgery in April of this year. Laparoscopic surgery to remove some ovarian cysts and my gallbladder turned into real surgery to remove the gallbladder that the laparoscopic surgery couldn’t.

The lap surgery was much easier to go through. Five punctures and about a week of recovery time and everything was fine and dandy. The traditional gallbladder surgery was less fun. But I made it through that as well, minus a gallbladder and with all of my intestines intact. Hooray!

After mostly recovering from gallbladder surgery I took a short vacation to Seattle. I had a helluva fun time there and came home rejuvenated and ready to face kids and household chores once again.

I haven’t done much over the Summer beyond domestic goddess duties and swimming. We didn’t do a family vacation this year due to my unexpected medical expenses.

Duncan did go to Branson, Missouri with his cousin and Grandmas but Cal, Mike and I stayed in OKC. For fun we rented DVDs that Duncan couldn’t watch or wouldn’t want to watch. My fave rental during the week was 28 Days Later.

Our other big Summer project has been painting the outside of the house. The house hasn’t been painted in quite some time by the looks of it so a lot of the paint needed to be scraped because it was flaking off. This, and the fact that we’re doing this ourselves, has slowed the whole process down. I think we’re finally ready for the primer coat and hope to have the house finished by the end of the month. Wishful thinking probably.