We hit the ground running when we returned from our RV trip with Judah's first baseball game ever first thing in the morning the day after we returned. He asked me so sweetly in May, "When will I get to play baseball?" I told him I'd try to find an easy going summer league. I got him signed up for i9 coach-pitch baseball league. This is perfect for young kids in a big family because it is only one day a week. They combine practice and a game into one day. Judah, being number 5 in our family, hasn't ever been on a sports team before. He takes piano and he's done PE classes with our homeschool co-op, but he didn't express a ton of interest in sports until recently. Bob asked to play soccer, but when I double checked with him about actually playing on a team without his brothers he backed out in a hurry. We are looking into doing First Tee again in the fall, and Bob will be more happy with that since the boys can all do it at the same time.
Anyway, Judah did great and hit a "home-run" which only means that the other team was too slow to get his ball, but he didn't care about those details. He couldn't believe his first hit was a home-run!
The next day was Father's Day and Brian got a book, an Aggie bleacher chair for all the kids' basketball games, and a bunch of home-made cards. We went to my sister's to swim and eat dinner.
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| Even a pop-up dragon card! |
Hannah and Isaac felt bad on Sunday so they stayed home from the festivities. Then there was a phone call from our friends in Arizona that two of their relatives that were visiting while we were there had tested positive for COVID-19. I got tested because I had a stomach ache for several days plus the exposure. Brian didn't get tested because he's been vaccinated. We decided to wait on the kids because I was negative. By Tuesday, Hannah was still feeling bad and we called her doctor. She sent us to an urgent care on Wednesday and the doc there said at first look that she probably didn't have COVID-19 and not to worry. There's lots of other things it could be. Three minutes later she returned with a, "Well, boy, was I wrong!" At those words, I was dialing Brian because he was at that very moment dropping Genna off at her strength and conditioning camp at school. He turned around and went to pick her up, and that was the beginning of our quarantine. Hannah felt better on Thursday finally and we began our count down for our quarantine. Brian didn't have to quarantine because he is vaccinated and so he was our errand boy. I was sick in the middle of the night for one hour and so I tested myself again with a home rapid test and was still negative. Either those tests are false negatives for me or I am naturally immune. In hindsight, Drew had a 24 hour bug before Father's Day and it was very likely COVID-19. Genna felt terrible the day of the Grand Canyon and lost her sense of smell, but we dismissed her feeling bad to dehydration or overheating and dismissed the loss of smell because it wasn't taste too, plus she was stuffy. This is a sneaky virus. Anyway, we are all better now and to our knowledge we managed not to spread it despite the lack of clarity in the beginning.
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| This picture was taken before our trip. I was taking a shower when I heard this knock and tiny voice asking if he could read to me. How can I say no to that even though my shower is one of the few times I get quiet in the day? So Bob laid down, butt in the air, and began to read to me through the crack under the door. Once I was dressed, I opened the door and Trinity and I found this sight. I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture. I was very glad I did because this turned out to be one of the last pictures of our beloved cat. |
We knew the time was drawing near before our trip, but we got a cat sitter with detailed instructions on what to do if her situation got worse. We were just hoping she made it until we got back without any new problems and she did. However, once we were back she was moving around a lot less and seemed not to be going to the bathroom at all. She wasn't eating much and Hannah started hand feeding her. I brought her water bowl to her and she drank like she hadn't drank for a long time. At this point we knew it was time to put her down. Unfortunately, that decision was made as we were dealing with our COVID-19 positive Hannah and beginning our quarantine. So, we all said our good-byes as he took her alone to a fellow vet who has a clinic nearby.
The children wanted to bury her in the backyard with a funeral like we did with Hyacinth, the parakeet. I chose a few Bible readings. Brian was a bit saddened by the fact that no one decorated her box like with Cinthy's. And so he took it upon himself to print out a couple pictures and had Genevieve hand-letter her name for her box.
Brian dug a hole in the backyard and we had our funeral. Many of us shared memories of her life after the Bible readings. Things like how in her younger days she always appeared during our family prayer time and would plop right down in the middle to get pet, how she pooped on my side of the bed when she was a kitten immediately after I sprayed her with a water bottle for climbing on the Christmas tree, how she got stuck inside the basement wall as a kitten, and even how difficult it had been to fly with her over to Germany and back each time. Bobby started sobbing uncontrollably during the funeral and pretty much couldn't say a word until after we went upstairs and I read him a story to get his mind off of it. There were many tears, some of them from my dear, typically very stoic, husband. She was with us such a long time, in 7 different houses and through 2 oversees moves.
Trinity was a tiny kitten when almost 16 years ago she was brought into Brian's stray clinic in upstate New York with her front leg dangling and no nerve feeling left at all. He did his first non-standard, major surgery on her one Friday afternoon and brought her home for the weekend to watch her as she recovered. Hannah and Brian fell instantly in love and she was ours from then on. We had two dogs, one toddler and a baby on the way so I was less than enthusiastic about keeping her, but over the years she has been a wonderful cat. She was running around without her leg within a day of her arriving at our house after her surgery and she has been an excellent three-legged cat. We miss her.
