Oh poor blog…how I’ve neglected thee.  These past few weeks have been crazy, to say the least.  My mom went into the hospital on July 2nd for a routine hernia surgery, and she’s still in ICU (and on a ventilator) now a month and a half later.  She caught several nasty infections early on, and her myelodysplastic syndrome prevented her body from fighting them successfully.  My sister and I made an emergency trip to Oklahoma a few weeks ago to see mom, but unfortunately she was unconscious the whole time we were there.  We’re now getting daily updates on her condition from my dad.  Please pray for her recovery.

While I was in Oklahoma, Tim got a taste of single parenting.  Thankfully my friends were able to watch Lex some mornings, so Tim was able to get a couple hours of work in each day.

Months ago my family made plans to have a reunion in Hawaii in early August.  Although mom’s health issues made it impossible for my parents to join us, my sister and her family recently met the three of us in Maui for a weeklong vacation.  I’m still sorting out all the pictures from that fun adventure, but here’s a few teasers:

On Saturday we made the best $30 garage sale purchase ever.  Lex is now the proud owner of a kid-sized electric John Deere tractor and trailer.  As you can imagine, he’s pretty obsessed with it.  He talks about it constantly, and every morning we have to have a discussion about why he can’t start riding it before he gets out of his pajamas (or at least eats breakfast).

One day we even took the tractor to a nearby park with a large open field:

Tim’s parents are here visiting, and on Thursday we all took a day trip over to McMinnville to tour the aviation museum there.

The museum houses the Spruce Goose, the famous (and humungous) wood plane that Howard Hughes built.  It was hard to take a good picture of it while standing there because of its size.

Luckily there was a kid-friendly area for Lex at the museum:

and I played too…

There was a free plane ride that went up and down and around in circles.  I wasn’t sure Lex would like it, but he bravely flew by himself.

We also toured the space museum, which Tim enjoyed.  Meanwhile Lex played outside on a playground with his grandma.

I can’t wait to go back again next summer.  An indoor water park is being built (see the picture below).  I was told that there will eventually be hydrotube slides coming out of the 747 on the roof, and a wave pool to play in down below.

On Saturday we joined the Ramms for a family outing to Horning’s Hideout, a large property with a small stocked lake where people can camp, fish, play frisbee golf, etc.

One of the first things we did was share a picnic lunch together:

Lex and Gabby had a great time catching salamanders with nets:

Here’s three of the victims (but they were released back into the water shortly thereafter):

The kids posed for a picture in their life jackets as we got ready to take paddle boats out on the lake:

My boys:

There was a small playground by our picnic site, and the tire swing was a big hit:

There were also several peacocks just roaming around the property.  Lex wanted to pet one, but we didn’t think that would go over very well.

We had a terrific morning there and still somehow managed to get Lex down for a nap at home before he collapsed from exhaustion.