Hello, family and friends!
As usual, I've fallen WAAAAAAAAY behind on updating our family blog. It's been quite a year... Let's see if I can cover it all in a reasonably brief update.
In January, we were all shocked to learn that my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which had metastasized to his liver. This was a huge surprise, as he had always been such a healthy guy, with no detrimental habits. He started treatment immediately and handled it very well. After a couple of months, we were hopeful that we might have more than the 11-month average survival time with him. In the meantime, we continued to see my folks every week, ensuring we spent as much quality time together as we could.
We took a week in March (Adam's spring break) to travel with my parents to Surfside Beach, TX - a Bryan family tradition (it's where we spent a week each summer as I was growing up). We had a fantastic week there, enjoying quiet downtime. The biggest difference: Adam took over the kitchen, from my dad, for the week - which he thoroughly enjoyed. My dad ate 90% of the biscuits all week (Adam baked one can a day!), and did make his paella one night, and seemed to enjoy the break from kitchen duty as well. It was a great week on the coast.
We learned in April that we are expecting our second kiddo! We are absolutely thrilled to be adding a sibling to the family.
In May and June, Adam wrapped up his teaching career. He enjoyed teaching, but was offered a position to work for his long-time mentor back in the real estate finance industry, which provides shorter working hours with better compensation - so the transition was a no-brainer for our growing family. As he was paid by the school district through August, we took the last summer break to enjoy travels to see friends and family.
In August we learned that Baby #2 is another BOY! While Jeremy was hoping for a sister, he quickly adjusted to the idea of a baby brother and is very excited about the baby's arrival, sometime around the end of the year. Also in August, my Boys took a trip to the British Virgin Islands with Adam's folks for the longest stretch (by far) that I've been away from Jeremy. They had a blast, and Boy #2 and I enjoyed some rest while keeping away from the threat of Zika-ridden mosquitoes. (We're grateful and also sad that they enjoyed their time in the BVI before Hurricane Irma ripped through those beautiful islands, causing mass destruction to already-impoverished communities.)
On Aug. 26th, my dad went into the hospital for what we soon learned seemed to be septic shock. As it turned out, unbeknownst to us, his liver had gotten much worse, and he succumbed to pancreatic cancer on Sunday, August 27th. While we knew we did not have long with him, this still surprised us, as we believed he was responding pretty well to treatment. We had all hoped he would meet Grandson #2. We are immensely grateful for the time we had with him after diagnosis, that he knew a healthy baby boy is on his way, and that the last seven months had been full of great times spent together. (See his obituary here.)
While this has been incredibly difficult, we are all handling the loss fairly well. The hardest aspect of this for us has been guiding Jeremy through understanding his Pop's death. While we all knew of the diagnosis in January, Jeremy was not aware that Pop was sick. We all knew that the difficult conversation was coming, but my dad was doing so well and maintaining pretty good energy, that none of us felt it was necessary to add the weight of knowing that Pop was sick to our little guy's mind. He has handled the loss very well. We have been able to help him process everything, with the help of a Child Life Specialist at the hospital and a friend also in the field. We're grateful to friends and family who have been incredibly supportive during this difficult time.
September brought the start of Adam's new job at Graham Mortgage and a return to a "normal" schedule, which was helpful to all of us in the grieving process. We also seized an unexpected opportunity: we purchased the house directly across the street from Adam's parents' house (where we are living now)! Adam's folks will move back to this house in the spring of 2019, so we will rent the house across the street for a year, and then do some major renovation work (as the "new" house has not been updated... at all... ) before we move in, probably around February of 2019. (So if you're looking for a rental, let us know!)
This month has been busy with finalizing the purchase of the new house, another Caribbean adventure for the Boys, and preparing for a fourth birthday and a Scouting leadership course for which Adam is the course director. Adam and Jeremy went with Adam's parents on a quick cruise to Cozumel the US Power Squadrons' District 21 Conference (Adam is still the Dallas Squadron commander). This time I might have gone (as mosquitoes are much easier to evade on a cruise, and apparently Zika has been very rare this year), but cruise lines don't want someone in their third trimester onboard... So I got another respite (and lots of much-needed sleep) while they were away for a few days.
We are looking forward to celebrating a special someone's FOURTH birthday next week! Our Little Man is really into baseball these days, so we'll enjoy an afternoon at "Baseball Diamond #4" with friends this weekend to celebrate, and then will enjoy J's first Trick-Or-Treating adventure on Halloween! Then the following weekend, Adam will be course director for a Seabadge Course, which is the highest level of adult leadership training within the Sea Scouts program. We're excited that Adam was given this opportunity, and know it will be a great course.
We hope you are all well, and that you have had a good year this year. We're glad we've been able to see some of you this year, and would love to see you this holiday season (though we'll be sticking close to home). We will see when our next Little Guy, to be named Anson Jennings, will make his appearance! (Anson was Adam's maternal grandfather's name; Jennings was my dad's [and grandfather's, and great-grandfather's] middle name.)
PS - Be sure to check out our Shutterfly page for pictures of this year, as I have it mostly updated... (At the very least, Jeremy's page is pretty current.) ;-)
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