Back Online!

We're finally back from computer hell! The short version is that our computer and printer died slow and painful (for me) deaths over the past month and we've been unable to blog, e-mail, upload photos, or work online. After many failed attempts by techies from India to the Philippines to resuscitate our "old" hardware, we have acquired a new computer and printer and two new best friends, good old Mark and Dave, at the local Staples easytech desk. I have learned just enough about firmware, USB ports, media cards, et al, to know that the term "easytech" is definitely an oxymoron. I missed being able to write on the blog and read the comments...more than I thought I would...so it's good to be "back".

I know that everyone has been wondering how Nancy is doing so I'll start there. She had her third round of chemo on Thursday, the 15th, and, so far, has been able to head off the side effects with Zofran. Aside from some fatigue, she is doing pretty well this time.

It's been a beautiful summer in Maine this year; we have had "beach weather" just about every day. Unfortunately, this summer Hank and I are basically "camperless". We sold our little tab camper in April and ordered a slightly larger camper - a 17' Casita that sleeps three. The Casita is made to order and ours will not be ready until mid to late August so we're really into delayed gratification. We hope the Casita will be ready in time before school starts for me to go with Hank to Texas (yup...Texas!) to pick it up...we'd like to camp our way back through Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Virginias if there is time. Joanne and Mark have been camping in their tab just about every weekend; they really love it. I did try to organize a "Smith Girl Cousins Camping Reunion" for last weekend but it ended up a bust...some mixed feelings about camping out, no campers available to rent, no e-mail to communicate plans, and some conflicts with the date...it's never easy to get a group together. Hopefully, we can plan a weekend this fall that works for everyone!

Hank and I did get away for a week in the Finger Lakes region of New York State early in July. Nancy and I had been there on a "Sisters Roadtrip" in 2006 and really loved the area and I wanted to return with Hank. It took four years but we had a great time. We started off at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, which Hank loved. Cooperstown itself is a beautiful old town full of gorgeous historic homes right on the tip of a lake. From Cooperstown, we headed west on "old Route 20", past hundreds of old hotels, mineral springs and antique shops, to Skaneatelas, Seneca Falls (home of womens' suffrage), Auburn (home of Harriet Tubman), Ithaca, Geneva and Hammondsport, at the tip of Lake Keuka. We spent two days in Hammondsport relaxing and touring the wineries before heading home via Corning (the glass museum), Elmira (Mark Twain's study at Elmira College) and Vestal (to photograph our old house for Mom...we lived there from 1961-1963). It is a beautiful area with so much history...great getaway.


While we were on vacation, Mom was back in the hospital for a few days with difficulty breathing but she's back home and feeling better now.

So now we are home enjoying our new grandbaby, Anna, who is 11 days old today, and our grandsons, Robert and Brian. Brian is staying with us for a few days, hanging out with "Grampy" in the pool and "Wizard's Forest". Robert just started his first summer job at Toys R' Us at the Maine Mall, a great opportunity for him.

We're also really busy planning to have 18 people to dinner Saturday night for a "Wizard's Gourmet" reunion. We've invited all past, present and honorary members of our "Gourmet Group" to enjoy a romp through Hank's Wizard's Forest, followed by dinner. Hank and the boys have been working to add special effects, lighting and finishing touches to the forest before the big event and I've been making costumes...I'm getting pretty good at pointy hats and beards. If the thought of 18 middle aged people dressed as forest creatures, fairies and wizards romping through forest paths with wands and Margaritas sounds strange, you're right...it is. All I can say is that, after 30 years together, this group will try anything...I'll definitely be posting the pictures of this one!

p.s. When our computer crashed, we lost many of our e-mail contacts (addresses). I've been able to reconstruct some of them but, if you don't hear from us or receive the blog, please e-mail your email address to me at lawsonch@maine.rr.com. Thanks!

Baby Anna is here!!!

Our newest grandchild is here...Anna Thomasina Lawson made her entrance at 12:56 this morning, July 15, 2010, at Mercy Hospital in Portland.
Proud parents are Rob and Wendy Lawson. Anna weighed in at 7 lbs. 6 oz. and was 19-1/4 inches long. There's a good chance she will be spoiled by her two big brothers, Robert and Brian...and by "Grampy Hank", who will have Anna working in his garden any day now. Anna's other grandparents are Ron and Joanne Burns of Westbrook....I can only imagine how proud they must be.

Leaving for Japan

Tomo, Toshi & Taka on their way...July 4, 2010. The Uwasu's will be so happy to see the boys...they are too cute!

Taka & Kristen

Rob just sent this photo from Taka and Toshi's visit to Maine last week. They met Kristen at Friendly's for lunch...hot dogs, of course.

Taka & Toshi's visit to Maine

in the "Wizard's Forest" with Grampy...

Toshi (3) and Taka (6) in their new "Hobbit House"...

Welcome to the playhouse...any mail???

Toshi

Taka riding his John Deere tractor in his John Deere hat next to the John Deere repair truck...pretty exciting stuff!

Toshi's "John Deere"...

Ice cream at Toots in North Yarmouth. Taka chose orange pineapple and Toshi chose banana!

Taka is a long way from Brooklyn now...feeding the cows!

Toshi watching the fish at LL Bean ...those are Taka's legs...he is in the "bubble" that allows children to climb in and observe the fish close up.

Taka checking out the moose at LL Bean...

Toshi wants to make sure that Daddy doesn't forget to pack the Matchbox cars fror the trip back to Brooklyn this morning!

On Sunday, Taka,Toshi, and Tomomi are leaving for Osaka on Japan Air Lines to spend the summer with their grandparents, Umeyo and Tokuhide, in Wakayama. Tomo hasn't seen her family in almost three years so we are very happy that she and the boys will have the summer to enjoy with all of them.

Happy Anniversary Nancy and Aaron !

Happy Anniversary and remembering Mom and Dad's Anniversary today, June 29th .

Today is a big Day !

Happy Birthday to my sister Andrea ! Enjoy your special day !

We Did It!

Here are some photos from last night's of Relay for Life.

Nancy's handprint on the Survivor banner...

Thanks to Kit, "Tufts Teal Warriors" roughed it in an RV...

the Survivor lap begins...

Nancy walks the Survivor lap with Aaron ...and Ruby, the therapy dog, who wore a teal scarf for the occasion.

Erin and Andi sell tickets for the 50/50 raffle sponsored by our team.

Leslie Colburn Brooks & Kit

Sandy Colburn, Dave and Andi

Luminaria bags along the track...

Nancy tells her "survivor story" at the closing ceremony.

This year's Relay of the Sebago Lakes Region raised over $22,000 for the American Cancer Society. Nancy was the top individual fundraiser and our team was third out of 29 teams in amount raised this year.

Thanks to everyone who came out and/or donated...we'll try to top our total next year!

Until then, we're all pretty tired so it will be to bed early tonight for the Tufts Teal Warriors!

Relay for Life: Do It for Nancy!

Nancy won't tell you this because she's too modest, and too sick, so I will. She has quietly worked her butt off for this year's Relay for Life of the Sebago Lakes Region, which goes from 6:00 p.m. Saturday night (6/26) until 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning (6/27) at the Windham High School track in Windham, ME. Nancy has organized our team, "Tufts Teal Warriors", dragged herself to dozens of planning meetings, decorated at least 50 luminaria bags, and gotten the Falmouth Lion's Club involved...all while undergoing her chemo (last one was Thursday 6/17) and dealing with the nausea and side effects. She doesn't complain. She just keeps getting up and getting out there.
If Nancy can do it, so can we!
Here are some things you can do:
1. Send a donation to the "American Cancer Society" in Nancy's name through the link below.
2. Purchase a luminaria for a friend with cancer ("In Honor of...") or who we have lost from cancer ("In Memory of...".) The luminaria are $10.00 each...a donation to ACS.
3. Join our Relay team and walk with us Saturday evening.
4. Come out to the Windham H.S. track and cheer Nancy on as she walks in the Survivor lap at 6:15 p.m.
5. Come (with lots of tissues) to the Luminaria Ceremony at 9:00 p.m. and join us in remembering people with cancer.

One of the most moving parts of the event is the Luminaria Ceremony at 9:00 p.m., which is a celebration of hope. As the light dims over our campsites and team members complete laps, the night is brightened by the glow of lighted bags called luminaria, each of which has a special meaning.
Some luminaria celebrate the survivorship of people who have battled cancer and lived to tell the tale. Many commemorate the lives of those who have been lost to this disease. All represent a person who has been profoundly affected by cancer and the family and friends who continue to be touched by that experience.

You can click this link to go to Nancy's Relay page to donate or purchase a luminaria. Please, if you can, donate now. http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY10NE?px=3818519&pg=personal&fr_id=23404

If you prefer to mail your donation, please make your check out to "American Cancer Society" and mail to Nancy at 69 Summer Place, Portland, ME 04101. She will see that all donations get turned in.

And yes, we WILL walk all night- rain or shine- because, as Nancy says, "I have cancer at night and in the rain."

p.s. Nancy's side effects really kicked in yesterday and she is not feeling well. We know that she is fighting to feel better in time for Relay on Saturday. Hang in there, Nancy!

Comments?

We'd love to read comments from blog readers! Directions for leaving comments are on the right side of this page (just scroll down a bit)...it's easy! Hearing from others makes maintaining the blog more fun...

Wendy's Baby Shower

Hank and I have a new grandchild on the way; our daughter-in-law, Wendy, is due in mid-July with a baby girl.
Yesterday her Mom, Joanne, her sister, Rhonda, and I gave her a surprise baby shower. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, so we had the shower on my screened porch.
Wendy's sister is amazingly clever. She made these roses out of baby socks...with real rose leaves they looked like they had just been picked. She arrived with five large bouquets of them for the tables. Rhonda also made the "diaper cake" in the photo below...lots of work! Both Rhonda and Joanne are amazing cooks and the hors d'oeuvres were delicious. There was antipasto-on-a-stick (with pink pearls on the ends!), crab and shrimp stuffed phillo shells, cherry tomatos and mozarella, stuffed muchrooms, meatballs and so much more.
Everything was delicious.

For dessert, we had tiny pink-frosted cupcakes, mini-eclairs and creme puffs, and fresh fruit.

I was in charge of finding a recipe for pink punch and it was quite the event. You mix raspberry or cranberry flavored ginger ale with raspberry sherbet and just stand back while it explodes into something resembling a fizzy pink smoothy...a little scary to watch but really yummy.

Another one of Rhonda's ideas was hanging a clothesline on the porch with pastel "onesies" clipped to it...here she is getting it ready.

These are the last of our peonies for this year...at least they're pink!
Wendy opening gifts...

Nancy and Wendy...


Great-grandmother, Eleanor Lawson, Hanks' son, Rob (Dad-to-be) and Wendy.

Now we all just need to sit back and wait for baby girl Lawson to make her appearance!

School's Out!

Yesterday: Today:

No more pencils

No more books

No more teacher's dirty looks

Out for summer

Out till fall

We might not go back at all!

Great family camping trip !!!

The BAD CASE of Browntail Moth Catipiller reaction was the worse part of the camp out !!! Other than that we all had a great time !!!

An Update...Finally!!

Hi All-
First I want to take a moment to thank everyone for their support, kind words, e-mails, phone messages, visits etc. etc. during my recent setbacks and hospitalization! I am feeling much better now and am glad to being back in the "land of the living". The chemo is tough, but it is just something I have to deal with and hope for it to work. I have my next infusion on June 17th. It hopefully will get a little easier each time. The side effects are nausea and mostly fatigue. It takes about two weeks to feel fully human after each treatment, so now that I'm feeling good again it must be time for the next treatment!
We did have a fun filled camping Memorial Day weekend recently at Recompence Shores Campground in Freeport. Aaron and I have never been campers-I have gone on a few road trip camp outs with Cheryl in the T@b, but that's the extent of my experience. So Aaron decided we needed to try this while I was in the hospital, planned it with Kit, and we did it! Of course, we weren't exactly "roughing it!" Kit came to the rescue with his business Destinations RV Rentals. He went to the campground and set up a 37 foot and 32 foot RV on three beautiful sites right on the ocean. Oh yeah....camping with queen sized beds, full kitchen, microwave etc.-the only thing missing were the flat screen TVs! He even made the campfire and stacked the wood for us! Good thing, too! The first to arrive were the 3 "least likely to succeed" campers, Aaron, Andi and I--we struggled just to get the fire to start-we ended up burning junk mail from our car! This campground is gorgeous--a beautiful farm in the middle of the woods right next to the ocean--who could ask for more! And just 20 minutes from home--if we couldn't handle it!
We invited the whole family--Joey and Mark took the third site and brought up their T@b so we were all together in a line. Cheryl and Hank weren't able to come, because they had both been attacked by some kind of "bug" and were home throwing up-we missed them, but none of us needed that! The rest of us were able to go-in our RV it was Aaron and I and Andi and her husband Dave. In the next camper it was Kit and Erin and their sister-in-law, Cara Shaw and for one day Eddie Bolz, who works for Kit. We arrived Friday and left Monday. The weather was beautiful each day-a little windy, but no rain!
On Sunday we were joined by Erin's parents, Dale and Carolyn Shaw and Toughy , the poodle, with Erin's Nana and Gram (Dale and Carolyn's Moms). These two tough ladies came down from Aroostock County by bus to the Shaw's house in Corinth (near Bangor). Then they all drove down to Freeport for the day. Erin's Nana shares the same birthday with Mom, right down to the same year! One was born in Bradford, England, the other in Aroostock County, Maine, and they are now also connected through Kit and Erin's marriage! (By the way, Happy Birthday to both Mom and Nana today as I write this!) We had hoped to get Mom up so they could all have a visit, but Mom wasn't up to it. We had a great BBQ together although due to the wind we had to keep playing musical chairs around the campfire, to get away from the smoke.


There was only one problem...brown moth caterpillars! They exist in May and early June in the area of Casco Bay, and their fine hairs blow in the wind (remember I said how windy it was?) and can cause a rash like poison ivy! All the campers except the visitors from Northern Maine, came home with varying degrees of

rash--the worst were Joanne and Kit who both needed to get medication for theirs, and are scratching still!! But in spite of it-we agreed we had a great time! Here's hoping next week's chemo won't be so rough and the updates will return more frequently!
Take care everyone! Nancy

Nancy, Congratulations on your 5 year battle, keep up the fight ! We Love You !