An update

I just came to realize it has been almost an entire month without an update. It seems only last week that we were having our 10 year first date anniversary. So much has happened since then!

The most memorable and fun thing was that Scott surprised me with a re-do of our first date once I returned from Washington DC. He had La Griglia menus sent directly from Houston so we could re-do our Italian dinner (even remembering what we ate that night and having the chefs prepare it) as well as Treana wine which several of our very dear friends helped him sneak into the UK. We even went from our Italian feast to a low-key bar, complete with a Kay’s sign made for the occasion. I was shocked and of course burst into tears like the little girls who see Justin Bieber… What a wonderful night we had, both 10 years ago and on our re-do.

We finished off our anniversary with a quick weekend trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. We ate. We drank. We slept. We had a blast having no responsibilities and just hanging out. Scott loved the castle up on the cliff, and I too had a good time re-exploring it.

It was a good weekend indeed. A perfect top off for our anniversary week. The only ick factor was the haggis…

We welcomed Michelle B into our home. She will be helping with the kids and exploring London when she isn’t busy. The kids like her a great deal and she is a very good calming source for Caden. She’s very quiet so we hope we don’t run her off with our organized chaos!

Shortly after that, I had a quick work trip to Dublin. Some really big work news went down while I was there, but I’ll save that for a later post. It has been quite an emotional roller coaster at work lately which seems to be calming down to some degree.

The kids just yesterday have wrapped up school for the year. Caden finished up Year 1 (equivalent to kindergarten in the USA) and Keali compoleted Reception (pre-k 4). They both can read and write whole sentences, and both excel at math. Keali is considerably better at writing than Caden was at her age simply due to not skipping around schools and grades during the foundation year. He has made tremendous progress though. We are very proud of how much he has done in just a few short months. The teachers at school finally agreed with us that he is dyslexic. While there are varying degrees of dyslexia, Caden has already developed a ton of coping mechanisms to overcome this. Yesterday we found a specialist in dyslexia who will work with him through the summer to ensure his incredible forward progress is continued. Once his writing and spelling are better aligned with his amazing intellect, he’ll be in a good place. A friend of mine at work turned me onto “The Gift of Dyslexia”. As soon as I read it, I was amazed at how many things in the book described Caden as well as how lucky he is to have what some might consider a disability.

London is preparing for the Olympics which start in just a couple of weeks. The traffic which is normally kind of bad is already worse. We are excited about seeing the events that Scott was able to get tickets for, but certainly dreading the extra 6 million people expected to arrive in this city of already 12 million.

On a less happy note, I learned last night that my grandmother isn’t expected to live more than a few more days. She lived independently and at home until she was well over 90. In the last couple of years, she has been in a nursing home and recently suffered a relatively severe stroke. I know she wouldn’t want to live as she is currently “living”. As sad as it is to say good-bye, I think she would want her pride and humility restored by leaving this world. It will however be a very sad day for the family. Many of my Lunt qualities come from her and her side of the family, and some are probably more desirable than others. But we are who we are. I hope I can live independently and as healthily as she did until 90+.