The Birthday Girl

Well, today, marks another milestone in our lives. Lynley is one year older today. While from all outward appearances she seems to be handling another year fairly well I can tell that it is clearly not to her liking. She keeps referring to her self as old. As in, us "old" folks or my "old" body. It clearly isn't going as well as one might get the impression. I told her she was like fine wine only getting better with age. However, she just assumed that I though she was getting more vinegary. In all honesty, I think she is more like my grill outside. The longer she is on the hotter she gets. Of course, that just makes her think of me as a dirty old man and then that starts a whole other thing about how she is so old that her husband is a dirty old man. All I can say is that as long as I am married to her I will continue to be a dirty old man. She is hot in my book.

Okay, okay, enough about the old people. What is going on around the Dungan household? Well, we are down to 2 "offspring." Yesterday afternoon we delivered Sydney to Cooks and sent her off for a week of camp. She was ecstatic to go and it was not long before she had reconnected with many of her friends. She spent much of her time with Alaina, another neuroblastoma patient and one of their other friends. I was amazed by the size of the group that was heading out to camp. It was three bus loads. In fact,this year there was a waiting list for the camp. They did not have enough space for many, if not most, of the siblings this year. There are apparently too many survivors of cancer and now the space is limited to patients only.

That is pretty awesome if you ask me. We finally reached a point where that has become a problem. Of course, it also make me remember all of those that we have lost who were not able to be there. I also had the realization that more of her friends were gone than were there.

It was bitter sweet.

In the end, Sydney went off without a hitch. She was ready to go. I was a little saddened by all of this independence. Although it is good for her, I just don't know that I am ready for it. In the end though, she went running to the end of the bus to wave goodbye to us one more time. That's my girl. She will be back on Friday and, of course, we all ready miss her.

However, we won't be able to miss her for long. We are going to be busy with a little boot camp of our own. Now that their numbers have temporarily thinned it is time for aggressive man to man and woman to woman training. It is time for the parents to reassert their control and turn these offspring back into the wonderfully awesome little twerps that we know them to be.

Welcome to home twerp camp 2009! (evil laugh)

There will be plenty of purpose this week.