Kylen's 6th piano recital a couple weeks ago may have been his best yet! He recovered well from the mistakes he made in the first song and played the second two almost perfectly. He had all his pieces completely memorized, but his teacher understandably still likes the students to bring their music. If you watch the video, you'll see he gave up keeping the music open just before the second song. He played "Princess Zelda's Theme," "Tetris A Theme," and "Skyrim Main Theme."
Hit rewind
Click delete
Stand face to face with the younger me
All of the mistakes
All of the heartbreak
Here's what I'd do differently
I'd love like I'm not scared
Give when it's not fair
Live life for another
Take time for a brother
Fight for the weak ones
Speak out for freedom
Find faith in the battle
Stand tall but above it all
Fix my eyes on you
I learned the lines and talked the talk (everybody knows that, everybody knows that)
But the road less traveled is hard to walk (everybody knows that, everybody knows)
It takes a soldier
Who knows his orders
To walk the walk I'm supposed to walk
And love like I'm not scared
Give when it's not fair
Live life for another
Take time for a brother
Fight for the weak ones
Speak out for freedom
Find faith in the battle
Stand tall but above it all
Fix my eyes on you
The things of Earth are dimming
In the light of Your glory and grace
I'll set my sights upon Heaven
I'm fixing my eyes on you
I'm fixing my eyes on you
I'm fixing my eyes
Love like I'm not scared
Give when it's not fair
Live life for another
Take time for a brother
Fight for the weak ones
Speak out for freedom
Find faith in the battle
Stand tall but above it all
Fix my eyes on you
I fix my eyes on you
I fix my eyes on you
As we were cruising down the road a few weeks ago, we zoomed past Mater in a parking lot! Just happened to have our camera on us, so we turned around and came back for a few pics.
So much for life slowing down during the summer! Lol! No, actually it HAS slowed down, but we've still been busy enough to keep me from blogging. We just got back from a trip to the Oregon coast for eight nights. It was a lot of fun, and I'll be posting about it!
Shortly after we went to the air show in my previous post, I broke out in a rash on my face and arms where the sun had touched. I'd been in the sun for three days straight and thought for sure I had developed photosensitivity, which is common in people with autoimmune diseases. It was pretty depressing right before a vacation! We scrambled to find a sun hat with good protection and an all natural sunblock. Lots of praying! I tried not to panic but felt pretty stressed about the whole thing. That rash took about a week to completely go away, and I stayed inside with the blinds drawn the entire time. A couple ladies suggested it might be the sunblock I used the two days before the rash.
On top of that, I had an arthritic flare up in my upper body, probably from the stress. It was such short notice, I didn't have time to make an appointment to see my doctor. I had some prednisone "just in case." So I started taking that at a low dosage, hoping it would end the flare up. Thus, I started the trip worried about sun exposure, uncomfortable from arthritis, and mentally off from the prednisone. Prednisone causes me to look like I have a slight mustache, gives me a double chin, increases my appetite so that I'm hungry all the time and likely to gain weight, makes me irritable, and - at high dosages - causes insomnia. In addition, this was the first trip I've ever worried about my diet. Greg stayed up late into the night cooking enough food to last me a week. I asked several friends to pray for me just before leaving.
After the first couple days, my flare up died down. I decreased the prednisone to a very low dosage and was able to feel pretty good! I also experimented with straying off my diet and didn't have any increase in symptoms. That was a relief, although it meant Greg's cooking wasn't necessary. Poor guy. I was pretty careful about sunlight, but near the end I got a slight burn on my face. No rash! So now I think the rash was from the sunblock. I'm so thankful! I am still taking a very small dosage of prednisone and will try going off it soon to see what happens. It looks like I will need to take something even with the strict diet, but hopefully it can be at a low dosage. We'll see.
We all came back from the trip with a virus, so for the next few days we'll be focusing on recovering. Greg and Kylen got hit hardest. I'm working on unpacking and laundry. We have several things coming up on the calendar, so I hope we are all feeling good soon!
There are many things I enjoyed as a child that Kylen still hasn't experienced. Since my uncle is still doing those activities with his children and many of them are more fun in a group, I was telling him that we should pick something different each year to do together. He immediately asked if we'd ever been to an air show. Kylen and I hadn't! There was an air show coming up the following weekend, and he invited us on the spot to join them. It ended up being very warm outside with a gorgeous sky.
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| So much pavement!!!! Thankfully, we had my wheelchair. It saved me a lot of walking! |
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| I'd never been to a military base before and was curious about the grounds and what it would be like. It was neat seeing soldiers everywhere! |
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| Kylen Looking Through Binoculars |
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| Uncle, Cousin, Kylen, and Greg |
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| People were "camped out" under many of the planes. |
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| The Highlight of the Show: Thunderbirds Flying in Formation |
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| This thing shoots fire out the back far enough to double its length! We got to see it in action! |
