Just stopped to breathe

I'm sorry that I've not had a chance to sit down and update my blog.  So many of you have been so sweet and have called or emailed to see what we found out about Mark.   As most of you know, Mark is cancer free!!!  Praise God!  Turns out that it actually is only a cyst on his right kidney and it was an error about the findings on the left.  He did say that it could have been a little scar tissue from his surgery two years ago to remove the tumor, but no signs of the tumor coming back!  We are so thankful for everyone's prayers!  Don't ever underestimate the power of prayer!  

After finding out the good news, I hit the ground running to attempt to catch up on things and to make plans for the end of football season.  I wasn't able to do several things that I had planned because of the cancer scare and Mark's back, but I think everyone understood or didn't miss what they didn't know about.  I had planned on having the Senior Football Moms, Senior Cheerleader Moms and the Senior Pacer moms at my house for a little gathering, but I wasn't able to do it.  I'm planning on doing something for them in a few weeks closer to the holidays. It was a great season, but it didn't end as we had hoped.  We lost to JA in the championship game last week.  It was a tough loss, but more on that later in a different post.  If I get started on that now, I'll never get this posted.  I will say that our boys may have not won the Fourpeat, but they did something that most kids haven't..... they played in the State Championship all three years of their high school career and won 2 out of 3!  Now that's something to be proud of!  For you who don't understand what I mean by "Fourpeat", Prep also won the year before Zachary's class played varsity ball.... a win last week would have made it the 4th year in a row for Prep to win a State Championship.  

Leigh Ashley is busy with dance team rehearsals to prepare for Holiday Spectacular.  It's put on by the dance team and will be held the afternoon of December 5th.  This allows them to perform their dances that they will take to competition on a stage & in front of an audience. Leigh Ashley now has her back handspring and actually did two last week!  Yayyy!!!  She takes a semi-private lesson (with her friend, Bailey Mangum) at Courthouse Gymnastics and also has her gym class at Rhonda's, so she's been working hard!  I want her to be able to tumble in case she wants to try out for cheerleader when she gets to Prep.  If she doesn't try out or tries out and doesn't make it, at least she knows how and it keeps her options open for later.   The Pacers at Prep are incredible, so that might be something she wants to try out for instead of cheerleader.  

Hunting season opened today, so Mark and Zachary are at Cypress Break.  Leigh Ashley had dance yesterday and has it again this morning, so we stayed home.  My new camo will just have to wait a couple of days!  The transformation of Cypress Break is complete and looks incredible!  I think we will really enjoy it this winter.   The little cabin at Carthage hasn't been used as much since the Deer Camp Makeover began, but it will be soon since most of the hunting will be done there.  It takes about 15 minutes to get from Cypress Break to the place in Carthage, so it's easy to go back and forth.  Hopefully, my house is next on the "to do list". Living on the water takes it's toll on a house!  There's always something that needs to be done!

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is Thursday, but I guess it is!  The older you get, the faster time flies.  I hope that things will slow down a little bit at the Courtney house and we can have time to enjoy each other, our family and our friends during the holidays.  We have so much to be thankful for!