This is a letter I sent to my family today and I thought I would just copy and paste it into our blog!
We are off to a great start for school. Abby has entered middle school and is happy there. She was blessed to have her best friend from church in all her classes (minus her PE class). The middle school is huge with over just under 500 6th graders, so this was pretty awesome. It was really a blessing.
Eli is happy and excelling in his 2nd grade class. Caleb is doing just as well (1st grade) and is doing amazing with controlling his anxieties about going to school (and other social situations). He had a minute of a "moment" at the start of the first class on the first day, but has had a perfect record since. He has a testimony of the power of the priesthood and how it helped him and I'm extremely happy about that. I'm coaching Caleb's soccer team this year, which is my first time coaching. It's a TON of fun even though our team is on a 100% losing streak..... GO GOLDEN DRAGONS! :) Eli asked me if I should be teaching them more things so that they can win....so Eli and I had a little talk. :) Abby is doing cross country for the first time and is continuing on with piano as well. She is having her ensemble recital in November. She is doing a duet with Grandma Kay again and this time, I will be joining them with a piano trio for Abby's second piece in her performance. Eli is taking piano still, but from a lady in the ward who doesn't do recitals, but she is getting him some great pieces to play at home. He did Book of Mormon Stories for the church primary talent show in June. Caleb is waiting for me to sign him up, which we will do once soccer is over.
I still watch Lacey and Nate (4yrs old and 1 yr old) 3 days a week and love it/them. Ayla started her preschool this year and she LOVES it. Five of us moms from church take turns hosting the preschool at our own houses, 2xs a week from 9am-11:30. It's working out wonderfully for us moms and for the kids.
Ian is still working at Moreau Catholic High school as a counselor there doing mostly scheduling and college prep/counseling for the students there. He starts his teaching at St. Mary's College next week (1-2 nights a week) and is also starting his private practice (therapy) in October, which will only be one night a week. As far as Ian's health, he had a minor flare up a couple months ago and so the doctors put him back on prednisone (only 20mg, but still!) and then started him on a new treatment plan. Every Friday for 4 Fridays he goes into the Oncology dept at Kaiser and sits in a chair from 10am til about 4pm getting a low level chemo infusion called Rituxan and a 125mg dose of prednisone. Ian has had Rituxan treatments before (at the very beginning of when he had Wegeners) and it does NOT make you lose hair or get nauseous. He gets very tired Friday night, but can't sleep through the night (because of the massive dose of Pred), then sleeps most of Saturday. He feels a lot better by Sunday and is ready to go back to work by Monday. Today is the last of his 4 treatments. The next step in the treatment plan is that he will get ONE dose (not 4) of this Rituxan once every 4 months to keep him in remission. This will allow him to stop taking all the meds that he takes on a daily basis right now. We feel like the doctors are taking good care of him.
We absolutely LOVED having 3 Langston families out visiting this summer. It was seriously wonderful!! Ayla and Caleb kept asking when Malena & Mercedes were coming too.
