Updates and Daddy!

It has been a couple of weeks since I have had time to post.  It has been a crazy and very emotional summer!  Girls are back in school!  They are 8th graders! WOW!  I will have high schoolers in 178 days~ thanks to Nina and Rhonda Kelly for pointing that fact out! 

Now it is time for me to get back on track with my training and maybe I can do a lot better with my blog.  We have 66 days till the girls and I do our FIRST half marathon!!!  Thoughout all the craziness of this summer, I have been able to maintain my weight loss.  But time for that to get back on track too!!! 

We have a couple more weeks and swimming will start up for the girls which will be great to get back into that routine.  The girls will do their 3rd and final M'boro KidsTry on August 27th!  This is a kids tri for kids up to the age of 14.  SPEAKING of which~ the girls turn 14 this Friday!  HOLY COW~ how did that happen! 

We are ready for some FOOTBALL!!!  Eagleville, MTSU, and yes~UT!  (Except for the weekend of November 5th when MTSU plays UT in Knoxville)  It is hard to be Bob Williams' daughter and not love Football and UT but on Nov 5th, I will have to wear blue!!!  And Clay loves Daddy for raising a football loving girl!  So with football and swimming our fall is FULL TO THE TOP! 

Speaking of Daddy~ On June 20th, Daddy had a CTscan that revealed our greatest fears~ there were three masses.  19 years ago, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  He has had to deal with some issues as a result of this over the years. And has been a real trooper thru it all!  When this was discovered he was told that chemo was his only option.  This was a hard blow for us all but he started chemo about a month ago.  On July 30th, he was hospitalized with a blood clot.  He was released from the hospital on August 3rd (mother's 75th birthday) but on the way home he was able to do his second chemo treatment.  The day after each treatment he recieves a booster shot.  He is scheduled for his third treatment on the 24th of August. 
Our prayers are that the chemo will reduce the masses and he will regain his strength. 

We so appreciate all our family and friends and their support.  I have been blessed with some really great friends that have shown their love and support for my family!  Your love and concern has been a blanket around us!  Daddy is a very private man but he truly has appreciated the calls and cards.  If you would like his address, just email me @ mlmkam@aol.com   Thanks for the continued prayers and words of encouragement for our family during this time!  We know God will strenghten and sustain us!

August 6, 2011~ Katherine, Bob, Beth, & Mary Lane

The Best Memory System

We have a wonderful church secretary who puts our bulletins together each week.  She also happens to be one of my closest friends.  I love her dearly and appreciate her for all that she is and all that she does. Each week in the bulletin, she puts an article, poem, funny story, etc.  She can find some really good ones.  It seems every Sunday, after reading the bulletin, I think~OH that is a GREAT one!  I need to remember that one or share that one.  Yesterday's came from Bulletin Digest.   So today I thought I would share......

The Best Memory System

 Forget each kindness that you do as soon as you have done it;

Forget the praise that falls to you the moment you have won it;

Forget the slander that you hear before you repeat it;

Forget each slight, each, spite, each sneer, wherever you may meet it.

Remember every kindness done to you, whatever its measure'

Remember the praise by others won, and pass it on with pleasure;

Remember every promise made and keep it to the letter;

Remember those who lend you aid and be a grateful debtor;

Remember all the happiness that comes your way in living;

Forget each worry and distress, be hopeful and forgiving;

Remember good, remember truth, remember heaven's above you,

and you'll find through age and youth that many hearts will love you.

It is funny that this was in yesterday's bullentin. ~Trying to raise my beautiful daughters to not feel that they are entitled in this life.  Showing them how to be grateful givers without expecting anything in return. Showing them how to express kindness without expecting it to be "made public".  Showing them to express their gratitude to those that show them kindness no matter how big or how small.  Helping them understand that some people show their insecurites thru some ugly ways and sometimes it is better and OK to just walk away as opposed to get caught up in it.   And the hardest of all~ Reminding them that God has given them an incredible gift and it is how they use that gift that they express their gratitude to God.  And I am grateful for God's blessings~ My friends who love me for me, my family who love me for me, and my Lord who loves me for me!



Rounding out Long Course Swimming Season

We got home from St. Louis on July 7th about 9:30 pm.  We had spent the day getting updates about our sweet little friend, Tinsley~2 1/2.  Tinsley and her family go to church with us and she was at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital having open heart surgery as we were finishing up our vacation.  Thru the modern wonders of today we were getting text message updates often.  Everytime my phone made the text ding, everyone would stop and look at me.....is it an update?  Then I would read aloud. We were able to send out thoughts and best wishes and celebrations back to her parents via text.  Even though we were not right there by their side in the waiting room, they knew that as we finished our vacation they were foremost on our hearts and minds! 

Tinsley on Saturday~ this would be two days

after open heart surgery! 

On Friday morning, the girls got up at 5am and we drove to Brentwood for an early morning (6am) practice.  While the girls were at practice, I went up to the hospital to give Kent and Jill a quick hug!  Back to pick girls up and head home to pack for Baylor Swim Meet in Chattanooga.  We had been home less than 13 hours but it was time for us to go back to Brentwood and picked up Nicole and deliver dinner for the Pips (thanks to Honey), then turned our sites south. 

We knew we had to go to bed early because the they had an early warm on Saturday.  It was VERY hard to get the three girls to go to bed....words spoken~really mom it is still day light outside!  My experience spending a lot of my summers growing up with Chattanooga summer nights~ sometimes it was 9:30 before dark set in.  They did not believe me but I told them, well this is just one fact that you will have to take my word for.  And guess what it will be dark when we leave for the pool~I promise! 

I make it to the pool with all three girls

even got them feed. 

Noriko meets us at the pool as the meet is starting.  So we are ready for a little girl time!  The girls swim well and drop time or as Kent tells me~ they do a PR (personal record).  Mary Lane and Nicole swim the 100 breast and it just did not look right at the turns, it is a PR but they both think they could have done better.  So we decide to time trial it.  Mary Lane goes to talk to her coach and asked if she could time trial it and scratch the 400 free.  Coach Dennis says he is ok with that.  Well NOT THAT EASY!  Because Mary Lane had done a positive check in the 400 free had already been deck seeded (swim lingo), she could not scratch it.  So she goes back and tells Coach Dennis this and he says ok let's let this work for us.  Use it as your warm up.  By this time Katherine has swam her 200 fly!  She was ahead of everyone (they combined the boys with the girls because there were only 6 13-14 year olds swimming it) at the 125 meter mark.  Then the boys pull up and the all go into the wall (150meter) about at the same time.  The boys come out of the turn first and Katherine sees their splash and it gets her off a bit.  Usually the last 50 for her is like whitewater.  She decides to time trail it but she is going to wait till Sunday and scratch the 400 IM with Coach's permission.  So it has become the meet of time trail drama! 

NOW it is time for Mary Lane to swim her 400 free "warm-up" and boy did she listen to Dennis....she was so graceful!  But funny thing was she only added 30 seconds to her PR and she finished about 15 meters after the second to last girl.  Those of us in the stands looked at each other and one of the other parents said, I shutter to think what would have happened if she had tried.  So now it was time for the time trial for Nicole and Mary Lane, and they both come out with a PR.  So day one of Baylor is in the books and it is TIME FOR LUNCH!!!!  We find a "secret" place that we decide to not tell Mike.  We will go back but if Mike is with us~he will have to be blindfolded! HA!!! 

Mary Lane, Nicole, and Katherine with the beautiful river behind them!

 After lunch, we walk around a little bit but good golly it is HOT!  So we decide to go back to the room to rest and relax and boy can those girls RELAX!

No to the untrained eye that looks like a corner piled with stuff!

 BUT NO~ it is Katherine with a pile of pillows and blankets

watching a movie!

 Mary Lane watching a movie on the bed.

Nicole enjoying a movie on the other bed!

At this moment, I am SO grateful for the mifi and that everyone has an ipad!!!!  After a little driving around, getting ice cream, and some dinner....it was time for bedtime before it got dark and they did not CARE!

Sunday, warm ups and day two of Baylor!  Day two was another day of PR's but the excitement was Katherine's 200 fly~ she had to do it by herself.....and HOLY COW~ everyone was on their feet yelling and screaming!  It was very exciting!  She dropped almost 6 seconds!  So it was time to decide if we were going to Knoxville for Southeasterns for 3 events.  We finally decided that we would drive up on Thursday, the 14th for Katherine to swim the mile and spend the weekend at the Lake!!! 

So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was a practice as usual.  Thursday found us heading to Knoxville.  Honey went with us!  It was a quick drive for a long wait! 

My sweet girl watching and waiting!

 Both my sweet girls waiting!

 Honey and Mary Lane chilling in the stands waiting some more!

FINALLY~ she is on block ready to go!  20 minutes later

it is over and done and now we wait for her to warm down and drive home!

After a good dinner, we make the not so quick drive back home!  And now to pack for the lake!!  It has been known as that summer of Plan B, and this Plan B is very welcomed!!!