Greetings!

It's been awhile since I posted so I thought I would bring you up to date.

GOOD NEWS!

I met with my surgeon last week. This was my first follow-up visit since my surgery on Jan 24, so I was a bit anxious to hear how my blood work turned out. To my delight, it showed that the surgery did indeed get out all the cancer and that I am currently cancer free. Yeah!!! I feel very blessed. I will need to be monitored for the next 4 years to ensure it doesn't return, but for now things are looking great. Thanks for your prayers and well wishes. It made a big difference.

BUSY!

Things have been crazy around here for 3 weeks. Two weeks ago I went back to Washington, D.C., to give testimony on a bill. I spent days writing my submission and was a bit nervous going in. But, when we started the jitters went away and I had a great time bantering with the Congress members for about an hour and a half. You can read my prepared testimony here.


After spending a few days in D.C., I flew to Sacramento where Mom met me. We spent three or four hectic days trying to get our house ready for the sale, loading up the last of our stuff, cleaning up Hazel's place for Joe, etc. We didn't get it all done, but we did get all of our stuff out of our Davis house. We even took the new buyers through on a tour and answered their questions. The buyers are a real nice couple who can't wait to move in. They keep pestering our agent to allow them to move in before the sale. At least we know they won't back out.

To our surprise, Cathy and I felt only slight pangs of nostalgia while we were in Davis. We think of Oak Harbor as our home now.

This past week I spent 12-14-hour days writing briefs. Ugh! It gets old after a while. But the monotony was broken up by a short visit from Shelly and Aaron. They came over with the kids for dinner and kayaking. Here are some pics below. The underwater scene was taken with my new Pentax camera that can take movies and stills underwater at a depth of 10 feet. Very cool!








POTTER!

I have been so busy I haven't been able to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I am only half-way through. But it's a page turner. I love it!

Mom and I went to the local cinema in Oak Harbor last night to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The movie was great, but as Joe and Anna have observed, if you don't know the story, you may get lost. It moves very quickly and assumes viewers know the book. I was very impressed withe Radcliff's acting and the woman who did Umbridge. She was magnificently evil.

As we sat down in front of the screen, I recalled Alan and Justin's experience with a very small "big screen" in Woodland. This place probably rivaled that for world's smallest theater, but when the action started I was too engrossed to notice.

Well, that's it for now. Hope all is well.