The weather on Easter wasn't very conducive for our normal outdoor Easter pictures and I had one person who didn't really want his picture taken. Therefore, there aren't many pictures to show! 
Note to my mom (who wondered if everything was okay since I hadn't blogged in a while) - I think I'm caught up on my blogging with the exception of a post about Allan's car! Happy reading and enjoy the pictures. Love you!!!
Rachel & her fairy attendent
Winter Fairy, Spring Fairy, Summer Fairy, Autumn Fairy
Fairy Godmother & Rachel
Rachel & Cinderella
Getting the hairpiece in just right
Ready for "Paquita" at the Monday school performance
Rachel's 15th birthday started off with a surprise at breakfast while we were at RDA in Sugar Land, TX. All the ballet company girls gathered in the breakfast room and surprised Rachel with cookie cake and singing Happy Birthday. There were two cookie cakes and sadly, I only got a picture of one of them. The other one had white frosting and a pink ballet shoe - it was so pretty! Most of the girls ate some of the cookie and then we packed the vans to come home. One of the guys at the hotel was helping me load my van so I set the leftover cookie cakes on the curb while we unloaded the luggage cart. About an hour down the road the girls started asking about the leftovers and suddenly I remembered I had set them on the curb and guess what? They were still there!!!!!! Well, really, they probably weren't still there. I would imagine that at least the unopened one was probably enjoyed by the valet parking attendents who had teased earlier in the weekend that they took French fries for tips : ) Rachel did finally forgive me for leaving her cakes on the curb!
A couple of days later I took Rachel and her friend, Jessica out for lunch and to a movie to celebrate. For our family celebration we made her favorite chocolate cake and had dinner at Cheddars. She also got to stop by the driver's license office and pick up a study guide to study for her driver's permit - oh, no!!
Rachel entered the world just before midnight, March 23, 1994 after 20 *long* hours of labor ending in a c-section. We were overjoyed to have a girl join our family as girls are rare on Robert's side of the family. Rachel was such a good baby! She was quite shy as a preschooler and through early elementary age but she was never quiet at home : ) We started homeschooling when she was in second grade. She's always been a hard worker and always wants to please and do things correctly. Rachel started dancing that same year and hasn't stopped. She *loves* ballet and is a senior company member of Western Arkansas Ballet. She takes class four nights a week as well as many Saturday rehearsals for The Nutcracker and Cinderella ballets each year. Rachel loves the Lord and her favorite passages to read are usually Psalms and Proverbs. The next year should be exciting to see her grow and mature. She's leaving home for the month of July to attend a summer dance intensive at North Carolina Dance Theatre and she'll be learning to drive soon. She's gaining her independence and growing her wings - a scary thing for this mom, yet also a welcome sign of growing up. We love you birthday girl!!
I traveled to Sugar Land, Texas with the ballet company from Western Arkansas Ballet in March. They were attending Regional Dance America- Southwest Region's 2009 Festival. This was my third trip to RDA with the WAB girls, but my first to attend as a chaperone. Oh my goodness, can you say EXHAUSTED?? That's exactly how I felt when we got home and I didn't even dance ; ) We drove down on Thursday, checked in the hotel and took the girls to dinner. Friday - Sunday the girls took classes from 8:30 a.m. until 4 or 4:30 p.m. Each night there were performances to watch. A few of our girls danced Friday night in an emerging choreography piece by one of our former company members. There is a dancer party following the performance on Friday night so we were out until about midnight. Most of our girls danced Saturday night in the piece that our adjudicator had chosen. Saturday night there was no event after the performance so we got to bed maybe a little earlier. Sunday night was Gala Night - 3 hours of ballet followed by a VERY late banquet. We were up early Monday morning for the long drive home - exhausted!! As a chaperone, I had three girls in my room and also had responsibility for making sure the girls were fed at meal time. The festival provides pre-ordered box lunches so all we had to do was pick those up each day, but supper was a fun experience. Ever try to order takeout for about 25 people? Umm, giving an Italian food order to a man with a heavy Spanish accent while riding in a car in Houston traffic was a memorable experience! Hey, they delivered and got the order perfect. Chik-fil-a rocks when placing a large order, especially when you place it early in the afternoon! They priced each order individually so LeAnn and I weren't stuck with a calculator for an hour like we had been the day before!! Actually, as exhausting as it was - it was a lot of fun and our girls were great. The only downside of the entire trip was that Rachel was playing around in a van on the way down and cut her toe and is losing a toenail. She didn't take some of her classes so she missed out on some good stuff but I hope she learned a lesson about taking off her shoes in the back seat of a van and kicking the seat in front of her - Lol : )
Rachel @ RDA Gala with some friends from last summer's OU SummerWind Dance Intensive
Rachel and I traveled to Dallas the last weekend of February and spent a few days at Rob & Sharon's with Nancy & Jerry, Wendy & Brad, Sophie, Ryan, Emily & Brooke. This was our first visit to meet the newest addition to our family, Ryan Thomas Schmitz! Isn't he a cutie?? 
Sophie started playing soccer last year and she is an awesome little soccer player!! I was so happy we got to see one of her practices. Nothing like watching a bunch of preschoolers playing soccer. And, I have to give it to the girls - they were tough!! There were boys practicing on the next field over and they were the ones crying and whining for mom - NOT the GIRLS!!! Way to go Soph!
We took the kids to what my nieces refer to as a "bounce house". It's a big warehouse type building full of inflatables - what a way to keep them occupied, entertained and wear them out all at once!
Soph on the slides
Brooke & Emily at the soccer fields:
Somehow, we missed getting a picture of the adults this trip. We usually try to do that when we are all together but it was a little hectic this trip. We'll all be together again in June and I'm sure there will be lots of picture taking at Amy's wedding.
While we were in Dallas, Rachel got to spend the weekend with her cousins, aunts and uncles while I slipped away for a few days. I attended the 9th Annual Conference for Young Women Affected by Breast Cancer at the Hotel Anatole. This conference is sponsored by Living Beyond Breast Cancer and the Young Survival Coalition. I participate in a YSC bulletin board and have come to "know" many women who, like me, were diagnosed with breast cancer at age 40 or younger. I was able to meet some of these awesome women over the weekend as well as make new friends.
Vendors and Survivors!!
I attended workshops on Bone Health, Practical Tools for Living with a History of Breast Cancer, and Breast Cancer Genetics. There were general sessions with Medical Updates, Embracing Life Through and After Cancer, and Diet and Nutrition Research. At the banquet, I sat with women from Arkansas, California, South Africa, Arizona, and another state but I can't remember which one ; ) I had a great time and hope to attend next year in Atlanta!!
Haley, Rachel, Annie, & Emily at Regional Dance America/Southwest Region FestivalJust in case you read my blog and wonder where I am lately - I haven't forgotten my blog or dropped of the face of the earth. I actually have several things I want to blog about; like my MRI results, my trip to Dallas, the YSC Conference, an upcoming trip to Houston to name a few.
First - the MRI and mammogram were CLEAR!! I am free from scans for another six months. I'd hoped for a year but that didn't happen this time as I'd thought. That's okay - six months is good. I still see my oncologist every four months so I'm still under surveillance on a fairly regular basis. That has it's own pros and cons : )
The rest of the posts will have to wait a bit longer. I am somewhat impaired at the moment and it's not easy to type!! I am undergoing a month of physical therapy for lymphedema. Lymphedema is swelling in my arm that is a result of having lymph nodes removed when I had a lumpectomy and node removal in 2006. Not everyone gets this after lymph node removal but for some reason I have it. Thankfully, it isn't too bad but needs to be taken care of so it doesn't cause other problems that can be very serious. I go to therapy every day and then I am wrapped from shoulder to finger joints in a compression wrap until it's time to go the next day. This is not fun!!! I'll try to post more about it when I am finished with therapy but here's a picture of what my arm looks like wrapped:
