September update and NEWS!!

It has been a crazy, crazy month... Mattie is settling in and doing ok at school. She is having a few problems with some subjects, but that is always to be expected. And she is doing Junior Roller Derby. We took our 11 year old Jack Russell to the vet. We've had some suspicions about her health, and we were right. She has lymphoma cancer. Not much we can do for her but put her on steroids and wait. She is doing well on the meds, but it always an unknown, she could hold out for another year or two, or she could get worse and pass away in another month. The average survival is about 2 months from diagnosis. So we are waiting.. We've had lots of crazy weather.. Alaska does, in deed, have hurricanes. But they are usually in the middle of winter and it all falls as snow and we just call it a winter storm.. but this year they are coming early and we have had lots of rain and high winds, and more rain.. roads and railways have been washed out, homes flooded, power has gone off several times for everyone, and we are just very happy not to live closer to water. We are nice and high up enough that we don't have to worry about flooding. Though we do have worry about the roads. But, at the moment, things seem to have lightened up and we are, at least, between storm systems. And now for the really exciting news... After having our license for a month, and waiting, and waiting for a placement, Thursday I had a doctor's appointment in town and as soon as I walked in the door, there was a phone call from OCS calling to see if we would be available to take placement of a 3 year old girl. So, of course, I said yes and I went in Friday at noon to pick her up. We don't have a whole lot of information on her just yet. She is 3.5 years old and she has a younger sister and older brother also in foster care. They have been in foster care since last Monday and while at their emergency intake placement, she had been bullying her younger sister, so it was decided to separate her for the time being. (Of course, all new foster homes are limited to a maximum of 2 children in care at a time for their first year anyway, so there was no way we could have taken all 3 regardless..) She is very bright, already knows her letters and numbers and colors, full of energy.. of course, she's 3 so the word "no" is a favorite and we are having the usual "i'm tired but not going to take a nap/go to bed if i can avoid it" melt downs as we try to establish a schedule and all, but over all, the last 2 days have gone very well and we are excited to have her here. We don't know yet if this will be a short term or a long term placement. They are still trying to get in touch with family members to see if any of them could take her and/or any of her siblings. If so, she could go with them at any time. So we are trying not to get too attached or make any long term plans with her just yet, but it's so very hard.. lol.. and we're kinda doing it anyway :)