We're here, honest

I know it has been forever since I have blogged any. Rest assured we are all home and doing ok. It has been a rather rough summer though and sometimes Mom says I focus too much on the negative when I blog. I guess I was looking for positive to write about.
Stephen & Rachel both spent a week at Gramma's in Alpena. Whether they show it much or not, they really enjoy it. Rachel experienced the Brown Trout Festival this year and she had quite a bike adventure with Aunt Bette. Stephen was there for the car show again as well as getting to watch Watkins Glen at Aunt Marlene's.
Rachel then had another good time with Gramma going on vacation with her to Ohio. They stayed at Pete & Deb's for a couple of days then went over to see Mark & Barb. Tony & Angie were home as well & it was at Seth's court hearing so it was all quite exciting. Every now and then she still has new stories to tell of things they did down there.
Now it is back to school for them on Tuesday. Rachel will be in 7th grade, except she is taking 8th grade math, Stephen is in 5th grade, and Joshua starts 1st grade. We have met all their teachers and are pretty much all set. Joshua was a little disappointed before he met his teacher because it is the "new" teacher at school. But now that he has met her, he seems fine with it.
One of the big struggles this summer has been Mark's health. He had bronchitis just after the 4th of July. After that, he had a sinus infection. Throughout those times and continuing since then he hasn't been able to sleep. This makes life miserable. He also has a feeling in his throat as though something is stuck. We've made numerous trips to several doctors. The hardest thing has been not knowing if the lack of sleep has been causing different symptoms or if the symptoms were causing the lack of sleep.
Finally last week, he was listening to a radio program and called me and said this is describing exactly what he has been feeling. If you go to www.familylifetoday.org, you can listen to or get transcripts of the programs on Monday and Tuesday that talk to Pastor Tommy Nelson and his wife about his battle with depression, including an explanation of the biological causes of depression. This week Wednesday we got Mark to a counsellor and he confirmed that Mark is in moderate depression. It has been brought on by lots of different stress factors around here but I think not knowing what was happening to his body was adding on even more stress. His PCP had mentioned needing to deal with his stress and had even prescribed an anti-depressant but hadn't actually called it depression. Mark didn't like the way the anti-depressant was making him feel so he stopped after 2 weeks. Now that he understands all of it more, he is trying a different anti-depressant and is going to be working with the counsellor too. He is also using a sleep med that his starting to help. He was very fearful of using it to begin with for fear of addiction but now knows that it is needed to get him started back to getting better.
A lot of the stress here was probably caused by money problems. They aren't all gone and we still face some hurdles but we are making it through and God is providing in some amazing ways. Totally out of the blue, a family from our church said they wanted to buy the kids' school supplies this year. Not only did they buy them, the lady took each of the kids out individually to spend a day shopping together. She did her best to fulfill all their wishes for supplies including some extras that they hadn't even considered. Another family just handed Mark some cash after a morning service. We have had checks (refunds) show up just when needed and even some reward programs give us just a bit of encouragement when we needed a ray of hope. Mark was able to get a raise which is his first in 3 years. It wasn't much but every bit helps. He also had a man offer some accounting work that he needed done on the side. Once Mark gets the system up and running like the guy wants it, I'll be able to do most of the inputting to keep it going. It will bring in a little bit more each week.
One major hurdle we have yet is that we are down to one vehicle. The van didn't completely die but the best way to describe it is that it is in critical condition and we are being advised to "pull the plug" and that advise if from our friend who does the work on it for us. The latest thing that we believe to be wrong is the water pump and/or (lost it now). Anyway it is something right in the engine which isn't too bad on most vehicles but in a van like ours you almost have to pull the whole engine to get to it. Otherwise, you have try to work both inside and outside the van at the same time with very little top clearance. The van is out at Mark's work right now and we need to figure the best way to dispose of it. We will probably get $100 from a company that will tow it away for recycling.
So that is where we are and what we have been up to. Mark is working today so we didn't go anywhere for the holiday. I may take the kids to a park for a while this morning. Oh, forgot to mention that Rachel is currently on crutches with a sprained ankle. Hopefully, we will start getting her off of them today. She slipped off a curve last Friday playing kickball in the rain. I waited till the dr. was in on Mon and since it was still swollen took her in. After the xrays confirmed it just a sprain, she said to do RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, & Elevate) so it has been an interesting week.