Another week

Hmmm - lets see. What happened this week?

Had some bad weather today and a couple of days ago. We had to get in the hall closet when there was a tornado warning for our street. We were OK, but that was the day 27 people died in the MidWest. 10 people killed near Nashville today I think. There was going to be a picnic at the kids school today, but it was cancelled due to the inclement weather. The storms blow over so fast though - strong winds and heavy rain one minute, then calm and bright sunshine again the next.

Callum has ridden his bike a few more times and is getting quite good now! We had a short ride tonight and I caught a little of it on video on my cells phone's camera. The quality will probably be awful, but hopefully that means I'll be able to host it without having to shrink it! Trouble is, the data cable to get stuff off my camera is at work, so it'll have to wait til next week.

We also called Grahamwood this week, and it looks like Callum has got in. Hurray! We were also told (not by the school) that if he is reading at 3rd grade level, he has a chance to get into the CLUE program, which is an invitation only club.They are taken out of the optional program for a few hours a week for extra "enrichment". The cream of the cream. Anyway, he is currently reading grade 2 books with no problem. Grade 3 have harder words, but he can get some of them already. With a little bit of practice, he should be able to read them. No pressure now - no pressure! Actually, we are really proud of him, whever he gets into CLUE or not.

Isabelle dropped out of her Gymnastics, Ballet and Tap class. She wasn't really very interested in the dancing, so we switched her to just gymnastics. She loves the gymnastics!

Lexie is just as cute as can be, of course.

Pennie is getting ready for the Sickle Cell conference. The video of her rap song will premiere at the Gala dinner at the Peabody Hotel on our anniversary night - and she will get to introduce it. I'm proud of you, Pennie!

As to my grant - the Director of the whole thing for St Jude is trying to get the National Cancer Institute (NCI, part of the NIH) to reverse its decision. Apparently, it is not set in stone yet and there is still a hope. Probably a very very faint one, but a hope nonetheless. Of course, it seems crazy of them to pull the plug on this funding: the whole point was to get industry to work on "orphan" diseases (diseases with a patient population too small for them to normally bother). We have spent a year getting these companies to commit to giving matching dollars, now the whole thing is dead. We are talking start-up biotech firms, not big pharma, so these guys don't have the money to pay for all of it themselves (the profits in these types of diseases/drugs are too small for big pharma to be interested in). Trouble is, it is a new program, so last in first out in a funding crisis. Bitter, me? I'll get over it. We are trying to figure out other ways to do it. We still need the drugs, after all.