Nature Therapy

Mom is doing much better than she was last week :) Even though she opted to skip her chemo and move it to next week, she kept her appointment with her oncologist and had an ultrasound done to see how effective the chemo is. GOOD NEWS! Her tumors have shrunk by 50%!!!!! She also met her radiologist for the first time yesterday and Mom and Dad both think she is wonderful! We found out that because MD Anderson is so awesome, they have the latest and greatest radiology machines that are able to target areas that many other machines are unable to. If things stay on track, Mom should be having her surgery in mid- August, followed by 4-6 weeks rest, followed by 6 weeks of radiation. 

Sunday was Father's Day and we had a gastronomically delightful lunch from James Coney Island Hotdogs. Mom even felt good enough to ride with us in the car over there and enjoyed a vanilla icecream cone on the way home! After lunch, Dad and I had an adventure at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It was SO cool! Definitely one of the nicest and most extensive natural science centers I've been to. We really enjoyed the butterfly house, where dad and I both had butterflies landing on us! Dad was very happy because he was able to find two different butterfly bushes in the museum gift shop to add to his garden. He also picked up a brochure on how to grow a butterfly garden (like he needs it). On display that day was a temporary Faberge exhibit we found fascinating; but not nearly as fascinating as the Dinosaur exhibit! It was gigantic! So many fossils and huge dinosaur bones put together, Dad was like a little kid again! Unfortunately we didn't have time to walk through the whole thing, but we were able to catch a 3-D movie about the Galapagos! Dad is already planning his trip :) 

Because we found out on Tuesday that Mom was safe to go out of the house with her white blood cell count, we decided to make the most of it and go to the ... can you guess... Mall!!! We shopped around for a couple of hours and had lunch at Neiman's :) Dad has been tinkering around in the yard and has created a squirrel-topia! He has various butterfly bushes, squirrel jar feeders, a peanut butter log, numerous corn cobs, bird houses, bird feeders, and even a squirrel bungee! He wanted to challenge you to count how many feeders he has placed in the yard! Kristen is arriving on Monday and staying into July for Mom's next chemo. She is going to introduce Mom to Frozen!!!