A Full Century!

Last Saturday, Jeff, Katie, and I drove to Blackfoot, ID to celebrate my great grandpa's 100th birthday! I completely forgot to bring a camera, so my family's posts will be so much more interesting than mine.
The drive was really easy and we made it there in just over 3 hours (even with a ton of rest stops for the pregnant woman). The weather was beautiful -if incredibly cold and windy- and you could see the great potato state landscape for miles and miles. We saw lots of cows and even a sign for a potato museum. We contained our excitement and didn't stop. We did have a birthday party to get to...
We were suppose to meet cousins at McDonald's for a quick get together before the celebration, but we stopped by Subway first and brought awesome sandwiches. I won't lie, people were jealous. Jeff likes to use his pregnant wife as an excuse for things like that, but it didn't matter. No one that worked at McDonald's cared or even noticed.
The party was crowded and we met a lot of people I'm distantly related to. Great grandpa looked fantastic but really tired. I don't think he wants to do this again next year. Our mingling consisted of sitting at a table and letting family come to us. It actually worked and we got some great card games going! Overall, it was a fantastic trip and practically felt like a family reunion except for the fact that the Veronins couldn't make it.

Ki was in the hospital last week for a small fever caused by an ear infection. He's better now, although his white blood count is low. He's getting shots of neupogen which should make his bone marrow work harder to make more white blood cells. That will probably become a normal part of his treatment now. He is still in high spirits and I could even hear him yelling for water while I talked to my mom on the phone today.
They have an appointment to see a transplant specialist on Monday, and he starts his next round of chemo on Tuesday.

Tess is doing well. She's still on oxygen at night, but overall she's much happier. Tess recently got a new lawyer (know as a GAL -guardian ad litem) to act as her representative in court. The new GAL is a woman my mom has worked with before and even lives on my mom's street. My mom posted "She told me that as a GAL, it is her duty to work towards reunification of the family, but in this case she hoped that would not happen. She also told me that Tess's father had significant issues to work out (she didn't give me any specifics)." We tried not to get our hopes up, but I know everyone was crossing their fingers that this woman would help our family get Tess.
Just this week, there was a court date that my mom attended. Small children are not supposed to be in foster care for more than a year. Since Tess is 9 months old, her year mark is coming up fast and she would be adoptable at that time. Her father's lawyer was asking for an extension so he could have more time to work through his program and get Tess back. The new GAL recommended against it and the judge agreed with her. There will be a contested hearing on March 19th, but if the judge doesn't allow the extension, there is little to no chance that Tess will go back to her biological father!