end of the summer

I can't believe it is August, end of August actually. School starts next week, the summer flew by way too quick, we didn't get to do a fraction of what we wanted to do. I spent all of July studying for an exam. Madeline discovered a new sport that she loves, kayaking! She was going down the river on her second day, white water on her 3rd. Madeline has talked Ryan into learning how so they are heading out tomorrow for his first lesson. Gabrielle is *supposed* to start preschool two days a week next week, we shall see... Julian is growing up so fast. He is just shy of 16 months, still doesn't walk or talk, but is such a cheerful little boy.

Ryan's family has chosen not to be involved in our lives for the majority of our relationship. He had a neighbor as a child that was heavily involved in his life and has continued to be. Our children has known him as a grandparent, he eats dinner with us often, is included for all holidays, and worked for Ryan for the past 5+ years. We managed to get him to retire in May, he was unable to work any longer. He ended up having a double bypass the last week of June, we got a call early August 4th from the ICU. He had a major cardiac incident, spent two weeks in the ICU. It was very touch and go, he was on life support, we made the decision to remove it and see what happened. He is still in the hospital and is not doing well, along with the physical issues, dementia is rapidly settling in. He has no family, and only a couple friends so the vast majority of the work has fallen to us. He is getting transferred to a nursing home next week, long term prognosis is not good. All the arrangements, fielding the many confused phone calls from him daily, the social workers, doctors, the visits have been quite taxing on the family with no end in sight.