Tiempo Dificil

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Our days in this country are winding down. Only 4 days left of work, 2 weeks of packing and then we are off to our great Mexican Adventure. Besides all of the preparations for the great move, we have been busy with other occurrences, some in our control, some not, that have been happening around us.

The best news is that on May 31st, my dad remarried for the first time in 25 years to a wonderful woman named Carie. They go together like strawberries and chocolate. Since I love to plan fun things, I volunteered to be their wedding planner. Since their engagement was only 3 months and had a hard time making decisions, it was a roller coaster of surprises. But, in the end, everything came together just perfectly. We had so much fun dancing and laughing.

The morning after the wedding as we were eating brunch with the newlyweds, we received a phone call from back east saying that Ronnie's best friend who was battling cancer, had taken a turn for the worse. Mark Griffin (Ronnie and I's close friend) was going through treatments for the 4th time he had gotten cancer. Sadly, the joy of the wedding had turn to tears of fear and sadness for Mark. That evening, Mark had a blood clot go into his brain and in the morning it was decided to take him off life support. He passed June 2nd surround by friends and family. We took a last minute flight out to New Jersey and spent the next couple days staying up late, eating at diner's and laughing and crying with our friends at the wake and funeral. Saturday, we attended MoCCA (Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art) convention in New York City in honor of Mark to sell his comics. (He was planing on attending) That evening, exhausted, we returned to San Francisco. One of the last things that Mark emailed me was that he was up all night thinking about our Mexican Adventure and the only way he could figure out how we were going to do it was by robbing a bank and crossing the border. Ha!

Mark made a really amazing comic called Karma Shmarma about discovering when he was diagnosed with cancer for a second time. It is really a great read. It is all online here:

http://www.ourfriendtheatomrecordings.com/karma/index.htm

So that leaves us where we are today. Only 2 and a half weeks until the flight. It feels like we are counting down to summer vacation which is really exciting. We have both gone to the doctor's, the dentist and Byron is soon heading to the vet to make sure everything is good to go. I have been playing this Nintendo DS game called "My Spanish Coach" and it has really helped me learn more vocabulary! When we were on the subway in NY, I was able to understand a few signs I was able to before. It was very exciting!

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