Mixed news...

I was going to give you the good first, but I might as well just give you the bad and follow it up with a ton of good. So first, the bad. 
Mom gave me and Mark some news when we stopped by their place yesterday. Dad hadn't been feeling well for the past few days and that morning he was having an unusually hard time getting around. They were very concerned, so they called the doctor to check on a scan that my dad had on Friday. The doctor on-call read the scan and told my dad that he has a new big tumor in his abdomen. For the past few days it has made him extremely sick, he's not eating hardly anything, and he can barely walk. He is going in to the doctor today to find out if it's operable...keep him in your prayers please. And my mom...and me and Jen too.

Okay, now the good. 

Saturday was my first bridal shower and it was wonderful.  My aunt created a beautiful setting with table decorations and pictures of Mark and I and a delicious lunch.  My family and a few friends were there, and it was so nice to see everyone again.  Everyone was very generous and Mark and I were given many things that we requested on our registry!  We are so thankful!  Now we're in the process of boxing up most of the things until we have a house to use them in. :-) 

Saturday night we had dinner with Amanda and Carl.  So fun to catch up with them!  Mark and Carl spent some time together while Amanda and I went to my bridal shower.  I hadn't seen Amanda since the homecoming, so it was nice to spend some time with her (in the car on the way to and from the shower) and her husband.  We ate at Sals...yummy!

Sunday was church with Ashley and then a little shopping afterwards.  Then off to Mark's welcome home BBQ.  On the way we had some errands to run, so we did those and then stopped by my parents house and got the news from my mom.

The BBQ was really fun.  Mark had printed some of the pictures he took in the different ports and put them into an album for my family to look through.  We BBQd burgers and watched the Red Sox game until the 5th inning.  And all of a sudden what we thought would last only an hour or two, turned into a four-hour BBQ.  I enjoyed it though!  

About 20 minutes after I was home my cousin Whitney sent me a text message with a picture attached.  It said "We carved pumpkins tonight!" and had this picture:

And of course she said YES!  Yay!  So she and Blake are engaged.  I don't know if you remember or not, Blake was one of my students about four years ago, and I set them up. :-)  They've been dating ever since and I'm really excited for them!

That's it for now...hopefully good news about my dad soon.  Please pray!