no, I haven't dropped off the planet

I was merely occupied helping my mom with recovery from her knee replacement surgery. So I abandoned my family for several days (who went along just fine without me as it turns out, although the kids didn't do anything with new content last week, just enough practice work to count the days as school days).

Will be back to blogging by the weekend, no doubt! Right now we're busy snuggling with 65 new chicks (!) and running around to various special rehearsals for J's many upcoming performances. Hard to believe that in just 3 weeks, he'll be done with pretty much everything!