Meanwhile on the home front----

Gary and I had the week Jena was at Camp K to ourselves....plus we have been adjusting to sitting on the bench at Church without any kids as well.  I have to say that after all of these years, that is a change. We are actually an "empty-nesters" on our Church pew now.

So while Jena is off growing up, we are growing up (or is that- older) as well.

The month of July has been crazy for me as I have been trying to do homework for my two classes AND study for my big national clinical social work exam.  I scheduled it for July 25 when Jena was at Camp K so I could get in one more big day of studying and then have a bit of recovery time to catch up with all of my homework when it was done.  Good thing Gary can take care of himself because he really didn't see much of me that week despite Jena being gone.

And after all of that studying and three years of school, I took the 4 hour exam and PASSED!!!!

Here is the proof.  I am not going to lie---it was a bit tricky as you were taking the test to know how you were doing because it wasn't just right or wrong answers, but clinical judgement decisions which you had to make after reading situations.  It is such a relief to have it done.  It is a big step to getting my professional license to be a social worker.

After such intense studying, it was hard to be back into homework mode after I passed the test, but I am happy to say that now all of my homework is done except for one more final which is a part oral part written exam on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday after I passed my test, Gary and I went out to eat to celebrate at a local cafe in Syracuse- Hugs Hes (or something odd like that.)  I had the salmon which tasted great but Gary's plate of pasta was a work of art.....

It is only right that I celebrated with Gary.  Without him, I would never have made it through this program and kept the rest of life in any kind of order.  Thank you, Gary, for everything.

So Tuesday night after dinner, I couldn't get in the mood to study or do anything so I was watching HGTV and guess what--a family from Utah was moving to Okinawa.  It was fun to see some familiar sites as they visited houses around the area.  It made me miss Tosha and family more but it also made them seem close as well. (I seriously did not understand how much my mom must have missed us when we were away.)

And the celebration kept on going when on Wednesday night, we headed to Bluff Ridge Park and enjoyed an hour long fireworks display by our friends, Theron and Stephanie Watson.  They own some fire work stands and end the season with this huge display.  This was the only picture I took. This year, Jena missed it but Gary's mom and sister, Charon, watch it with us.

With all of that going on, it seemed like the week without Jena flew by.  It was a good week for all of us.