June Update

Pops fell ill this month, was taken to ICU and placed in a drug induced coma for almost two weeks. As you can imagine, we were very upset. Last Saturday 6/20, they took Pops off his respirator and four days later he managed to stand up with assistance. He is currently in a rehabilitation hospital recovering and Josh is with him. We are very happy to report that Pops is making great progress.

We celebrated my 37th birthday at home on Saturday the 13th with the Thiele and Groote-Schwalm kids. Sunday, Grandma came over with a huge chocolate grenache cake and rib eye steaks. YUMMY!

My contracts administrator position was "eliminated" on June 19th and now I'm a domestic engineer. Apparently, I don't "possess the skills and experience to fulfill the expanded duties of the newly created position." The one month old VP was hiding out in our Tulsa office assessing the procurement mess left by the last manager. I didn't have a clue he was taking over my position as well. Guess I should have known when my CEO stopped inviting me to margarita-lunches that something was up. Maybe that was a clue? duh? Please send any job leads my way for contracts administration or corporate paralegal positions.

IP and I drove to Dallas for Father's Day weekend to be with Dad and Pops and had the opportunity to see all our immediate Poage family. Saturday, I spent time with my sisters-in-law, Kendra and Kara, and IP went to a splash party with Nana and his cousins. Sunday morning, we were lucky to catch Pops awake and were able to spend some time with him in ICU. The respirator had been taken out 24 hours earlier leaving him very hoarse and not able to hold a conversation. All the same, he responded to us and was so pleased when the nurse "bent" the rules and let IP in to wave to Pops and present him with a handmade crepe paper fish for Father's Day. In the afternoon, IP and I went swimming with Collin, Stephanie and our little cousins. Then Dad joined us for a pizza party at their home with the rest of the Poage clan in the evening.



This week, IP and I have been keeping busy with swim lessons, a trip to UT, and working on a solar system project. IP really enjoyed the UT campus and was really fascinated with the "gorilla bones" displayed in my old anthropology building. We brought peanuts with us, but the poor squirrels were hiding from the heat. One managed to come down and take IP's offering. The heat was horrible (104F), so we had to take breaks indoors. The Union has a Wendy's and other "civilized" offerings like Starbucks. Old lady voice: "When I was a young student at UT, we had a crappy cafeteria with perked institutional coffee and we had to walk up hills both ways." Our first week was greatly stifled by the heat wave with days from 101F to 107F in Austin. whew..... it's hot!