Well, it's only a month late.  Which is pretty much on time by my standards lately!  But I definitely learned some things about my family and myself at this year's reunion:

• When there is someone missing at any/all times during the reunion - Gene, Jacob, Mary, Dad, Steven, Michael - it doesn't feel quite right or as fun as it could be.
• I like sleeping.  I like sleeping without doors slamming in the middle of the night.
• Sage likes chipmunks and will obsess about chasing them for hours on end, even if she is leashed and unable to budge an inch.
• Noah is going to be a lifelong fan of Rice Krispie treats - if you don't believe me, just look at the pictures of his first time with one.

• I should have timed how long it took before a pinochle game started, because it seems to happen quicker and quicker.  Pinochle should be renamed the "official game of the Spencer family". 
• We've got to remember that we have an effective weapon with Rebekah, Emma, and Olivia's screams for pesky neighbors or what have you....  Just start a game of tag between the kids (add in an uncle or two for extra potency) and everything else takes care of itself!
• Bringing a disposable camera for each of the kids was one of Dad & Mom's best ideas EVER!  I can't wait to see the results.
• Mary, Rebekah, Olivia, Emma, and Rachael spent an afternoon making bead necklaces and bracelets for everyone.  My 'A' necklace came to me courtesy of Olivia and I love it!
• Putting up tents will never be listed among my many talents or skills.  I'm okay with that.
• Defense was never an issue for our campsite with all of the foam swords and sword practice going on. 
• Camping + reunion = high likelihood of braids in Amy's hair

• Escaping the reunion without one mosquito bite is one of my major accomplishments this year!  Granted, I pretty much dosed myself in bug repellant, so...
• Elias, Ben, and Isaac spent many happy hours trying to figure out how to get into the shed across from our campsite because there were "Indians trapped inside", according to Elias.  He actually tried to get me to unlock the shed, thinking I had a key.  There is a reason we call them the "Triple Threat"...
• We need to have a sign made up that says something like: "Warning: Spencer Family in the Vicinity.  Drive at your own risk."  But then the idiots who ignore speed limits through campgrounds with children playing wouldn't get it anyway.
• I love watching my nieces and nephews play with one another, regardless of the age or activity.  It's probably why most of my photos are of them playing together this year!

• I miss having a campfire in the mornings and evenings with all of the fire restrictions. 
• Mom should have been a lifeguard with the way she watched over her grandkids - wait, she was for most of our childhood years while we played at Sanders Beach each summer (where there were no lifeguards).  My apologies, Mom.  In my eyes you have earned your lifeguard status and then some!
• Even if I am bone weary tired by the end, no vacation will ever measure up to the level of fun I have when we are all together!

June 9th is World APS Day.  Who decided this was the day for this event exactly I am not sure, but it has gotten me thinking this week about the impact that having APS has had on my life.  And I was thinking that it would be easy to sit back and have a pity party, because this is a chronic disease that has affected my life in ways I couldn't have even begun to have imagined before I knew about it.  (And still could affect my life in ways I still haven't imagined, but that's another post for another day!) 

Thankfully, I skipped the pity party and let the second thought take residence in my mind:  being grateful that I was diagnosed with APS when I was.  A lot of the reading I have done leads to a general belief in the medical community of doctors who are educated on the disease that there are many more people who have it than are aware of it.  There are probably several reasons for this, I think. First, because it is a fairly recent autoimmune disease (mid '80s) to be discovered.  Not all doctors know or are educated about it.  Also, the main symptoms can hide behind other more common diseases or issues.  The blood test for the lupus antibodies is not entirely accurate as a diagnostic tool due to the body's normal fluctuations of the antibody levels.  So usually something like a stroke, heart attack, or several miscarriages has to happen as well for doctors to really start taking a look at causes.  And even then it is not the first place they look. 

I was very blessed to have a cardiologist in southern Utah who had a oncologist for a husband.  She was perplexed as to why all of my tests kept coming back normal, on everything.  But she kept digging anyway and happened to mention it to him one night, which led to the blood test eventually coming back positive.  I am lucky - I suffered no damage from my cardiac event leading to my diagnosis and  this puts me in the minority.  I am grateful for a doctor who took the time to help me and not just dismiss my problems.

I have been so blessed with great doctors, both here and in southern Utah.  Since I take blood thinners everyday to reduce the chance of blood clots occurring, I see some of them fairly often.  I am grateful for their knowledgeable help and patient concern with me as I struggle through this disease with my allergies, asthma, pituitary cyst and the host of everyday issues that always seem to come up.

One of my greatest blessings throughout this has been my husband.  He has patiently and lovingly taken care of me and been my constant support in every way.  I have the hardest time asking others for help because I like to be independent and do things myself.  Learning that I can't do everything and that I do have physical limits now has been difficult.  But David and I are a team more now than we have ever been before because of it and I am grateful for that. 

I am grateful for my family and their unconditional love and support.  They are always willing to jump at the chance to help us out in any way possible.  I am learning firsthand about the ways that service knits people together and that being the one who is being helped is also a growing experience.  I am grateful for the example of perseverance in my father, who is struggling through some even more major health issues, in my opinion.  Yet his example stands in front of me daily and I know if he can do it with the kind of pain he lives with, then surely I can do it too.  Dad has always been a great example to me of doing what needs to be done, even when it's not fun or enjoyable. 

I am grateful for the Savior's Atonement and for a Heavenly Father who is always ready to listen when everything just gets to be too much.   I can go and lay my struggles at His feet and know that the Savior has already struggled through this for me and that I can make it.

These tremendous blessings that I am so grateful for make any reason for a pity party look so, well, pitiful!  It's almost like seeing the rainbow after the rain -  although I know that there are still struggles to come with the APS, so I think I will just keep looking for the rainbows.

There are quite a few posters I have seen over the years that start with the title "All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in..." or something to that effect.  While playing a game of Dicecapades the other night with Mom, Lydia and Nathan, I started thinking about all the things I have learned while playing this game:

• I can't stack dice worth beans. 
• Mary can stack dice worth beans - even the teeny-tiny ones that make everyone else curse and cringe.  (For the record: Mom does not curse.)
• My mental acuity and memory levels go down 90% when there is a timer involved.  Guaranteed.
• Mom has "guns"!  (She beat Lydia at arm-wrestling that night.)
• Any child's eyes will start bugging out the moment they catch sight of this game that has 100+ dice.
• Just because you think you can draw does NOT mean you will be successful at drawing in this game.  Not when "Chairman Mao" comes up as your phrase to draw.
• Nathan is incredibly good at doing math quickly, in any form.
• I love trivia! But I dislike trivia questions about computers - who cares about what Steve Wozniak or Bill Gates did for jobs as teenagers?
• Steven and Leslie excel at any challenge involving letters or words.  Even if it is to write five words containing the letters Q, Z, and O in thirty seconds - they're both amazing at it!
• This game cannot be played at any time when someone is trying to sleep or needs to hear the the TV or is just trying to concentrate in general.  They won't be able to due to the loud bursts of laughter and shouting from the table.  (Sorry in advance for the next time it happens!)
• You'd better be in decent physical shape - pushups, situps, or running from room to room can and will be required in the well-rounded game.

Lydia takes on Nate first...

Regardless of the outcome - and I have never come close to even winning one yet - it is such a fun and enjoyable game.  I will always want to play it again and again.  Maybe because it's taught me most of all that I am a glutton for punishment, even at the hands of my very capable, fun, and cute family.