Climbing the Walls

Grace chose to have a Climbing Gym party for her birthday. We had to wait a week to have it ,but it was a blast! She and several of her friends took turns climbing in the climbing gym at Holston Home. This is a picture of Grace after she scaled a 20 foot wall.


They even got Shannon to climb up one of the walls. Imagine that, an 11 year old girl driving her Mom up a wall.

Proud to be from Greeneville

Today is a day I am proud to live in my town. A few post ago, I mentioned James' teacher's health issues. She is still in the hospital and is still in serious condition. Today is six weeks since her esophagus ruptured. Today, the teachers from EastView, my kids school and the school Rita Wells has taught at, worked busing tables at Zaxby's so that the family could receive 20% of each purchase. When the kids and I were there, all the tables were full and the drive through line was almost out to the highway. One person heard the staff say that they had already raised several thousand dollars for the family.

Randy, Rita's husband and their daughter Rachelle, came by Zaxby's on their way to Upwards Basketball Practice. They were touched by the outpouring of support.

That in and of itself is impressive. But there is more, two McDonalds in town were also giving a portion of their proceeds to the family tonight.


On droughts:
Today we drove to school with a full rainbow over downtown Greeneville, it was followed by some teasing sprinkles but no significant rainfall. We need rain. Streams, ponds and wells are drying up. Farmers are making the choice between hauling hay in from the mid west or selling off cattle because they can't afford what hay cost to make it through the winter. We need rain.

I keep thinking of Elijah. He prayed and it didn't rain for 3 years. 3 years. I can't imagine 3 years with no rain.

A mustache?

James had one of those springy bracelets that broke and he was playing around with it. He put it on his nose and said, "look Mom!". To which Shannon replied, "You have a mustache."


James said, "No, the worlds biggest booger!"

Gotta love 7 year old boys!

Phil Fulmer an Auburn Fan? & A Prayer Request

After the Auburn's win Saturday night, he apparently is for the time being. He greeted his players with "War **** Eagle" when players returned from their off week Sunday night.

"That's actually the first thing I said to them, to be honest with you,'' Phillip Fulmer revealed Tuesday.

On to more serious matters. I have told several of you by phone that our community is been touched by an illness that has impacted many of us. Rita Wells is a teacher at Grace & James' school. She is James' teacher this year. Her youngest daughter, Rachelle, is Grace's age and they have been in Girl Scouts together since kindergarten. Her husband Randy & I have coached Grace & Rachelle's Upwards Basketball team for the past 3 years. They also have a high school senior daughter, Ashely, who Shannon has developed a relationship with at the High School.

A few weeks ago, Rita's esophagus ruptured and her stomach also has separated from her esophagus. Since the 14th, Rita has had multiple surgeries and has had over 100 units of blood. She is still in critical condition in Bristol Regional Medical Center.

Yesterday, Rachelle with the help of some teachers set up a caringbridge.org web page so that they can communicate with people and people can let the family know they are thinking and praying for them. Here is Ashley's account of their ordeal to this point taken from the web site:

It all started out on September 13th, 2007. She woke up at 3 a.m. throwing up. Her back started to hurt and she was having trouble breathing. She just thought she had pulled something so a little before 4 a.m. my daddy decided she needed to go to the er, he thought she had a kidney stone at the worst. However, after they got there the doctors found something much more serious. Somehow her esophagus had cut some of the circulation off in her stomach which had gone up through her diaphram. They flew her up to Bristol early and my daddy had our Pastor Larry Moore to come pick me and my sissy up to take us up there. She was in the first surgery of the day when we got up there. It seemed like days before we finally got to see her, however, it had only been a couple hours. She was very unstable and sick. Rachelle and I didn't realize how bad things were until the second surgery which started around 6ish that evening. At around eleven that night she finally got out of surgery, she was in horrible condition and it was so hard to think about. That was the longest day of our lives. None of us got much sleep that night, but she thankfully made it through the night. There were so many surgeries, its hard to remember all the details. Now she is having different things done every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They clean her out bit by bit every time they go in. On Saturday the 29th they were able to take one of the chest tubes out and start slowly using the feeding tube. Yesterday, October 1st, they went in to see if there was any leaking from the feeding tube, and there wasn't thank goodness. The surgeon was also able to remove the other chest tube. She has come a long way and still has a long way to go.


Please pray for Rita, Randy, Ashley & Rachelle. Since lunch time yesterday, there are 5 pages of signatures in the guest book. If you would like to add your message of support to the Wells family go to caringbridge.org and enter ritawells (all one word) and to the guest book.