Last summer blast and missing Jade already

It has been a Great Summer ! We just got back from visiting the Grand Canyon with Jade and a her cousin Ashley, who is a great, easy kid. I hiked just about everything "ouch" and the girls had a blast in their matching pink bandanas. We were in heaven, I remember thinking as I watched the full moon, the canyon and the lightening storm while the girls giggled nearby, it can't get better than this. It had been a looooong time since I felt that good though I make an effort to be happy most of the time. We had dinner in the beautiful lodge restaurant at sunset and Dar was grinning ear to ear. He really needed this break! We stayed at our ranch a couple hours away in the new home our parents built for us kids when we visit. it's plenty big for us and friends but still cannot imagine having that kind of money so it is quite a blessing. We watched phelps win his eighth gold medal in our new living room, spent time with my parents and cousins and everyone went on Dad's pontoon boat and rode tubes behind it. My mom liked my new fossil sunglasses I got for dirt cheap so I gave them to her, I only have one mom after all. For several days before Jade was in a lot of pain with a new tooth and after four appointments and seven opinions and me hunting down through primary children's hospital, the best pediatric dentist Jade had her first root canal. I had to hear the word Rare for the third time in our lives, what are the odds? I burst into tears thinking Jade had autoimmune disease because mine also started in my teeth. It turns out it SHOULD be unrelated, she has a tooth within a tooth and no roots. It is right up front, if she loses it she loses the bone and she has a lot of difficult procedures ahead of her including an implant and moving teeth and they cannot do the implant til she is twenty. I need to be here to help her. She was a trooper until it was over and then she collapsed in my arms and I picked her up. I don't know where I got the strength to hold her but I did not even lose my breath, tender mercy. I took her home, she finally got an appetite and then she slowly started acting like herself again. We hurried and packed thinking the trip was cancelled til then and left the next morning. We went home through zion's nearby and we took the kids to big rock candy mountain. Last night I peeked at Jade sleeping, we never made it to more swimming lessons but we had a great summer. I cried again. I will lose her on Monday. Even after school she will be in her own world of friends, homework, tennis, insecurities about fifth grade politics and her boo bear. Once in a while she will seek me out and tell me she misses me a lot and I will get to see her for an hour or two. She is my best girl friend in the world but she has her own life and that is how it is supposed to be, so I better quit blogging because today is a gift, that is why they call it the present, and Monday will come all too soon.