It's good to see Braintalk (or something like it) back up again.

Just like everybody else's life, it's been pretty busy here. We went on 3 vacations this summer: NYC, Boston, and northern Michigan. (Josie's Restaurant in NYC did an awesome job of feeding us safe food that matched the allergy requirements of everybody at the table.) I'm 4 months pregnant, in my first gluten-free pregnancy -- a much easier pregnancy than any of my four previous ones. And our (gluten-free) teenage exchange student arrived from Germany, right in the middle of heightened airport security that caused her to miss a flight connection and unexpectedly get stuck in Chicago overnight. But she's here now and we all already adore her. Now we're learning how to register a kid for high school -- a surprisingly complicated process that we've never attempted before, so we are learning a lot about how to do it.

Congratulations to everybody with good news -- especially to Mrs. Bear, who got married. And condolences to everybody with bad news, especially the folks who mentioned lost pets.

-Valerie