Family – Page 12 – xangelle.com

Getting Away from it All (part 2)

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and even before we got there, the kids were already asking to go swimming.

So we all got our bathing suits on and headed back to the pool.

I really was on this vacation – see?!?

The pool had actually been closed for maintenance and had just re-opened all clean and sparkly on the day before we arrived. Between that and the fact that we were the only ones in the pool the entire time we were there…..it was perfect for someone with a compromised immune system.

Josiah was SO excited to be able to be swimming. He spent the majority of the time in the hot tub, and so did I. We typically would go swimming every week, but, back in the summer, we had to cancel our membership to the Walnut Grove Rec Centre because the pool is just not a great place for Geli and we didn’t want the other kids picking something up and bringing it home and so it was such a treat to be able to swim as much as we wanted for a few days.

Jon and Jeremy and Judah hit the weight room before they came swimming…..

I think this was the most exciting part of the weight room – for Jeremy…..

We don’t have cable and so it was such a treat.

Judah worked on some push ups…..gotta build up that upper body strength, eh?

This is the 80 ft water slide that is inside the hotel. It was AWESOME! It’s almost pitch black inside the tube and you can get going pretty fast. It took a while and a little bit of coaxing, but even Josiah went down the slide.

There were lots of smiles….

and a lot of silliness…..

And SO. MUCH. SWIMMING!

It was so amazing to step away from everything. To get away from our house, from school, from work, from cleaning, for deadlines, from everything and to just do something totally fun together as a family. After Swimming on Tuesday morning, Jeremy snuggled up next to Jon and looked close into his eyes and said, “Thank you Daddy. Thank you SO MUCH for bringing us here. This is the BEST EVER!” All the kids mentioned many times, just how thankful and grateful they were to be able to get away and to stay at the hotel and to go swimming.

Everyone relaxed and it felt like everyone was able to catch their breaths and de-stress a little.

It’s amazing how little time it took, once we got home, for everyone to try to pick up the stress again. Xani came to me panicking about school and homework and I actually told her that for that night, we were still on vacation and that she got to relax and take it easy and then tomorrow she could make a list of everything she needed to get done and to then start plugging away at it.

This is kind of where we are at. Times away like this are so precious, because we do kind of have this weight of stress that we are living under. It’s like our reserves for dealing with normal (stressful) situations are all gone and we have barely enough to just hang on in each moment. I know this is not forever, but it does wear on me to see it playing out in my children. Children are not supposed to be stressed like this.

But, not to focus on the negative…..our time away was so fabulous. So needed. Such a blessing. So fun…..it was simply amazing.

We are so grateful to Jon’s parents for coming with us. It drastically reduced the kid to adult ratio…we were only out numbered by one. It was a blast to hang out with and to be able to spend some time away with them.

We are so thankful to the Super 8 in Aldergrove for giving us a great deal. We so hope to be able to come back again.

And we are so grateful that we were even afforded this amazing time away. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The opportunity to escape was such a gift.

If you are interested in seeing the rest of the pictures from our time away, click here...

Getting Away From It All (part 1)

Thanks to the unbelievable generosity of some amazing people we were able to “get away” from everything for 2 days and 2 nights. It was so needed and so perfect for us.

We made plans to take the kids to the Super 8 in Aldergrove. They have a fabulous pool and water slide in the hotel. And that made this particular hotel so SO perfect for us. Our kids are the hugest water bugs that you’ve ever seen and we knew that they would love to go somewhere and swim as much as they could for a few days. It sounded like the perfect get away and in hind sight, it was! It was absolutely perfect!

We sent the kids off to school on Monday morning while we tried to get a few things done around the house and to ready ourselves to head out later that afternoon. Jon’s parents were up for “getting away from it all” and so they decided to join us.

At dinner time, we met up with Jon’s parents and we went for dinner and then headed out to the hotel. We got there, unpacked and took the kids down to the pool. We swam for over an hour and then headed up to bed. The next morning we got up and hit the complimentary breakfast. This hotel had the most amazing breakfast. Everyone enjoyed themselves and as soon as they finished breakfast, the kids wanted to head back to the pool.

Jon and Siah relaxing’ at breakfast

Xani and Geli were over the 12 year old age limit and so they headed into the pool – just the two of them – but the boys had to wait until I was able to take them into the pool. They were pretty patient through.

Judah got in some good cuddles with Nana.

After we finished a couple of hours of swimming, we headed up to our room to dry off and just relax.

We had picked up some fake mustaches before we headed to the hotel and in light of the whole “Movember” deal….we decided to try them out. I realize it’s not quite the same, but we had a lot of fun…

Judah looked quite sweet in his “stach…..

Jeremy was throwing out his best Rico Suave vibe……

Me and mah boy….rocking our ‘staches…..

Geli rocks the teeny, tiny mustache…

While Siah sends out a little grey action….

Xani just ended up looking a little strange…

We even convinced Nana to get in on the mustache loving…

And finally….here are my men. Looking so, SO sweet!

Looooooooong after the rest of us got tired of the mustaches….Jeremy carried on. He is SO cute.

Judah did pretty good in the hotel. He was happy and easy going. He did have some rough nights. And that meant that I had some pretty rough nights….which ultimately……SUCKED. But other than that….he was amazing.

Xani and Nana pulled out the puzzles. We do love to do some puzzles.

After a bit, we headed for lunch….

Siah LOVES his ketchup. Basically, the fries are a tool to get the ketchup into his mouth.

We had lots of laughs and giggles and after lunch, we headed back to the hotel for more swimming……..

(stay tuned for part 2)

Creating Saturday’s

Geli actually cleared her Methotrexate from her system by the 48 hour blood draw but had to stay until hour 56 to get the last “rescue” medicine….

This means that she cleared the chemo from her system (down to below the acceptable level) within 24 hours. AMAZING!

Technically, she was allowed to leave the hospital after the last dose of her rescue med…..which needed to be given at 11:00pm on Sunday night. There was a lot of excitement about possibly being able to go home and sleep in their own beds, and some concern that it might be too late at night and might just cause more upset and stress (on Geli) to try and rush and leave in the middle of the night. In the end, the call of their own beds won out and they chose to leave at 11:30pm.

Jon’s parents – ever so wonderfully – picked Jon and Geli up from the hospital at 11:30pm and drove them home. It was so nice to have them home, even if it was just a few hours earlier than planned, and even nicer to not have to drive into town. Especially with that 8-10 car pile up on HWY 1 this morning. YIKES!

Kicking the Fall Leaves

Jon and I and the kids got up a little late and were quite slow this morning. Geli slept in. Xani and Jer were already to go to school….breakfast eaten, clothes on, back packs packed, lunches in backpacks, even shoes on….and then Xani melted down. I’m not sure what the exact problem is/was…whether she was overtired. No one seems to sleep well when Geli’s in the hospital. Or if she just really missed Jon and Geli…well, to be honest, I have no idea what the real problem is/was and at this point I’m not really interested in delving too deeply.

I was a bit surprised that she was upset and crying, even though I shouldn’t have been.

Jon took Jeremy to school. I sent Xani upstairs to sleep, and when I went up 10 minutes later – she was snoring loudly. Obviously needing some extra sleep. Within an hour, Jeremy was calling from school crying about not feeling well and needing to come home and so Jon went to get him.

By this point, I just figured that we were going to have the “Saturday” that we didn’t get to have. We’d do what we needed to. Hang out. Have a slow, down day TOGETHER and then get the kids off to bed at an early time and start fresh on Tuesday. We’d just skip Monday, cause who really likes Mondays anyway, eh?

Just before Jon got home with Jeremy – who was fine….just needing some family time – Geli woke up and was feeling really REALLY good, comparatively.

We had a great day and even were able to think through some of the kids Christmas presents to each other and to their cousins. Our goal is to get everything done by the first week of December and then to be able to relax…….

HA HA HA HA HA HA! Relax! Okay, maybe I’ll just say…….. to be able to cross one thing (Christmas presents) off my list.

By now, it should come to no surprise to me that right now, in this tage of our lives, our family really needs to be with each other after a weekend away. I, in my adult thinking, know that they are only gone for just a few days and that Angelica’s not going in to the hospital “sick” and even with my knowledge and maturity *snort*….. I know how much “I” look forward to them being home and having some time “together”. And yet I’ve kind of just expected the kids to just keep trooping on as if everything is status quo.

I still think that anything that we can do “as normal” is a good thing, but that I need to be more prepared for when the kids indicate (through words, actions, or emotions) that they need a “family” day. It wasn’t a problem to keep them home and I think that it was right to send Jeremy until he asked to come home…..I just hadn’t thought through the possibility of them needing us to be together. “Together” was exactly what we needed.

Fortunately, this is her last “scheduled” hospital stay and for that, we breathe a sigh of relief and thankfulness.

It was a nice day. One that could have been better had I just thought through the different possibilities a little more……

This “whole thinking things through clearly” is really frustrating me right now…..but hey, today was an awesome Saturday!

I’m Tired

I have a few things that I’d love to post about.

Pictures to share and stories to write about, and honestly….I’m just too tired.

Geli and her cousin, Jack

Things are going relatively well. We’re gearing up for Angelica’s last round of the High Dose Methotrexate which will be happening this Friday though Monday.

Hopefully, I’ll have more energy and time to post soon.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

We’ve received a few letters and cards and e-mails and every time, it feels like a hug….so THANK YOU!

It means so much. It might seem like to so little, but to us it’s HUGE!

We appreciate everyone of you so much! Thanks for standing with us, and supporting us.

Cousins

Back at the beginning of the month, MY cousin came over to help around the house. She brought her daughter with her.

Charlotte is, quite literally, one of the most beautiful babies I’ve seen.

Her smile is amazing and her eyes sparkle like…..like……..well, they sparkle…..A LOT!

She’s older than Judah, roughly the same size, no where close to his weight, and so obviously 7 months older in actions and abilities. She is just so stinkin’ cute!

She was quite enamored with Judah and when we put him down on the floor for some tummy time, she was so adorably curious.

There were lots and lots and LOTS of kisses and taps. She was so SO gentle with Judah.

I love that our family and extended family are so close and that our kids get to grow up together. Family is AWESOME! I remember when I was younger and all us cousins would get together. We have some fabulous memories, and I’m looking forward to being able to watch this next generation make their own amazing memories.

Stolen Moments

The day that Geli was scheduled to start this current phase of treatment, the oncology clinic was slammed with too any cases and to try to squeeze Geli in would have caused some issues and so they bumped her treatment for one day.

Jon called me that morning to let me know that they were kicking Geli out on a day pass. In about 5 minutes, we had decided to yank the kids from school and come in for the day.

The kids were SO excited to be going in to see Geli and Jon. Because the kids had been sick with coughs and colds, we’d not seen Jon or Geli in almost 2 weeks and it was tough on all of us.

We made it in to the hospital just after noon and Geli had until 4pm before she needed to be back at the hospital for her next dose of antibiotics. We went to Red Robin’s for lunch and after we headed down to Granville Island.

We went to the Kidzone area in Granville Island and the kids had a blast.

They LOVE the skeeball game……and Geli had fun showing/helping Siah to play.

I walked around holding the baby and snapping pictures and just enjoying my family enjoying each other.

There were lots of laughs and lots of smiles and the kids seemed genuinely happy to see each other. They all played SO well together.

Jon got the opportunity for some extra snuggles. It’s been extra hard with everything that’s going on because Jon has missed out on so much of Judah’s early days…..

The kids played and played and played some more….

And then counted up their tickets that they won. They pooled all the tickets together. Geli and Xandra let Jeremy get something with all their tickets. This was very generous of them.

Josiah found the dancing game and he didn’t even need the game turned on to bust a few moves…

He hasn’t quite grasped the concept of “playing” an actual game…he “thinks” he is playing the game, even with no tokens…

My Sweet Boy…..with the Frankenstein stitches in his head….AWESOME!

We made it back to the hospital in time and Geli got her drugs hooked up. After her drugs ran, she was headed out again to the Teen Group. The oncology department has a monthly teen event for the kids to be able to connect with other kids who are going through what they are going through and it’s been a good thing for Geli. She was unsure if she really wanted to go and was feeling a bit insecure, but she did go and had a GREAT TIME! (They went “glow-in-the-dark bowling and it was so cool!)

The kids and I stayed to hang out with Jon for an extra 2 hours…

We stopped at Safeway to pick up some food for dinner and headed to a nearby park. Judah screamed the whole way there. Just keeping it real for his dad….he HATES his car seat and does this just about every time he’s put in it.

The kids swung on tire swings….

….played on the toys….

……slept……

and Josiah climbed so high on the climbing toys and freaked us right out. That little boy is part Mountain Goat. He managed to scale the toys up and down multiple times without any issue and he was definitely higher than either Jon or I were comfortable with…and then……….. then he tripped over a piece of wood that was laying on the ground….how does that work out???

It started to get colder as the sun went down and I wrapped Judah up like a burrito….only it required two blankets as he’s so big….so I guess it was a REALLY BIG Burrito?!?

Pretty soon it was time to go home and the sadness set in along with the reality that we were going home and Daddy had to stay with Geli.

There were tears and hugs…..

and even kisses….

And we headed home. Our hearts a little fuller from a day spent together. A day that we did not expect to get and yet a day that was a gift. Those stolen moments are so precious and are the things that fuel you and help you to carry on when things seems so difficult and “off”.

You can see all the pics, if you want, here…..

Laying Aside The Pride…….

This is a difficult post for me to write.

I need help.

I hate asking for help. I hate needing help. I’ve taken great pride in being able to take care of my family on my own and now……..now I am coming humbly and asking for help.

Up until now, I’ve been trying to “do” everything and honestly, we are not doing well. I am not doing well. I feel completely overwhelmed and like I am at my breaking point. I, personally, have had one too many melt downs just recently and I need to be a bit stronger to deal with the demands on my time and energy for the long haul. I’d like to say that were it not for all this cancer crap, that I’d be doing okay but…..we are dealing with cancer and 5 kids and all the craziness and chaos that surrounds us.

I’ll do a more detailed update on how we (individually) are all doing soon, but honestly, it’s not pretty. It’s pretty rough over here and we have a long road ahead of us.

There are about 32 weeks of Intensive Chemotherapy Treatment left for Angelica before she starts the maintenance stage. This (the maintenance stage) is when our Doctor has talked about things getting back to more of a normal stage of life. Until then, not counting any time for delays, we are looking at more than 6 months of treatment. That’s a long time!

Right now, we feel like we are barely hanging on and while we’ve had offers of help in the past, we just didn’t know what to do with the help. And…..I thought I’d be able to deal with everything.

And so, to anyone who has offered or is interested, I’m asking for help!

There are so many ways that someone could help. It doesn’t have to be a huge commitment. It could be a one time commitment, or weekly or even monthly. It could be 15 minutes or longer and there are many different ways that you could help. From cleaning, to meals, to helping with the kids, to sending a card or e-mail – anything that helps to lift some of the burden from us would be amazing.

The strain of dealing with the Chemotherapy Treatment is SO MUCH GREATER than just some physical discomfort for Angelica. Walking your child through the Treatment is a full time job. There are the physical issues that come as a result of the treatment like nausea, vomiting, mouth sores, weight loss, lack of appetite, muscle loss due to inactivity as a result of the physical devastation of the chemo drugs, insomnia, fatigue and pain. There is the mental anguish and fear from everything going on and not understanding 100%, to the fear of the unknown and the future. There is the schedule of treatment. It’s a brutal wicked schedule and the treatment center is an hour away from us, more if there is traffic. It is a huge thing to deal with.

Add in 4 other children each with their own specific needs and add on top of that the fear and confusion of having a sister dealing with cancer and a mom and dad who are distracted and overwhelmed and not available in the way that they have been.

Add in 2 jobs, neither of which are being done well. Add in the extra house work and meals and school work, oh and the stress of not having any time to invest in each other or the kids, individually, throw in finances and you have an unbelievable recipe for disaster. This is not even the whole picture……

I’m not trying to whine and complain. Realistically, this is just where we are at.

We are so grateful and thankful for every thing, big and small that we’ve been blessed with. We have been so SO blessed by so many.

If you have offered to help or are interested in helping, we are at the place where we are willing to accept it and we hope that we have an easy way to explain what we need.

We are not expecting anything and right now, we have nothing more than our gratefulness and thankfulness to offer in return.

But…….if you are interested in helping, please click here and see the sheet that we’ve created with some of the details.

Highlighting the Highlights

So I turned 35 a few days ago and while it wasn’t the best birthday that I’ve had, I suppose that it could have been worse. As it turns out……it is what it is and there is nothing that I can do to change or to alter it and so here are the highlights of it all….

This is a picture of me bright and early on my 35th birthday. This is the “raw” me. No make up, no hair (ha) and wearing a pretty bland, white tank and jeans.

As much as this is not my FAVORITE picture of me….I suppose that it could be a lot worse and I’m not entirely disappointed in how 35 looks on me. Eh?

Here is the Birthday Banana that the girls made for me. Very creative if you ask me……

Then there was the crazy, no good, horrible, terrible day that happened. In the evening, my momma came over and took the kids and I down to Derby Reach. We picked up some sushi and ate at a picnic table as the evening turned to night. It was a break from the craziness of the day and a treat. Jon and I used to go for a weekly sushi date before Angelica was diagnosed and we haven’t gone since. Thank, Momma! I love you. You have and continue to be such a help and encouragement to me.

Momma took Siah for a sleepover on Saturday night and after we woke up on Sunday morning we went for breakfast at Ricky’s Restaurant. This is another favorite thing of mine to do. I love breakfast…..any time of the day. Eggs and Hashbrowns and bacon or sausage………MMMMMMmmmmm! Debbie, Denver and Jack joined us. In all the insanity of this whole crazy journey, it’s nice to do something ordinary.

The kids and I came home and spent the rest of Sunday as just a quiet at home day. I figured that if I was going to get all the kids down to bed on my own that I’d need to start early. We had a few too many leftover’s in the fridge and so rather than spending time cooking, I re-heated and everyone got to choose a little bit of this and a little bit of that. My mom came over just as things were warming and she stayed for dinner. I was able to get the dishes cleaned and the kids in jammies while she held Judah. So SO nice.

Just as I was shooshing the kids upstairs to read before I turned out their lights, my sister Debbie came rushing into my house carrying a cake stand…….with a cake. SURPRISE!

They sang happy birthday to me….

Even Judah joined in with a few squeeks and squawks…..

And we even managed to get Jon in on the action through Skype. (Geli was sleeping thanks to some meds.)

After my post mentioned emotional eating, I’ve made a few changes for myself, my health and my diet; and the cake Debbie brought over was sooooo appreciated.

Isn’t that amazing? It’s watermelon on the bottom two layers, and a layer of canteloupe and a layer of pineapple. With thin layers of strawberries and banana’s in between. The sauce is a soy yogurt blended with strawberries, and those are grapes for fancy candles…..

Debbie is amazing.

It was even more delicious than it looks and was a great way to end off the day after my 35th birthday.

What was even better, was that I managed to get all the kids asleep early and was in bed, myself, by 8:30pm. Sleep is an amazing thing.

So, it wasn’t all bad……more like difficult or tough or just not what I was expecting or had hoped for.

But, we carry on.

2 Stitches

As if we didn’t have enough drama in our lives right now, Siah decided to shake things up a little last night.

Jon, Jeremy and Siah were down in the basement playing a video game. Siah was sitting on the arm rest of our futon and he unbalanced himself and fell forward hitting his head on the corner of a wooden toy box.

Breakfast

Mom, the girls, Judah and I were up in the kitchen and heard the thunk. It was that loud. Then we heard Jon yell and then we heard Siah crying and it was “one of those cries.”

I raced downstairs and met Jon at the bottom of the stairs. He handed Siah off to me and there was blood everywhere. I could see that his head was split open in between his eyes. We came up stairs and got a rag to try to stop the blood. It was apparent that he’s need stitches.

First Bite

We hoped that we could make it to the local clinic that did Jeremy’s stitches as we’ve talked with them about our challenges of dealing with germs and sickness due to Angelica’s suppressed immune system, BUT….it was 7:30pm and they were closed at 8pm and they were already over booked for the day and were not even answering their phone.

And so Jon headed to the ER.

The plan was for Jon to wear a mask into the ER and explain the situation and see how they could work with us to get Siah the care that he needed while attempting to keep us as germ free as possible.

The staff at Langley Hospital were amazing.

Geli’s Delicious Cinnamon Buns

They didn’t have any open rooms at the time, but they planned to get a room emptied and clean out and to bring Jon and Siah in and straight back to the closed room as soon as possible. They gave Jon a small mask for Siah to wear in and out and in the waiting time, they stayed in the van to minimize the possibility of picking anything up from other ill people.

They waited in the van and the triage nurse came out to the van to assess Siah and yup….he needed stitches.

It took a few hours, and in the mean time, Siah fell asleep.

See Food

When the room was finally ready, Jon carried the sleeping Siah in. He said that they got quite a few looks, as he’d been in and out with his mask on and now they were carrying a limp child in with a mask on….can you imagine that others in the waiting room must have been wondering what was wrong with this child that they had to wear masks????

Jon tried to wake Siah up to explain what was about to happen, but he had tired himself out so badly with his initial screaming when it happened that he was NOT waking up. He was in that drowsy state where you’re not really awake but not really asleep. They finally wrapped him like a burrito to keep him from being able to move his arms and the Dr checked to see that Jon was okay with what was going to happen and once he was sure that Jon wasn’t going to flip out….they started.

They had already put on a fast acting numbing cream and they started injecting the freezing and that’s when Siah woke up for real. So in his mind, probably, he went to sleep and was woken up to some dude poking his head with a needle. AWESOME! Jon said he screamed until he wasn’t breathing. Brutal! The Doctor only put in two stitches because he figured that was about all that Siah could handle and even though he was being quick, it was still pretty traumatic.

He told Jon that the cut was extremely straight and that it should heal amazingly because it was such a precise cut.

2 Stitches

They masked up again and came home. Siah settled down pretty quickly once Jon was able to hold him and was almost asleep by the time they reached the van.

They got home before 11pm….not bad considering the waits in ER’s now a days.

He went to bed right away and slept through until 6am when he crawled into bed with us.

This morning he seems to be doing okay and so we are just gonna take it easy today. Geli’s doing pretty good this morning too. We were attempting to adjust her meds schedule around so that we were not having to wake up at 3am to give her a dose, but that meant that she might be a little barfy this morning. She did feel a bit off and dry heaved for about 45 minutes off and on until the meds finally kicked in. Her and Siah are back downstairs in the basement this morning. She is teaching Josiah how to play the original NES Nintendo Super Mario Brother’s game. He’s thrilled and she’s distracted and it’s good.

This is now the 4th of our 5 kids that have gotten stitches in their head…..when she was about 8 years old, Geli wacked her head open on a floor heater and needed 3 stitches. When Xani was about 10, her cousin went all vmapire on her and tried to take a bite out her head while they were jumping on a trampoline and she needed 3 stitches. A few weeks ago, Jeremy got 3 stitches in his chin and now Josiah has had 2 stitches in between his eyes…..GAH!

I’m really hoping and praying that Judah stays safe and protected.

Do you have any cool stories about “that time you got stitches” or your kids……Please share!

Barfing Sucks

Geli had her appointment on Tuesday for this week’s dose of chemotherapy.

Not surprising her counts were low enough to score her a free bag of platelets. In fact, she was actually too low to receive the intra-muscular injections BUT………there seems to be WAY TOO MANY BUTS recently……..they were out of platelets and had to have some brought in from an outside source.

They did end up giving her the injection anyway and had her hold bags of ice on her thighs to help her blood clot. (Platelets help your blood to clot and when they are low you are more susceptible to nose bleeds and other uncontrolled bleeding from cuts or bad bruising.) After the injections, they have to observe Angelica for 3 hours to make certain that she doesn’t have a serious allergic reaction and so if they had waited for a couple of hours until the platelets came in and then gave the platelets over an hours time period and then gave the intra-muscular injections and then watched her for the 3 hours…..well, they wouldn’t have been able to leave the hospital until after 7:30pm. This way, they were able to leave and get home by 6pm. So, it cut a few hours off the day, which was nice.

Angelica felt pretty good on Tuesday during the day, but started to feel a bit off by the time they got home…..She ate about half of her dinner and then started to really struggle with nausea. She tried valiantly to not barf but about 10:30pm she just couldn’t fight anymore. It was not pretty and it was the start of a very long, very nasty night.

We were up ALL night with her barfing and barfing and barfing and nothing was helping.

Finally she fell asleep around 5am and slept until the next “episode” at 7am. She managed to eat a tiny bit of breakfast, took her meds and around 10:30am was having a hard time keeping her eyes open or being able to sit up and so I sent her off to bed. She slept hard, only waking for me to give her some more anti-nausea meds at 11am and then slept until 2pm.

When she woke up, she ate some soup and crackers and seemed to look and act a little perkier than she had been. She seemed to be acting like she might be on the mend in the afternoon. Although, she was still pretty tired; she tried to eat some dinner and then when the other kids went to bed around 8pm….she did too.

I had planned on going to an exercise class with my sister and so I dragged myself off to the class and although it wasn’t my best class, for having next to no sleep, it wasn’t too bad.

I wondered how the night would go for us, but aside from our two littlest men tag teaming each other and managing to wake us every other hour, it was a pretty quiet night.

This morning, I was so tired, I couldn’t get up and so Jon got the kids up and off to school and I was surprised to hear that Geli had been up and at ’em like nothing was wrong…..AWESOME!

Her and Jon headed off to a BC BioMedical Lab to get her blood work done to see if she’d need another transfusion tomorrow and then they came home.

I asked Geli if she’d like to make some buns or bread with me and she was quite excited by the idea. If Geli was excited…..Siah was ECSTATIC! He LOVES to cook and bake. I’m not usually so excited as he makes quite a mess and making buns is already quite a messy endeavor, but I figured we could try to make it work.

Here is Siah, excited by his little bit of dough. (We were at “waiting for it to rise” stage)

In this next picture you can the “mess” a bit clearer…..Siah really “gets into” his baking.

I told Geli that this could be a “Home Ec.” class and that part of the Home Ec. mark always included the clean up.

We waited for the dough to rise and then punched it down, then it rose again and we punched it down again and then broke the dough up to make Cinnamon Buns, Coconut Buns, Cheese Buns and Plain Buns. The Coconut Buns are baking, but here are the rest of the buns still rising.

Angelica and Jon have gone to the High School to meet with her teachers. Based on her number today, she will be able to attend school on Monday. (They are trending upward, and should be okay for Monday.) She has more chemo on Tuesday, but should be good to go for Wednesday through the following Monday. Then she starts the Third Round of her treatment on Tuesday September 21st and that stage requires her to be admitted for 3-4 days every 2 weeks.

We are praying that Angelica would remain healthy and be able to attend school over this next week and a bit and that she would totally enjoy her school time and be able to feel integrated in with all her other class mates. Also that our other kids would remain healthy and not pick up any illness from the other kids in their school.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30