Family – Page 8 – xangelle.com

Day 4 – Grand Caymans

We were headed to the Cayman Islands and expected to be able to get off the ship sometime mid morning.

Before the trip even started we had signed up for the Port Adventure to the Beach. I figured that as much fun as some of the other adventures might be…..the kids really wanted to just swim, and swim and swim and swim and SWIM. And, taking the different ages of the kids into account and Angelica’s fitness level….the beach just seemed like the best place to be for our family.

The day started out much like the night before had ended off….grey and muggy with some showers off and on.

In order to get off the boat, we needed to board a smaller boat which then taxied us to the docks. The Cayman Islands did not have the capability for the cruise ship to dock. And so around 11am, we lined up at the bottom of the cruise ship to start the “tendering” process. As we pulled away from the cruise ship, it started to POUR. The air was still warm, but it was definitely wet.

It took about 10 minutes for us to get to the dock and as we stepped off the boat, it was still raining. We were a bit early to meet up with our Port Adventure Group and so we walked around the shops on the dock of the Grand Caymans….and while we were popping in and out of the little shops looking at souvenirs the rain stopped.

Finally it was time to head to the beach, and we, along with approx 100 others, got onto the buses and headed out. The bus driver was a fabulous tour guide. He talked non-stop for the 15 minutes it took to drive down to the beach that we were going to. He had a lot of interesting facts and stories about the Cayman Islands and the scenery was incredible.

We finally showed up at the beach and again, it was raining….we all huddled under the beach’s small covered area and listened to the beach host explain a few things and then…….then they released us and we headed out to claim our very own little patch of heaven on the beach.

The weather couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind and it alternated between raining and not raining. In fact, the Cruise people came by to let everyone know that the buses would be available to take us back early if we wanted because of the bad weather.

I’d say that more than half of the people returned to the ship, but seeing as we had come to the beach with the point of getting wet…..we weren’t planning on going ANYWHERE.

The water was warm, and the air was warm, and we had umbrellas to cover our stuff; and so we just swam and played in the sand. It was SO. MUCH. FUN.

The baby fell asleep after about an hour of playing in the water, crawling on the beach and throwing the sand; and so we wrapped him up in a damp towel, put him on a beach chair under an umbrella and he slept for about an hour. On most of our Port days, he had a good hour nap….I think he was just so worn out from the excitement of it all.

It was so much fun to swim in the warm, BLUE ocean water, when all we are used to is a slightly grey/brown freezing cold ocean experience.

Jon rented a jet-ski and took the three older kids out for turns. We also rented some snorkel gear and the kids had a blast just swimming around, trying to find different fish and shells.

Jeremy LOVED snorkeling. He snorkeled for the entire time that we were at the beach (3 hours). He collected some very cool looking little shells. This was pretty much what he looked like for almost all of the time that we were at the beach.

Josiah LOVED the beach and figured out that he could actually swim while we were at this beach. I think that the combination of the waves lifting him helped and for whatever reason he was very confident and was SO excited to actually be out swimming. He didn’t go very far away from the shore, and stayed very close to us but he was actually swimming, on his own!

Starting to swim in the Cayman Islands is a pretty cool life experience.

The rain had eased up a bit and the weather was actually pretty nice. It was warm, but we were not being fried to a crisp by the broiling sun. I was actually pretty happy that it was a bit cloudy because then I wasn’t stressing about sunscreen and making the kids wear shirts and hats and trying to avoid sunstroke.

They could just play without being nagged at. It was a win/win for all of us.

About an hour before we were scheduled to leave, the rain started up again and then…..

Can you see in that picture? Click on the photo to make it bigger…..

Yes, Lightening. We had Thunder and Lightening and it was kinda of cool. It was far enough away but still….it was interesting.

The bus returned for us around 3:30pm and we headed back. The last call for boats to the cruise ship was at 4:30pm and there was a HUGE line up. So instead of looking around a bit, we just got in the line up and headed back to the ship.

It had been a WONDERFUL DAY and we had so much fun. The rain didn’t dampen our spirits, in fact, we were SO looking forward to being at COZUMEL the next day and heading to the beach AGAIN!

If you are interested in looking at all the photos from the Grand Caymans, click here!

I didn’t take too many photos because I was concerned about getting water and sand in my camera.

I’ve gotten a few questions and I’ll be answering them when I talk about the next sea day (which is day 6) so if you had any questions about our trip or wondered about something, let me know and I’ll be sure to do my best answer them.

A Day at Sea

By Monday (October 3rd) we were more than ready for a quieter, slower, more peaceful day. We had been going, going, going for the past 3 days and it was wearing a bit on all of us.

The night before, we had been notified that there was going to be a special breakfast with the Disney Characters the next morning.

The kids needed to be woken up almost every morning of the cruise, they were just so tired out from the previous day’s activities. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but on this particular morning, we slept in longer than we should have and had to rush to make it to breakfast on time.

“Rushing” is not necessarily the most amazing way to start the day, eh?

We did manage to make it down to breakfast on time with our camera’s and autograph books and we ordered breakfast and waited. It was so cool to see how excited the kids were to see Mickey and Minnie and the others. From the 14 year old all the way down the the 4 year old….the air was just buzzing with the anticipation and excitement. For the record, my one year old was NOT excited about meeting Mickey and Minnie….not that he had any clue either way, but when they did come around……he was….well, he was terrified, to put it mildly! He did not like them AT ALL! It was pretty cute!

Before Breakfast even arrived at the table, the Character’s started visiting…

We met Minnie and Micky,

and Pluto….

and Goofy…

It was so fun!

While we were finishing up our breakfast, our head server came over with some special hats…

So Cute!

Maid Marion…

Robin Hood…

Pirate Jon…

This one has me a little lost…..Any Ideas?

After breakfast, we wandered the boat a little, did a little swimming, played in the arcade, had a small bite to eat and then made everyone take a nap. The kids had been hanging in there pretty well, but they were a bit snippy with each other and I figured it was something that a small nap would help…..and it did!

We woke up just before the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was about to begin and so we hurried down to have “a spot of tea” with Alice…..

There was “apple juice” tea and oatmeal cookies and we all learned how to have a proper Queen’s tea party….we even learned about manners. And then the Mad Hatter came in and things livened up a bit….

“Clean Cup! Move Down!”

The kids wanted to get their picture taken with Alice and the Mad Hatter and so we lined up after the tea party.

By the time the tea party was done, we had enough time to rush back to our rooms, and get dressed for dinner and head back on down to dinner….sometimes it felt like all we were doing was eating.

The kids were so excited because they got things like hamburgers & fries and chicken nuggets & fries for almost every meal (except breakfast).

Can you see the Ketchup Mickey on Siah’s Hamburger?

Or How about Goofy’s paw print?

The Gluten free dinner’s were okay. They were pretty bland and definitely not creative, but once I started asking for specifics….like I chose salmon one night and it came really dry and completely unseasoned…and the next night I asked for it again with a lemon dill sauce…..and it was AMAZING!….it was much better. I didn’t figure I was going to get dessert but this night they brought out the MOST DELICIOUS Chocolate mini cake. And Jon thought to take a picture….YUM!

The nicest part was that it was both Gluten and Dairy free and so Siah could have it and he was SO EXCITED. When he saw this picture on my screen, he said, “Mom, that cake was DELICIOUS, right?” Yes, baby! Yes, it was!

When we got back to our rooms, we were greeted by this friendly fellow…

It looks like Judah is going to “take him on”…

As we went to bed that night, this was the view out our balcony…..

The temperature was still hot and muggy but it had been a grey and cloudy day. We were looking forward to our day at the beach in the Grand Cayman’s and as the ship gently rocked….we drifted off to sleep!

If you’d like to see the whole set from this day, click here!

Do ya have any questions for us, about our cruise? Let us know and we’ll try our best to answer them for you!

Day 2 – Key West

After a good sleep, we woke up on Sunday morning ready for the day.

We headed down to the restaurant for Breakfast.

We found that to get through breakfast took just over an hour which was longer than we’d like, but it was mostly because we had to special order the food for Josiah, Judah and myself….but, the food really was delicious.

After Breakfast, we had some time to explore the boat because we weren’t docking into Key West until just after noon.

We decided to head on up to the pools to see what fun we could have up there for a few hours.

There are three pools on the boat. The adult only pool (that we never even got a chance to check out), the Goofy Pool (that’s the one that Jeremy is in, in the photo above) and a Mickey Pool (that is more suitable for littler kids).

Attached to the Mickey Pool is a Water Slide and Josiah must have gone down the slide over 30 times…

Over and Over and Over….

He had SO MUCH FUN! And we were loving watching him have so much fun! The girls were a bit bummed that they were too tall for the water slide, though! Because Judah is still in diapers, he wasn’t allowed in the pools, but they had this cool little water play area over to the side of the Mickey pool and we let Judah play a little in there.

He had a BLAST playing with the water fountains, but he kept trying to sit on them….it was so funny!

We were really enjoying the hot weather and the sun.

It was so nice to just be able to sit and relax….although I was worried about us burning in the freaking amazing sun. Thank God for Sunscreen!

The ship was getting close to Key West and so we decided to go and get ready to go ashore.

We hadn’t chosen to go on a “Port Adventure” at Key West, but we did decide to just go ashore and see what we could see and find. We couldn’t go very far because Angelica couldn’t walk very well and definitely not very far; and the HEAT…..well, it was a whole lot hotter and more humid than anything we were used to.

The kids found Key West to be a bit difficult because of the heat and humidity but we did still manage to find some fun things to do and see.

We got some gelato…and sat on the steps of this old museum (I think it was a museum!) to eat it.

The baby slept!

Found a tiny baby coconut that had fallen to the ground…Jeremy was pretty excited about it.

It appeared quite busy and so we carried on down the road until we found this alley…

There was a whole bunch of things to see and shops to look through and the best part…according to the kids….there was shade and even a place to sit.

We managed to pick up a few souvenir’s at the little shops. I LOVED the old cobblestone roads…cruel as this might sound, I’d LOVE to go back there WITHOUT the kids. There was so much to see and some really cool pictures to take (if we had the time and just a few less things to juggle).

We got back to the ship and had just a little time to relax before we needed to head on down for dinner. I pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures. I couldn’t understand why the pictures looked so fuzzy! My camera was all fogged up because it had been so warm outside and we were now in the cold air conditioned room.

Regardless of the fog, I still liked these pictures of Judah….

Here is one shot of Jeremy…

We managed to get all dressed up and down to dinner on time.

I really, REALLY liked getting dressed up for dinner. In fact, I’m thinking about having a dress up dinner at our house once a week.

After dinner, we went back to our rooms to change and when we got there we found this….

While we were at dinner, each evening, the Room Hosts would turn down the beds for the night and leave some amazing folded towel animals. It was a lot of fun to come back to the room after dinner and find out what animal they had created each day. There was even a class at the end of the week that Jeremy went to, because he was so excited about the “Towelgami”.

Jeremy and Josiah went to the Kids Club, and Xandra went to the Pre-Teen Group (and stayed until midnight, the crazy girl). Angelica and Jon and Judah and I relaxed a bit and attempted to get the room a bit more organized.

Angelica was still feeling pretty weak and tired; and she stuck pretty close to Jon and I for most of the trip.

It was a pretty good day and as we headed to bed for the night, we were looking forward to the next day which was a whole day at sea while we traveled to The Cayman Islands.

If you’re interested in seeing the whole set of pictures from this day, then click here.

The set of pictures is a bit out of order because there are downloads from 3 cameras.

Orlando and Day 1 of the Disney Cruise

We woke up on Saturday morning and sometime in the night we had played musical beds…

Well, actually just Geli and Jon switched rooms because apparently Jeremy was breathing heavy and it was bothering Angelica.

As it was the beginning of one of her chemo cycles, she was on the steroid Prednisone for 5 days and it makes sleeping difficult…so little annoyances become HUGE annoyances. Anyway, she crawled into bed with me and Judah; and Jon went and slept in the other room with Jer.

We got everyone up and repacked all our stuff because we had to have it ready for pick up at 8:30am as that is when it was being picked up to be sent to the boat. We grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed out to where the shuttle would take us to the ship.

It was about an hour’s bus ride from the airport to Port Canaveral and when we got there we got in touch with my cousin who lives in Florida. She lives about 2-3 hours away from Port Canaveral but Charlene and Jeff and all 4 of their kids had piled into their van early that morning and drove up to see us. We snapped a quick picture while we were waiting to connect with them…

It was SO HOT! So much hotter and WAY MORE HUMID than we were used to, but it was WONDERFUL at the same time. We were LOVING the heat and the sun. This next picture has nothing really to do with the story, but my little dude is just so cute so I had to throw it in….

Charlene picked us up and we drove to the closest Mcdonalds as we figured that would be the easiest and most comfortable place for all “9” of our kids to hang out and burn off some energy while we (the adults) got a chance to connect and chat.

Cousins

It was SO AWESOME to be able to connect and hang out and see them and chat and…..well, I could just go on and on. It was such a HUGE bonus to this already wonderful trip and I am so grateful and thankful that we got the opportunity and that Charlene and Jeff went so out of their way. You guys are amazing!

We managed to get a few pictures of both Char and I and of all 8 million of our children…

We even got some nice stranger to take one with the Jon and Jeff included….

I so wish that we lived closer to each other. It would be so fun to be able to get together more often. Jeff and Charlene are amazing people and their kids are such cool little people!

They took us back to the Port because the kids were starting to freak out about “getting on the boat” and so very reluctantly we said good bye.

It took a while to get signed in and registered and our pictures taken and all of the other stuff required to get us on the boat and the kids were thankful for the couches and movies playing all over the Disney Terminal.

Finally, FINALLY…it was time. All the papers were signed and the kids were registered and we could go onto the boat….You walk through that Mickey and into the walkway that takes you right into the boat.

And with that, our Cruise…..Angelica’s Wish Trip officially started. It was SO exciting. We went up to the Promenade to be apart of the big Kick off Party….

There was music and dancing and shiny metallic streamers to shake and…….. well, it was pretty emotional to just be there.

Right in the middle of all of all the excitement and partying, Judah just couldn’t take it any more and he just fell straight asleep. My sweet boy, he’d done so well with all the travel and the different planes and bus ride and hotel and he just couldn’t take it one moment longer.

To say that we were excited is such an understatement. It was AMAZING to just be there. We sat up on the deck while the party carried on and watched the boat push off from the dock. It was a bit surreal to realize that we were finally here after months of thinking and dreaming.

It had been a pretty exhausting 2 days of travel and so we just sat for a moment and relaxed….

Then it was time to go and get dressed for dinner. They require you to dress up a little for dinners and I loved it….it made the dinners just a little bit extra special to have to get dressed nice and then the kids were on their best behavior because it felt extra special…We were seated at table 28 and it was RIGHT BY THE WINDOW. Just after we sat down to eat, we were treated to an AMAZING sun set..

That first day is a bit of a blur because we were so tired, but we basically walked around the ship a bit after dinner and then we headed back to our rooms and finally with much effort (because they were a little buzzed on the excitement of it all) got the kids into bed. The next day we were going to be getting off the boat at Key West and we couldn’t wait to go and see what Key West was like….

If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the pictures from that day, click here!

We’re Baaaaa-aaaack!

Well, it’s Wednesday night around 5:30pm and I think that aside from sleeping…this is the first time I’ve sat down since we’ve gotten home.

Yah, things have been a bit busy, a little insane and to top it all off, we’ve been EXTREMELY exhausted!

Fun Times!

We had an AMAZING trip – a HUGE THANKS to Children’s Wish – without them, Angelica’s Wish Trip would have not been a possibility. We are so blown away by the generosity we have been shown.

I think that I’m gonna break the trip up into a few posts because there is just WAY TOO MUCH to share and it would be the worlds longest post if I tried to combine it all into just one.

It seems like forever ago that we were trying to get everything ready to go….

I climbed into bed just after midnight and tried to get my brain to settle down but it didn’t work very well. I’d been going, going, going for the past 3 days and had a horrible time to settle. I fell asleep shorty after 1:00am and woke up at….

It was a miracle….the baby slept through the night….well, he slept all the way from when we put him to bed until we picked him up and put him in the carseat to drive to the airport.

Here she is….the “Wish Girl”. Awake and ready for her trip….well, mostly awake but Oh! So! Excited!

We finally were all in the car and ready to go….

All I’ve got is camera phone pictures and so the quality is not that amazing!

We made it to the Airport perfectly on time and got checked in. There was an issue with us checking in…..a boarding pass for Judah never printed off….and there was quite a kufuffle as they tried to get one printed for him. Finally they printed an extra one of ours and crossed out our name and write his name on instead.

By this point, the kids were hungry and we had about an hour until our plane boarded….Jon went looking for something that would be gluten-free so that Judah and I could eat it as well…

….at this point last night, I had to take Angelica to physio and then it was a whirlwind of bedtime activities and now it’s 8am on Thursday morning….and sometimes I just wish my life would slow down for a while…

Jon eventually found something that was safe for us to eat and soon after we boarded. The whole concept of flying in an airplane was almost as exciting as the Cruise…..the kids were enthralled with the “tv’s” in the back of each chair…

We finally settled in for the 4.5 hour flight to Houston. The early morning excitement (and the Gravol that I fed them) took it’s toll and a few of the kids slept.

The baby woke up midway through the flight and of all the kids, he was the most difficult to entertain and even then, he did SO good!

We had enough time in The Houston Airport to find some food and pick up a souvenir or two and then we headed to our gate and waited there for a while. Trying to find gluten-free food on the go and in unfamiliar places is not the easiest, but fortunately there are enough places to choose from and we were able to find food every time we needed it.

Josiah was so excited about the idea of the airplane and he just watched out the window at all the activity as the airplane taxied up to the tunnel and unloaded and loaded up all the luggage….

We finally boarded the second flight to Orlando and although the kids were doing so well, we were all getting tired. We ended up traveling for 10 hours that day and we were all tired out by the end of the day….add in a 3 hour time change and there is a recipe for a disaster, but it all went so well. I have some pretty amazing kids, if I do say so myself.

We showed up in the Orlando Airport and spent some time trying to figure out where our luggage was and where we were supposed to go and finally we got checked into the Hyatt and found our luggage and went to grab a quick bit to eat…..this was probably the worst part of the day.

We asked for a gluten-free meal and the chef even came out to talk to me about it and then when the meal came, I ate a bite and then looked closer and was sure that there was barley in the rice mixture….I asked about it yes, they had given me the regular portion….I was pretty thankful that Judah had refused a bite when I had offered it to him but was pretty upset that they had messed up like that. I left and went back up to the room while the rest of the family finished up their food. The restaurant was so apologetic, and did give me a gluten-free dinner after that, but it really set me up to feel very stressed about food for the rest of the trip…..

Having said that, if that was the worst part of the whole trip that day….then the day went pretty well, considering that we woke up at 3am and traveled ALL DAY and didn’t get to sleep until after 10pm Florida time.

We finally got everyone to sleep, even though they were SO excited about heading out on the cruise the next day.

If you’re interested in seeing any more photo’s from our first day, click here!

Exile Island – the Wish Kids Edition

Today was quite a day!

Our family took part in an event put on by the Children’s Wish Foundation.

It was a “Survivor” type event, called Exile Island, that took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and it was AMAZING!

Every “Wish” child was partnered with a “Sponsor” who’s goal was to raise money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. The day was filled with activities and challenges that the “Wish” Child & Family and “Sponsor” worked together on to complete and possible win!

Our kids were all excited about today, mostly because they got to skip school to be apart of today’s activities. I think that they would have been more excited about the day had they known exactly how fun this event was going to be. We showed up at 11:30am and registered as a “Wish Family”.

Registering

After registering, we headed over to the lunch table to snag a few DELICIOUS sandwiches that were made by Marmalady Catering! AMAZING!

The Opening Ceremony was hosted by Tamara Taggart who is absolutely lovely and after it was finished, the events began.

Each team was responsible to make a flag to represent themselves and seeing as we are headed out on a Caribbean Cruise to Disney’s Castaway Cay……the kids decided that we should be called “the Castaways”

Our Team Flag – The Castaway’s

The Wish Kids were all introduced and then called up to bang the official GONG! How fun is that?

Just after Geli rang the GONG!

Our Sponsor was the lovely, Andrea Shaw of the TwentyTen Group.

It was an absolute pleasure to be partnered with her. She was kind and loving and so SO sweet with our entire family. She made today so much fun for all of our family and we are so grateful for all she has done in raising money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. It’s hard to fully express the gratitude that I feel and so a simple heartfelt Thank You will have to suffice.

I’m realizing now that I don’t have a picture of our family and Andrea and I’m hoping that I can get a hold of one because I know that there was one taken by the event photographer……now to figure out how to get my hands on it?!?

This was such a great event and our WHOLE family had a great time…from the adults all the way down to the youngest member of our family.

Judah…..although I think he was probably more excited about the balloon rather than the day’s activities.

After one of the challenges, the team was supposed to decorate a t-shirt and here was our team’s contribution.

Here is photographic proof that I was actually AT this event. I spent a good part of the day holding Judah and corralling Siah but I stopped for a quick moment for a shot of Siah and myself.

One of the events was a Scavenger Hunt and as part of it, you needed to dig through this kiddie pool full of crumpled newspaper to find certain items….

During the Scavenger Hunt

Siah had been eyeing the pool up for most of the day. He was SO EXCITED when the event was over and the pool had been dragged off to the side and the had the opportunity to jump in for himself…..

And SERIOUSLY…..what event would be complete without a Dance Party…

Jeremy has some MOVES! He’s pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

The little boys were up and down the stairs of the Vancouver Art Gallery a million times and I got so sick of yelling at Siah to get down off the Lions….apparently they are a HUGE climbing attraction for little kids.

The Last challenge of the Day was a Food Challenge….where the teams were required to whip up some Whipped Cream…..BY HAND!

and the Andrea, our sponsor, had to find gummy worms in the bottom of the pie….without the use of her hands. YUCK!

She is such a trooper….

It was a LONG, FUN-FILLED, Action Packed, AMAZING Day. It was a day that we will not soon forget. Everyone is so completely worn out from the excitement of the day, but in a good way….

A HUGE THANK YOU to Children’s Wish for putting on the Exile Island Event and for helping to make Wishes come true. And another HUGE THANK YOU to ANDREA for all her hard work and support.

It was so touching to be apart of this event and to see all the special, inspiring Wish Children. To know first hand the impact that getting a wish makes, is huge! To see all these people working together to make these wishes a reality is something that I will never forget.

If you are interested, you can go to their website and donate now!

To see the Wish Kids, to hear their stories, to witness their challenges and to see that in spite of any hardships that they go through that their spirits are so very VERY strong….well, it’s all so very VERY touching and so very rewarding to be apart of making these wishes come true!

We are SO looking forward to going on Angelica’s Wish Trip at the end of this month. After the event today we were given a huge box full of stuff for our cruise…

But, I think that this post is long enough and so I’ll post about the Wish Trip Box in another post.

I apologize for the crappy iPhone photos, but with my hands full this afternoon, it was this or nothing and I preferred this to Nothing! If you are interested in seeing the whole set from today, then you can click here.

Not as Planned

Today is not going exactly as planned.

Jon has just taken Angelica into BC Children’s Hospital (as of 9:30am, Monday morning.)

This has left me a bit shocked and I am really praying that Xandra and Jeremy handle the news better than I have. (I’ve already been crying and angry and upset and shocked and so confused and frustrated and really REALLY PISSED!)

Last night around 8pm Angelica came down to the kitchen to show me a rash that was in a stripe and started at the middle of her back and wrapped around hip and down onto her thigh. It was quite angry looking and some of the welts…..well, they weren’t weeping, but they looked close to it….

We called into the hospital and told them that we’d given her benadryl and put some hydrocortisone on the rash and they said that this didn’t sound like a complication of her chemo or the meds she was on and that we’d done the right thing and that was it.

So we sent her to bed.

Things have been a tough recently with Angelica because her body is so fragile and “broken down” from the past year of treatment. Her muscles have atrophied some and she has grown so on top of weaker smaller muscles they are also stretched and she hurts all the time. She walks like an old lady and…..and….well, she hates it all. She hates being in pain. She hates that shes not strong enough to just do “normal” things. And to top it all off….our insurance doesn’t cover her going to see a kinesiologist – which would be a way better treatment for her than Physiotherapy. It’s all so frustrating….

Yesterday we had a huge conversation with her (that involved a lot of tears) about her BELIEVING that she will get better. It has felt like she’s unsure about whether or not she’ll get better and be able to just be normal and strong when it’s been so long that she’s been hurting and feeling sick and weak and unable to just do the things that you and I take for granted.

She finally got to the place where she could say, with some conviction, that she believes that she will get better, get stronger, get healthier……

And then this rash shows up….

And then we have to call the school and have her paged to the office to be picked up…

And when she gets into the car, she has a bag packed for a possible extended hospital stay…

And this is all happening on the first “normal” day of her grade 9 school year….

And this is all happening after she stands and believes that she will get better…..

And this is all happening 2 weeks before we are supposed to leave for Angelica’s “Wish trip”….

And I’m a bit in shock about it all….

I want to believe that it’s going to be nothing and we’ll see them home in a few hours, but I’m scared to hope for the best and to be let down.

Jon and I had planned to spend a “down day” today on his day off. Cleaning up our grarage (which is still loaded with crap from our camping trip) and just spending some much needed time together….and instead we are gearing up for Anti-Viral’s or Antibiotics and Extended Hospital Stays or Who knows…..

Please pray.

Pray that Angelica will he healthy. That the two little boys will not get chicken pox from this. That Jon and Geli will be able to come home. That this won’t affect her Wish Trip. Just please pray!

I can do this…I have to do this. But I really don’t want to.

It sucks.

It sucks for her.
It sucks for me.
It sucks for all of us.

It just sucks!

Beginnings

This fall is really feeling like a new beginning for me this year…for our whole family.

We had the most amazing time away. I’m not gonna lie, a camping trip with our family of seven and then add in a friend…..and it’s not really a “vacation” for the mom but still it was so nice to get away. Away from grouchy neighbors, away from the telephone and internet and electronics of all kind, away from a fast paced lifestyle, away from the housecleaning and so much more…..

We got up and ate breakfast and sat by the fire, then we went swimming. Then we sat around or chased the baby and then went swimming again. Ate lunch, swam some more, read some books, went swimming again. Ate some more and then swam some more….Made and ate dinner, cleaned up from dinner went swimming again, got the kids ready for bed, sat by the fire, watched the stars, went to bed and then started all again the next day.

All in all, it was pretty amazing.

We came home and the “clean up” after camping….well, it was HORRENDOUS and it’s taken us over a week and a lot of nagging on my part and our house is finally livable but the garage….well, let’s just say that we cannot park in there just yet. I’m praying that by this time next week that we’ll be able to park our van in the garage.

In all the clean up, I even rearranged our house back to it’s original place. When Geli got sick last year and Judah was born, I rearranged our house so that I could easily watch the kids in the kitchen while I was nursing. Basically I flipped the living room and dining room. With Jon in the hospital so much, it was just easier for me to be able to see into the kitchen to see what all the monkey’s were doing and that’s not possible when the living room is in it’s normal place.

I was so surprised how changing things back to their original place really made a difference in my mind. It really felt like things were getting back to normal……well, it’s more like redefining life. And even in the middle of this “new beginning”, we are still walking through Angelica’s cancer treatment.

Angelica is still going through chemo.

She has a monthly appointment at the hospital to get a shot of Vincristine and Methotrexate into her spinal fluid.
On Monday’s she takes 13 pills of Methotrexate by mouth.
Once a month she has to take a steroid for five days.
She also has a daily dose of chemo.

She does this until October 2012!

So, although we are in a less intensive phase, she is still actively going through chemotherapy.

Angelica is working towards recovering from this past year. She has definitely lost some muscle and is not as strong as she was before. But she is trying so hard and we are so proud of how hard she is working to overcome all the challenges that she has come up against.

This is going to be a good year. I choose to believe that.

I’m looking forward to see what this year brings.

On Vacation…

We’ve been going to Ross Lake since the year we got married (that makes it 16 years) and we’ve only missed a few years. Last year we did not go, cause we were in the hospital all summer. What a blessing it is to be able to take Angelica (and the rest of our healthy children) up to the lake this year and have her health good enough that we can be out of cell phone range, because we don’t need direct access to the hospital right now.

It seems like we haven’t been very plugged in to work or school or other things and taking a vacation from all that right now is somehow wrong, but we have been living in a pressure cooker for the last year and a de-stress is very much in order… so look for us again (with fresh pictures from our wonderful Ross Lake) after August 29th.

Please Tell: What does your family do for vacations? What do you do to de-stress? Please share a vacation or camping story here for us to read when we get back…

We Love You All.

~
Jon

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well, things have been a little quiet for the past few days and that’s because life has been SO CRAZY BUSY!

We had Chris and Brynn’s Wedding on Saturday. Angelica and Alexandra headed up to Camp Goodtimes (the cancer camp) for a week. And I am trying to get ready to go camping with three little boys underfoot and no big girls to help……while recovering from the chaos that comes with a wedding.

Oh and what an AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL wedding it was! Hopefully I can snag a few photos and put them up to show you.

My house is a disaster. I had a Doctor’s appointment for myself and Judah today and I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. GAH! I’m not entirely sure how I’ll get it all done, but I’m sure that it will eventually all come together. It will, right?

Judah and I went to the Dr’s today to talk about veins, moles and poop!

Sounds like a fun trip, no? Can you guess which issues belonged to whom?

Well, maybe you shouldn’t guess….wouldn’t want things to get too embarrassing up in here…

I have the moles and veins and Siah is dealing with poop issues. There, does that make it a bit clearer…

I go about once a year to get my moles checked out and to make sure that none have changed or that any new ones aren’t scarey and as of this point….everything is A-OKAY! None are sun-related and all look fantastic…well, as fantastic as moles can look…

The veins….well, I have a couple of veins on my calf and yup….apparently they are varicose veins and I can have something done about them because well, they are not cool looking. So, I’m probably gonna do something about them before next summer…but no rush.

And then there is Judah. Still having pooping issues. And from all the symptoms that I described (Diarrhea, bloody mucus, food not being digested, food processing through in a matter of 4 hours, etc.), it could very well be celiac disease. As the treatment is the same (no gluten) we are just gonna be extra vigilant for right now, but will get him tested in a year or so when it’s a bit easier to draw blood and to do the other testing.

Did you know that Celiac Disease is most common in people who are Irish, Scottish, English and Scandanavian? Guess what my heritage is…….yup, all four of them. Not to mention that on both my side of the family and on Jon’s side of the family there are people who have issues with wheat…..I guess we are blessed that only Judah seems to have massive issues with it. Although I know that wheat/gluten doesn’t sit well with me either…

Oh well, I’ve gotta run and clean this house and plan out this week and the next two weeks worth of meals…..GAH!!! Not fun!

So, how have you been?