Return of the Former Shackdwellers

It has been over three years since I've posted to this blog.  Its also been over a year since Amanda's last cancer treatment.  Although we are still dealing with the aftermath of all the treatment and meds and psychological things that go with it, life has slowly become more normal than it has in the previous 3 years.  We were able to get out on a week long family vacation this year, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but during the 3 previous years we weren't able to go more than 30 minutes away together.  It was great to get to go somewhere new as a family.  We went up to the Oregon coast and had a good time at the ocean together.  Rather than recapping the last 3 years I will just add some pictures starting with our "new shack" that we moved into earlier this year.

A Day Out

We haven't been out of the house much let alone all together as a family. Yesterday we got out and it lasted a lot longer than we all expected. The air show was going on over at Hill AFB and I hadn't been to one in a long time. I got excited to see some big planes make loud noises. I've always liked loud noises.

We got a late start as we always do on lazy weekends. Then it took even longer as we had to jump start the Trailblazer and head over to Autozone to buy a new battery. As dad I have the right to spoil my kids and if there is a craving for donuts I must comply. Its a good thing there is drive through Krispy Kreme on the way to Autozone. It took some time swapping out the battery in the parking lot but the kids didn't squawk once. Our plan then was to get some lunch, again through the drive through, and head up to this quiet undeveloped neighborhood east of the AFB. One problem we didn't anticipate. The wind. It wasn't that it was windy. It was that the neighborhood was on the hill overlooking the dump and the wind was blowing our direction. Needless to say we left the windows up on the car while we scarfed down the food and got out of there fast. The only way someone is going to be buying a house in that neighborhood is if they have zero sense of smell.

We ended up back by the Wendy's were we got our lunch and set up the lawn chairs in the grass just off of the busy road. It wasn't too bad. Oh, and we parked right next to the Snow Cone shack and did I mention that as Dad I have to spoil the kids. We went through multiple snow cones during the hours that we were there. It wasn't much, but we were able to stay away from crowds and be out of the house for a couple of hours. Enough time to get sun burned on one side my face and legs, too.

The kids had a good time but I probably had the best time seeing the planes from a far. Erin found a new thing she wants and wants often and all of the different colors. After the first snow cone she then wanted to have the same color snow cone as Amanda. She didn't like that one very well so she had to try another. I think she could have stayed there the rest of the day trying each of the different colors.

Here's a couple of pictures of the planes and the Thunderbirds which finished off the air show.

Over A Week Without #2

I know the title sounds awful. I couldn't think of another way to explain it, though. Mary Ann and I use to refer to our kids as "thing 1" and "thing 2" from a Dr. Suess book. After we found out about Amanda's leukemia and her weakened immune system we knew we had to be careful everywhere we went and especially at home. Of course, #2 (Erin) had a cold, runny nose, cough, etc.

During the 2 weeks Amanda was in the hospital we did our best trading off days and nights with one of us with Amanda and the other with Erin. We were so grateful for all the help we got especially from Mary Ann's sister and her family. Erin loves her cousins and her Aunt Jenny. We knew the time had come where Erin had to get over her cold before we could have her around Amanda. It was tough to do, but we packed a few bags and sent her off to live with her cousins which turned out to be for over a week. We all missed her at times and at other times we enjoyed the quiet. There were a couple of days, though, that we all felt that home just wasn't the same without Erin in the house.

It hit me hard a couple of times how much I missed her. As trying and difficult as she can be, I missed having her around and her ability to be so cute you could forgive her for about all the rest of the things she does. Probably equally challenging was just missing being a complete family again. It seems like it has been a long time since all 4 of us felt good, healthy, and had a great time together. I long for those days again.

Now I have to share both my feelings and my experience with Erin coming home. I feared that she may not want to come back and live at home. She really likes being with her cousins and hanging out with Jenny. It seems to be much more fun and entertaining to a 3 year old than here at home. My fears were confirmed when Erin finally returned home after 9 days away. She had a hard time adjusting to being back home. I got home after work and I could easily see on Mary Ann's face how tough the day was. As soon as I walked in the door Erin was screaming. She sees me and yells "I don't want to see Dad." I tried to say hi and be nice but it only created more screaming and crying. I had to leave the room for about 20 minutes before she was able to calm down and was ready to say hi and be nice.

After another 10-20 minutes I soon had Erin giving me a big hug and we were playing games again. However, she did tell me at least 10 time before she went to bed she wanted to go back to Jenny's house. Its real easy to start counting all the trials we have. Its difficult to have Mary Ann so sick, Erin so difficult, and Amanda starting on a long road to recovery from leukemia. I have to stop and remember to count my blessings instead. I'm glad to have Erin back in the house, no matter how tiring it is now. I'm glad to have such a wonderful family. I'm grateful for the support that is pouring in for us now. And I'm very grateful that Amanda is doing so well so far with her treatments and is surrounded by people that love and support her. We take things day by day here and the more time we spend counting our blessing the easier it is to get through each day.

A New Blog For Amanda

For those wanting to follow how Amanda is doing and what she is going through, we will try to keep you up-to-date on a separate blog. As it has been said before, it is difficult to give updates over and over again so we hope that this may help. Please feel free to read, add comments, and share your support for Amanda on the page below.

http://supportersofamanda.blogspot.com

Thank you for your support.

The Worst Week of Our Lives

That may seem pretty tough, but if you don't know all of the details of what has been going on in our lives you wouldn't understand. I will try to share a couple of the details that have made this such a rough week.

As many of you know, we have been trying to find out what has been ailing Amanda for a while now. She has been having a lot of headaches, fevers, and body pains. After some frustrating clinic visits (I won't take time to go into the details at this time) we were instructed to bring Amanda to Primary Childrens Medical Center ER to make sure she gets the attention she needs until we figure things out. We came in on Saturday April 25th and spent some boring hours in an ER room while we waited for blood tests and x-ray results to come back. I think some peoples' version of Hades may be stuck in an ER room anxiously waiting answers for hours with no entertainment or distraction other than a TV that can pick up one channel and it happens to be NASCAR.

After several hours Amanda was admitted with not many answers other than her blood counts were low. A lot of possibilities were thrown out but not until a bone marrow draw confirmed on Tuesday that we were dealing with leukemia. I didn't even know how to spell leukemia until that day, let a lone know what we were up against. We were about as unprepared for this as they come. If you would like to know more about it you can visit this site. Amanda has been diagnosed with ALL which is the best possible type of leukemia and has the best prognosis.

Amanda has already started the chemotherapy process and things are looking good so far. The road will be a long and emotional one for all of us. We are still dealing with Mary Ann's complications with her pregnancy, trying to raise a 3 year old with allergy problems and the rest of everyday stresses of jobs and life. We have to take any positive news or happy thoughts and hang on tight to it. The greatest thing that keeps us strong through all of this is Amanda's strength and spirit. She can make all worries fade to nothing with her infectious laugh. Thank goodness for the XBOX that is in her room. She gets such a kick out of driving Lightning McQueen into walls. When she starts to laugh it seems to make everything better.

Our hearts have been broken several times this week. It has been very difficult to take the news that we have been given this week. We are given strength from all the family and friends that have shown their love and support for Amanda. This has affected so many people because Amanda is so loved by everyone that knows her. She has had many visitors that bring smiles to her face. She even had a visit from her school custodian that brought tears to my eyes because it made Amanda so happy.

We will soon have a separate blog setup to keep people updated with her condition and what she is going through. It has been very difficult to retell the news and events so we hope that it will help others to understand what she and all of us are going through.

Thanks to everyone that has offered their support, time, and prayers on our behalf.

Easter Egg Fun

I'm sure someone out there may be able to tell me where the tradition of coloring Easter eggs came from. Seems silly to me when you think about it. But whatever it takes to make a tradition of getting together with family and the kids is worth while. We don't have many traditions in our family other than go for a drive on Conference weekends, eat Chinese food on Christmas night, and color Easter Eggs with Rick and Carol. I think we've only done it a few times now but the kids love any reason to get together with Rick and Carol.

This year we tried our hands at tie dye and silly faced eggs. We ended up coloring 46 eggs in all. Again, who came up with this idea? What do you do with that many hard boiled eggs after you colored them? They stink up the fridge, no one here really likes hard boiled eggs, and did I mention they stink up the fridge? If we can make it one more day some of the eggs may go into a rokott krumpli but I don't know what to do with the other 43 eggs. If anyone out there has any suggestions, let me know.

Anyway, Erin and Amanda had a great time coloring the eggs. Two side notes. 1 - pictured you will see the first time in I don't know how many months, Erin actually wearing pants. We actually got here to wear overalls to go to Amanda's soccer game with me and she almost kept them on for the entire day. 2 - Not pictured, Rick may have created the first and only decorated egg of the Iron man triathlon. It was complete with the swim, bike, run, and Iron man logos.

Happy Easter.

Baby Steps

Baby steps can mean a lot of different things to people. When a child takes its first steps in life it brings a lot of joy to the parents. It shows the beginning of the child's journey of doing things on his/her own. Baby steps also can mean taking things one small step at a time. Today is another day where I find gratitude in the small steps toward our family getting out and doing things together again.

Over the past few months Mary Ann has not been well enough to get out of the house often. In fact, she has not been well enough to be out of bed for very long. We have had the blessing of great families that have done so much for us around the house and with the kids. Meals have been brought in, laundry done, and extra attention given to Amanda and Erin. We are all grateful for the amount of help that has been given. Due to Mary Ann's condition, though, we have not been able to do much outside of the house as a family. Between snow storms there have been a couple of nice days where it would be nice to go somewhere or hit a park with the kids. We like to go on drives but until today I don't think we've gotten farther than 30 minutes away.

This weekend was different. Though we didn't get out as a family yesterday, Amanda went to the movies and to the bird sanctuary with Uncle Rick and Aunt Carol. Erin was very jealous but we kept her entertained. Afterwords, we all joined Rick and Carol for sushi at Osaka. Mary Ann has been eating sushi to satisfy cravings a lot lately. (I'd rather her have sushi cravings than cravings for Mexican food.) It was the first time we all got out together somewhere other than McDonald's or Wendy's in a long time. And Erin even behaved. (There will soon be a post about the transition from Evil Erin to Cute Erin. She has done a lot of changing these last few weeks.)

This weekend was General Conference and we normally go for a long ride and listen to conference. We didn't know if Mary Ann would be feeling up to it but fortunately she was. We didn't go as far as we normally go but we still had a good time. We decided to go see the new temples in Draper and Daybreak (Oquirrh Hills). After finding them and gawking at the huge castle-like houses by the Draper Temple we found a park to let the kids play for a while so Mary Ann's medicine can kick in. The kids got to play on the slides and swing for a while. Getting out of the house together may not be all that exciting for those who do it all the time. But for me, today was a great day.

Often the simple little things in life are taken for granted. Time together as a family should never be one of them.