Happy Birthday Alethea!

Alethea turned seven today! I cannot believe it. We are having a weekend full of celebrations. This morning before school, she woke up to cinnamon roles and a few gifts. At the end of her school day, Dave and I went to her class with a special treat. We brought Krispy Kreme donuts at her request. It was so fun. They all had made cards for her and sang Happy Birthday. She had wanted to take donut orders for everyone, but when we said that would be too difficult she settled for sprinkled donuts for all. Tonight we went out to dinner with my parents and sister, and then back to our house for cake and gifts. Tomorrow we will get together with Dave's family for a crab feast.

Emergency Room visit

Because Sarah has a chest port in, we have to take fevers very seriously. There is always the possibility that a fever indicates an infection in her chest port.

On Friday afternoon, Sarah started throwing up around 4pm. She continued to throw up every 30 minutes until well past midnight. She became very lethargic right away, and felt warm. We took her temp throughout the night, and at 2am, her fever went up to 101.4 which is into the range of where doctors are concerned which is only 100.5. We called the on-call pediatric oncologist, and he instructed us to bring Sarah into the JHU ER right away. Jen took Sarah into the Hopkins ER and was there from 3am - 7am on Saturday morning. Turns out that Sarah's port was not infected, and that her fever was a "normal" fever caused by a sickness, but you still have to take it seriously. They checked her counts, gave her some antibiotics to fight whatever was causing the fever, and then released her to go home. Jen had to take Sarah back today to the ER to get another round of antibiotics.

Sarah seems to be feeling better today. She ate some crackers and pretzels, and drank some apple juice, and was able to keep it down. She's not back to 100%, but seems to be doing better.

The doctors warned us this would happen. Considering that she will have this chest port in for up to a year, it is inevitable that she will get a fever at some point...he said its a matter of when, not if. Nonetheless, it doesn't make it any easier when it happens. We are grateful though that this is only our first ER trip in the 6 months she has had her port.

All is back to normal here...after a crazy weekend.

Vacation- part 2

On Monday morning, we were asked to come to an orientation meeting for our week. All I was told ahead of time was to come at 10am and hear about all the options for our week. Then I was to go home and discuss everything with the family and let them know what we wanted to do. I had NO idea what I was in store for. I was presented with two pages of activities for our family to choose from. All arranged AND paid for. I had to do none of the work! Some of the options were surf lessons, tennis lessons, golf lessons, parasailing, coast guard tour, mulitple free dinners, amusement park tickets, water park tickets, the list goes on.....So after we made all our choices we decided to spend the afternoon at the pool and then get ready for our CRAB dinner. This was so exciting. Even the kids were thrilled! We went to the restaurant, told them where we were from, and they sat us at a table with all the other families from Believe in Tomorrow. It was really neat because we ended up sitting next to a family whose son also has neuroblastoma. What a humbling discussion. We were freshly grateful for the mercy that the Lord has shown Sarah and our family. Anyway, back to the food. Once we sat down the food and drinks kept coming. Hushpuppies, fries, fried clams, corn, fried chicken, ribs, and crabs. It was amazing! The bill was all covered and they won't even let you leave a tip! As you can see Sarah loved the corn. There was a little girl there that spent most of the night cutting corn for Sarah. Too sweet!


After dinner we decided to take the kids miniature golfing with our coupons, and then ice cream. Since Dave and I grew up going to this area we took them to a golf course that we have been to many times, and a favorite ice cream place of Dave's. We had such a great time. The kids loved golf and Sarah spent her time lounging in the stroller. Fun times!

Vacation

I promised pictures from vacation. I think I'll do a few posts because we had such an awesome time and have tons of pictures! Our week started on Saturday. When we arrived we were greeted by two huge gift baskets. One was a bucket full of beach toys for the kids and the second was a basket full of other fun stuff. Believe in Tomorrow t-shirts for the whole family, goggles, coupons for mini golf and other fun stuff, balls, frisbees.....so fun!

They have a pretty late check in compared to most places, so we just got settled and did the pool for an hour or so on Saturday night. Sunday was a beach day. ALL the kids loved the beach. None of them were afraid of water or sand. It was so fun to watch them all play in their own ways. Jumping waves, playing in the sand, crawling in the sand, boogie boarding.... It was great! We did hot dogs and french fries on the boardwalk that night. Probably more for Dave and I than for the kids. We love fries at the boardwalk! We can't go to the beach without having fries at least a few times.

Up next, our other favorite beach food.....CRABS!

First day of school

Well, we made it through our first day of school. Only a few tears (all from me of course). I have to say, I love uniforms. No deciding what to wear other than what color socks and shoes to wear! I also think they look too cute!! Of course I had to take pictures before we left for school. Dave finally had to tell me to stop or we were going to be late.


Alethea- 1st grade

Mikaela- Kindergarden

Everything this morning was so typical of their little personalities.
Alethea woke up at "6:42"...she literally said "I woke up at six forty two"
Mikaela overslept and we had to wake her up. Even then, we had to literally drag her out of bed to the point where Caleb yelled while pushing on her, "Mikaela won't get out of bed Dad!"
Alethea was nervous the whole morning, questioning everything.
Mikaela didn't really care...to her, this school thing is no big deal.
When dropping them off, Mikaela went right into class and yelled over her shoulder "bye mom!"
Alethea needed a hug from mom and wouldn't let go of me...and then wanted another 10 hugs. She didn't want me to leave, but then she sheepishly went into class.

Its so funny to watch their personalities to come out. Tomorrow is school day #2!

Back Home

We got back Thursday night from a wonderful and refreshing time at the beach. I can't believe I'm saying the word refreshing and vacation in the same sentence in light of having four small children at the beach. I really can say though that it was amazing. I will be posting tons of pictures from all the activities we did. We were there because of a wonderful organization called Believe in Tomorrow. They provided our place to stay, lots of treats, and tons of fun activities at no cost!! It was humbling to be the recipient of so much generosity. It was such a blessing. For now, I'm busy getting the girls ready for their first day of school. So exciting and so sad all at the same time! Pictures of the girls tomorrow!!!