My Birthday Wish

Tuesday was my Birthday.  Over the past couple of weeks I have been thinking about what my birthday means to me and what would make it special.  I am at the stage in my life where I don't need much from a store.  As I have reflected, I have thought about the Winter Pineapple Classic and LLS behind it.  I wrote up a paragraph on my fundraising page, that has stuck with me and made me realize what I really want.  Whenever Sarah gets sick or gets a bruise, there is a fear that the Leukemia has returned.  While this fear isn't always visible, it is something that is in the back of my mind.  Watching my child suffer through cancer and the treatment of it, is one of the hardest things that I had to do in my life.  I was helpless to do anything.  I decided to continue to do the Winter Pineapple Classic as a way to do something.  It gives me the opportunity to support an organization that is trying to cure cancer.  While it does that, it is also supporting those who are in the middle of the fight with cancer.  So my birthday wish is to have you support LLS and other organizations fight cancer and work towards a cure.  That and make someone smile each day.

If you want to support me in the Pineapple Classic, please click on the picture above 

End of Summer, Gus's Birthday and a Visit from Shannon

Summer is over and kids have started school.  We are back to getting everything back into the school structure.  We had a few fun activities and visitors before school started again.

The first was the Amazon company picnic.  It is hosted at CenturyLink field (the football stadium).  We had a lot of fun as a family.

Dad Helping Gus up a bouncy house

Lilly Crawling through a bouncy house

Face Painted

Face Painted

Twiners

Gus and an Amazon mascot

Jess and Gus on a ride

Sarah coming down a slide

Jess's brother, Richard, and his family stopped by our house to visit.  The kids loved to play together and we hope that next time they can come and stay longer.  I was at work so I was unable to see them this time around, but the I heard none of the kids wanted to leave.

My cousins Anna and Victoria and Victoria's kids came to stay with us overnight.  Jess, Sarah and the cousins went to breakfast in the morning, and I went with them to a ropes course in the afternoon.  I had a little accident where I slipped and slid down ropes about 12 inches or so.  It caused a bunch of rope burns on my hands.  It was still fun despite the pain in my hands and the couple weeks that it took to heal.

Cousins

Ready to go

Picture of the course

Victoria coming down in style

Summer finished off with Gus's Birthday.  He turned four years old and we are still waiting for the terrible threes to stop.  He asked for a firetruck cake, but he wanted the firetruck blue (after changing his mind a few times).  He LOVED the presents that he got and plays with them a lot.  He got a set of monster trucks from one of Mater's Tall Tales, (the monster truck wrestling one).  He got a marble maze tower game.  And he got a remote control car.  He loves each of them and plays with them over and over again!

Gus's Fire Truck Cake

Gus and his marble maze

Blowing out the birthday cake

Gus doing his marble maze

The kids started school in the beginning of September.  They moved to a different school, Highland Terrace. New house = New school.  They get to ride the bus to and from school as well.  Lilly's teacher is Mrs. Williams and Sarah's teacher is Mrs. McCary-Smith.  Both girls like their teachers and they enjoy being back in school, even if it does cut into their play time.  Lilly is in class with a boy named Joseph from church, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  Sarah is in class with a couple of girls that were in her kindergarten class at Parkwood Elementary last year.

First Day of School

Waiting for the bus can be crazy

We heard about one of the local fire stations getting renovated and they had an open house.  Gus and I stopped by to see the fire trucks and the fire station.  Gus got to sit in the fire trucks and was really excited.

Let's Go

Ready for the fire

Trying on the Equipment

I am in trouble if he thinks he can drive at 4.

Lastly, my sister Shannon visited us over this past weekend.  In July, Jess and I were looking at the theater and seeing if there was anything that we wanted to go to.  Brian Regan, Shannon's favorite comedian and one that helped made her smile during her recovery, was scheduled to come to Seattle in September.  We booked tickets and pinged Shannon to see if she wanted to come.  She jumped at the chance.  She flew in on Friday, when there was both a Sounders and a Mariner's game scheduled.  I ended up driving the car to work in the morning and taking the train to the airport to get Shannon.  

Shannon at the Airport

Brother and Sister

Jess, Shannon and I were able to have a fun night out.  There was another Mariners game on Saturday, so it took us an extra 30 minutes to get downtown.  That caused us to not go out to a sit down place for dinner but we grabbed something quick.  Shannon had scheduled for us to be able to meet Brian before the show (since he was leaving right after).  There were a bunch of groups that were meeting with him, so we only had a couple of minutes, but it was nice to be able thank him for bringing a smile to Shannon's face during some of her hard times.  Needless to say, but the show was hilarious! I know that Shannon knows most of his jokes by heart, but it was Jess and I's first show of his.  After the show, the three of us walked to the Cheesecake Factory for some cheesecake.  It was nice to get out and have a fun evening.

Don't forget that I am still looking for people to both run the Winter Pineapple Classic with me!!!  If you are interested, send me an email or sign up.  Also if you want to donate, see the previous post as it has the direct links.

Lillian's Birthday - The big 8

Lilly turned 8 last Thursday.  She is super excited to be baptized on Sunday.  Her baptism is 5pm at our church building.  We are all excited to see the steps that she is making in her life.  My parents and Tonya and Shannon are in town and Jess's parents arrive tomorrow.

We celebrated as a family on Sunday.  She got a few presents and we had cake, pictured below.  I am starting to feel old with her getting older.  I am sure it is worse for my parents watching their grand children grow and hit the big milestones.

Lilly's Birthday Cake.  It is a Penguin face

October 27th Update

It is two weeks until I run the Winter Pineapple Classic.  If you haven't donated yet and would still like to, the link is here:  http://www.llswa.org/goto/Sarah

A couple of things of note that happened over the past few weeks.  First I had my birthday on Monday.  It was fun.  We had a cake and I got a couple of presents.  A nice small birthday.

Second, we had trunk or treat yesterday.  Gus was dressed up as a racecar driver, Sarah was batgirl and Lilly was supergirl.  They had a lot of fun.  Pictures attached.

Lastly, we are down to one more set of steroids and one more monthly appointment for Sarah.  She goes in the second week of Novmenber for her last chemo visit.  She will get a bone marrow biopsy as well as scheduling the surgery to pull out her port.  After November, she will be off all medications as part of her leukemia treatment.  She have monthly visits to check her blood for the first year and then it will change to quarterly.  We are looking forward to the sense of normalcy, what ever that is.  :)

Sarah as batgirl

Lilly as Supergirl

Gus ready to drive a racecar

Sarah's 6th Birthday

Sarah had her birthday on the 19th.  She is now 6 years old.  We have been dealing with her leukemia treatment for over 2 years.  Time sure flies.  Ever since Lilly's Birthday party at Paint the Town, Sarah wanted to have her birthday there.  So we let her invite a few friends.  Gus only lasted about half of the party and then I was outside running with him and keeping him happy.  It was a fun party and everyone enjoyed it.

Sarah and her friend Zoe

Sarah and her friend Zoe

Gus and the Pig he painted with dad

Are we done yet?

Sunday, September 9th 2012

It looks like it has been two weeks since I last updated.  Sorry for the amount of time since the last update.  It has been a busy time at work.  The kids have been mildly sick and Sarah is fighting to get her numbers up. Sarah has been low numbers for the past two weeks.  We were supposed to start maintenance this past Wednesday, but her numbers were in the 200's, so she has to wait a week.

Gus had a birthday last week, but due to him being sick, we postponed his party until today.  I made a Lightning McQueen cake.  He got a wagon to share with Sarah.  He already loves to be in it and we haven't taken it outside yet.

Gus's Cake

Lilly starts school tomorrow.  She is excited and a little nervous about starting the first grade.  Jess has been ready for this day for three months.  We will have to get the house into a schedule again.  She starts earlier in the day than she did at the other school.  It will be good to get here on a system where she has to get up earlier.

Thanks for all the love and support.  We feel the prayers and thoughts of our family.

Sarah's 4th Birthday

Sarah was so excited for her birthday this morning.  The first thing she said to me is "daddy, I am 4 now."  I was able to finish her cake before heading to work this morning.  It wasn't my best work on a cake but it was good enough for Sarah.

The finished cake

Sarah, with the help of Lilly, decided that she wanted a princess party.  So for Family Home Evening we let both girls wear their princess dress-ups.

Our two Princesses

Sarah got some dresses for her princess dolls, and some other toys.  She put on a great face for the camera when holding one of the toys.

What a face

Since everyone else had a picture, we had to include Gus, who loves to make a mess when eating.  He eats anything we give him.  He usually has multiple bites of Mom's and Dad's dinner each night, in addition to his own.  At least he is a good eater.

Gus