Thanksgiving and two major milestones.

Thanksgiving was this week.  I took the week off of work as well.  It was nice to enjoy some time at home with the family.  We had the Barlow's over for Thanksgiving as has been tradition the last few years.  They brought Salmon, some Thai curry, bart potatoes, and Asian Broccoli.  We provided the traditional Thanksgiving fare.  It was a great meal and we loved having the company.

We are starting to transition Gus into a toddler bed from his crib.  He is taking his sweet time as the crib is still in the room, and he doesn't quite get that he has to stay in bed to go to sleep.  He has successfully taken a single nap in his bed but it did take a while for him to go to sleep.

Gus sleeping in his bed

We hit two major milestones with Sarah this week.  First on Monday, I took Sarah to the hospital and she had a surgery to get her port out.  She was scheduled for an early morning slot but didn't get into the O.R. until 3:30pm or so.  She was fasting the whole day and did a good job of trying to stay upbeat and happy.

The second milestone happened on Friday.  She finished her last day of medications.  She is now done with her treatment.  Her chances of a relapse has dropped.  She will still be seen in clinic once a month for the next year, after which her chances of a relapse drop again.  I think she will then move to a quarterly visit to check her blood.  It is exciting to be at this point.  We are excited for Sarah's body to get back to full health.  Thanks for all those who have supported us in this trying time.  We have seen many miracles through this process and know that the Lord is involved in our lives.  He may not cure every sickness, but he will always help to buoy us up so that we are able to bear our trails and our burdens.

Almost done ... and a pineapple

Last Saturday was the Winter Pineapple classic.  I ran with Patrick and Luke.  It was lots of fun.  We ran about a third of it, but I did all the obstacles.  I had no problem getting muddy on the course.  It is something that I think we might make a yearly tradition while we are here in Washington.  It was awesome to have my family at the finish line when we crossed.  Pictures are at the end of the post.  You can still donate until the 2nd of December here: http://www.llswa.org/goto/Sarah

Last Wednesday was a big day for Sarah as well.  It was her last clinic appointment during treatment.  She got a bone marrow biopsy as well as the other medicines that she usually gets during her clinic visits.  Her bone marrow came back clean.  She has a surgery scheduled for the 25th to get her port out, and her last day of medications is the 29th.  We are excited for her to be done and to let her body get back to full health.  She is ready to be there as well. 

Yesterday, the Sunshine Kids had an event at the EMP Museum.  They invited Sarah and 3 others to join her and the other kids.  It was fun.  Gus stayed home with a baby sitter.  We found out that Sarah is a drummer at heart.  She must take after her auntie Shan.  The sunshine kids did a music video and Sarah got to be the drummer and she rocked out.  It was cool to see her get into it.  Unfortunately she didn't last much longer than a couple of hours at the event.  It was a fun family day.

One other item in our family.  Our ward boundaries recently changed.  We had two wards with a east-west boundary.  That boundary changed to a north-south one and caused a bunch of reorganization in the wards.  I was called to be the Young Men's president of the ward.  It will be a busy calling but it will be fun to work with the youth again.

Thanks for all the love and support.  Our family wouldn't have done as well over the last two and half years without others to help and support us.

Sarah and the Runners at the finish line

The runners before the race.

The finish line

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?

Winter Pineapple Classic - Come run with us

I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to run the Winter Pineapple Classic.
We are looking for a couple of team members to join us.  It should be a great time and will raise some good money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  Let me know if you want to join us.  Even if you don't want to run with us, you can come out and support us or donating to the cause.  The page to donate is here: http://www.llswa.org/goto/Sarah

Thanks!!!

September 8 Update

A couple of events over the past few weeks.  Jess took off to Utah for my sister Kate's baby shower.  I had the 3 kids to myself for 3 days.  We did well.  I even took the kids to Discovery park with Deedee, Melody, Michael, and Emily.  Pictures at the bottom.

Gus also had his 3rd birthday at the end of last month.  We celebrated with a cake with a race track on it.  Gus didn't take his nap because he wanted his cake.  He asked us about every 15 minutes if it was time for cake yet.  What a cute boy.  He got a bulldozer that makes sounds.  He plays with it a lot.

Gus has also found that he can see himself in the door knobs.  He stops at them and looks at himself.  It is funny.

Kids at the Beach

Building a Sand Castle

Gus looking at a door knob

Gus looking at a door knob

Gus's 3yr old birthday cake

Blowing the candles out

Gus gets a bulldozer

Sunday Aug 18th Update

So I am going to try and be better about updating the blog. It has been an emotionally rough couple of weeks. Not for any particular reason, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel with Sarah's issues, but we still have a ways to go. Sarah's treatment should be done on November 29th this year. We still need to work out the details of what that means and when she stops taking medicines. We are looking forward to that. We need to have a party when she is all done.

A friend of ours has invited me to do a 5K in November that the LLS (The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society) puts on. It is called the Winter Pineapple Classic: www.winterpineappleclassic.org. I will have links for our team up soon, but if you are in the Seattle area and want to run/walk with us, let me know. More information will come later.

We planted a little garden this year. It has been good and bad. I think less than 20% of the seeds I first planted survived. We have planted a few more things since, and have started to see some success from the garden. We got 5 beans of the bean plants on Friday. Hopefully we can get a few things from our little garden. I don't think I have much of the green thumb that my grandmother did.

Gus has been growing and growing. He always wants to go outside and goes a million miles a hour. We had the Annual Amazon Picnic last weekend at Century Link Field. Gus spent 15-20 minutes in the bounce house until he bonked his head and came out. He probably would have spent hours in there if he could. It was a fun Saturday with the family.

We have been fighting a cold or something in the family. Sarah is home from Church today because of it. Hopefully, we will recover quickly. Thanks for all the love and support.

Gus pushing a mini shopping cart

Gus pushing a mini shopping cart at the store

Gus sliding down a bouncy slide

Gus in the Bouncy house

Gus after he fell down in the bouncy house

July 28th 2013 update

I have been pretty bad over the last month to update the status on the blog.  Sorry for that.  There was a lot that happened in our lives that I haven't caught up on.  Lilly got out of school on the 21st of June.  That Sunday, we headed down to Utah as a family.  Jess and the Kids stay in Utah for 3 weeks until the 10th of July.  They had a good time with the families during their time there.  They drove back to Seattle in a caravan with Jess's parents.  Jess's parents are heading to Hawaii for 6 months while her Dad does more research in the islands.  Her parents stayed with us in Seattle for a week and a half as they shipped their car and left from her to Hawaii.

I only spent a couple days in Utah before I flew out to Dresden, Germany for work.  We acquired a team in Dresden that I have mentioned previously.  I spent two and a half weeks in Germany working with the team there.  It was productive.  It is a gorgeous city with the Elbe flowing through the middle.  We were able to bike to work a number of the days along the river.  It is amazing to spend time in a city with a lot of history.

Since I got back from Germany, we have tried to get back into a Summer routine with the kids.  We are counting down the time until we finish with Sarah's treatment sometime in November.

Yesterday, we had the ward picnic at Hamlin Park here in Shoreline.  It was a beautiful day and a great day to let the kids get out and run around.  We love the ward and our friends out here.  We are grateful for all the help that we have and the love that surrounds us.

I am trying something new with some pictures. Here is the album of pictures from Dresden:

Dresden, July 2013

June 19th Update

I know it has been a while since I posted.  Things have been busy and I wanted to give a quick update.  Jess and I were able to take a week off the beginning on June and take a trip to Southern California without the kids.  My parents and youngest two sisters came up and watched my kids while Jess and I took the trip.  It was nice to have some time just to ourselves.  We were able to go to three temples.  We walked on the beach and just had a relaxing time.

School is about wrapping up and we are heading down to Utah to see family next week.  I will then be off to Germany for a couple of weeks for work.  Thanks for all those who still keep up.

Jess in front of the LA temple

Nate and Jess at the LA temple

Jess at the San Diego temple

Nate at the Newport Beach Temple

The family at a park

Lilly and Gus

Gus loves to slide

Sarah

Mother's Day 2013 - 10 years of Marriage

Wow, I have really slacked off.  It has been over a month since I posted.  Well it means that there is a bunch to write about.  Hmm.  I should split this into multiple posts. I will have a couple out today for the past month.  I back dated the Family reunion one, so if you haven't seen it, it is before this one.

Jess and I celebrated our 10th Wedding anniversary on Wednesday.  It has been an amazing journey these past 10 years and I am grateful for all that Jess has done for me.  She has given me strength to grow and become a better person.  I couldn't have dealt with the situations I have over the past 10 years if it wasn't for her.  She is an amazing women, and I am glad that she married me 10 years ago.

We went out to a Japanese restaurant on Friday to celebrate.  It was the first time that Jess really had sushi.  She liked some of it.  It was fun to get out to dinner with out the kids.  We are also taking a trip the end of the month to Newport Beach, California for a week.  It will be fun and we are looking forward to it.  My mother is coming to watch the kids while we are gone.

Sarah also started preschool this month. She goes twice a week for half a day to Meridan Park and another day for 90 minutes to physical therapy at Lilly's school.  We are trying to get her into full day kindergarten next year but we are on a waiting list, so it might end up only being half day.

Gus is busy as ever.  He runs everywhere he goes.  It reminds of characters in video games that don't walk but only run.  The weather has warmed up and he has enjoyed spending some time outside in the backyard.  If he had his way, he would probably live outside.  One of his latest cute things, is that when he is going to bed, and we read him books, he asks for ten books.  He knows that it is a lot of books and that is what he wants.

We are grateful for our support and the love that we have been given.

Family Reunion 2013

A couple of months ago we got an email from my brother who said that he had some time before he started his last year of residency, and he wanted to plan a family reunion.  We moved the date out by a week so it corresponded to our spring break.  The family decided that the Orlando would work well.  Everything fell into place and we had a reunion planned.

We all had a great time, even though we have a few bumpy times.  We thought we had planned enough time to get to the airport and make the plan, but the stroller got hung up at security (it wouldn't fit in the scanner, and they took 15 minutes to hand check it) and we made it to the gate 2 minutes late.  Unfortunately, the next plane to Atlanta was 7 hours later that evening.  They were able to get us on the plane.  It did turn our flight from arriving just after midnight to arrival the next day.  So for the next 6 hours, Gus circled the S terminal in the airport hundreds of time, running the whole way.  The rest of the flight was uneventful.

We arrived Sunday morning and got settled.  The girls only got a few hours of sleep on the plane so we all took long naps that day.  Everyone arrived by late Sunday and we started the fun.

Monday was a day at SeaWorld.  There weren't many crowds and we had great fun.  The girls loved to feed the sting rays with their hands.  Gus loved to see the dolphins jump and said "big mess, agua" when ever there was a big splash. Jess took Sarah and Gus home earlier for naps while I stayed will Lilly.  We had a fun day.

Dolphins during Feeding time

Brooklynn, Lilly and others watching the dolphins

Grandpa Butch, Hunter, Kim, Lilly pushing Emma

Monday night provided excitement as usually.  Sarah had been complaining since the plane about her ears and had asked for cotton balls to put in her ear.  Unfortunately, when I changed it on Monday evening, we noticed that it had colored fluid on it.  From previous experience, we knew that it meant that her ear drum has probably ruptured.  Jess took her to a children's hospital and got it confirmed.  She got some medicine and started feeling better a day or two later.

We spent Tuesday relaxing as a family and went to the pool together.  It was nice to have a relaxing day to get used to the heat of Florida.

Wednesday was our big day at Walt Disney World.  We decided to go to the Magic Kingdom.  My brother Aaron and his wife did a great job in the park of keeping us moving and hitting the most popular rides first so we didn't have many lines.  Jess took Gus back to the Condo in the afternoon for his nap and joined us for dinner and the fireworks.  Thursday was spent at the condos in the morning and then headed back to the Magic Kingdom for the afternoon and evening.  

Lilly excited at a ride

Sarah on the Merry go round

Mom and Gus

Gus having fun

Sarah and Lilly and Belle

Sarah tired at the end of the day

Shannon chilling at the condo

Friday was a family day.  We did some shopping and swimming and enjoying a lot of time together.  The week ended too early and we had an early morning flight home on Saturday.  It was a great trip and we are grateful to my brother for suggesting it and for all of my family making it happen.

Lilly is 7

It's true.  Lilly is Seven.  Her birthday was last week, and she had her birthday party on Saturday.  We went to paint the town and she had 8 or 9 friends come.  It was fun seeing them do their paintings.  In fact Kim Barlow who brought her daughter decided that her and her husband and Jess and I need to go back and do gravy boats.  I will send pictures when that happens.

Sarah got a fever on Saturday night and her and I were in the ED on Saturday night, as well as on Sunday afternoon.  She seems to have done better getting rid of her fever.  It will be nice once she is off of all the chemo and we can treat her as a normal kid when she had a fever.  Jess and I realized what a warped sense of reality we have.  It is no problem just taking our kid to the ED.  No stress about it.  I think Sarah has been to the ED more than I ever have.  It is also tells a lot when you recognize a good portion of the ED staff, and worse when they recognize you and say "you're back?" and worse even still when they remember specific things about the diagnosis, like Sarah's port not working well.  Such is the life we are living.

I am leaving with a number of pictures and a video from the birthday party, and one of Jess from a date night at a Korean BBQ place with the Barlows.

Lilly painting her penguin

Sarah painting a Butterfly

Jess, the Beautiful hostess

Snack time

Jess at Dinner

The Helicopter outside the ED

Skiing update

I haven't put up much lately. So I thought I would dump some pictures of our last two ski trips.  Last Saturday, we only stayed on the snow a hour before Sarah broke down.  Today she did better.

Lilly

Sarah ready to be done

Lilly skiing around poles

One of Sarah's falls

What usually happens on the way home.