I decided I didn’t want to wait forever and then have a hard time remembering what needed to be said so I’m jumping on it now 🙂

We had a great time at the Snowmobilers/Candlelighters event. I do not personally enjoy the cold so I was often found indoors but I did get on the inner tube a few times. Kennedy and Austin had a blast sledding over and over and over and over. Keith and Kennedy rode the snowmobiles but Austin just wasn’t interested. Who would have guessed? We were treated so well and there was tons of food if you could get the kids to come inside 🙂 If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend the video Warren made. The link is in the guestbook. It’s really cute of Warren’s brother, Jared, and Kennedy sledding together.

We’ve just been cruising along. It has been nice to have fewer appointments during the week. I feel like homeschooling is more consistent as far as the amount of work we are able to get done and I look forward to getting more involved in homeschool activities and meeting other families. We have decided on a curriculum that we all like and will work for us. I have talked to the kids about the plan for next year and they are adament that they want to continue with this. I hope to return to Willamette and finish my degree but think I can balance better now that my priorities are in order. Especially now that we know what the school plan looks like. I am also looking in to taking a math class or two at OSU online this summer so that will mean only 5 classes to graduate. Woo Hoo! I hate to get this far and then give up.

Kennedy is making steady improvement in OT and continuing with a home program for PT that seems to be working. She has a speech evaluation coming up and I am really hoping we can do that every other week to have more time at home.

Keith has been working on my car and will hopefully have it done soon. It has a blown head gasket (2, I think) and it would have cost us about $1300 in the shop so for around $300 he decided to fix it himself. It is a little overwhelming (although he has done it himself before) because he is tackling it alone and we have no shop or garage and it has been raining but it is progressing. I really need to hold on to my car for at least another year because we just can not afford another payment right now. He has other projects coming up including getting the fence done (that is next weekends plan) and setting up the site for my parents house. I got all of the permits Friday and we are waiting for the final $ to sign the last of the papers then the countdown will begin! The kids are really looking forward to having them home as are we! Kennedy especially can’t remember a time when she didn’t live with Grammie and Papa.

Things are really feeling normal again. With ballet, homeschool, friends, family, baseball starting, fewer appts. and such we are encouraged that normal will return. Kennedy even has 2 birthday parties this weekend (her friend, Mackenzie, and her cousin, Emily). Tomorrow night we will be having dinner out to celebrate with Emily (6) and family. Wednesday night Kennedy is being honored by the Clackamas High School Wrestling team who have been raising funds for her benefit this season. We saw them when the season first started and Kennedy is very excited to see them again. Of course, it helps that her very favorite nurse, Megan, is married to the wrestling coach, Jayson, and we get to see them again as well. We are deeply touched by the dedication of these young men and their inspiring coach 🙂 So, we are looking forward to that.

Let’s see…what else…Oh, big news in Montana! I hope Aunt Amy doesn’t mind me sharing 🙂 We are heading to Montana in April for Aunt Amy and (soon to be) Uncle Alan’s wedding. This will be the farthest Kennedy has been from home (with the exception of her Make-A-Wish trip). We still have to get the OK from the oncologist on Wednesday (they haven’t let her travel over the mountain passes except once) but I don’t see any problem with it. We are really so very happy for them. We just adore Alan and the kids are excited about gaining 3 new cousins! Doesn’t get much better than new playmates!

Yes, we have clinic on Wednesday and steroids start again. Kennedy did so well last month that they gave us 4 weeks off. It has been so nice! It will be a long day with her monthly Pentamadine (preventative antibiotic) but I’m not complaining. I hope her ANC hasn’t gone up because then they will be increasing her meds and that will mean only 1 week before we have to go back. We are also scheduled to go on vacation (5 days at the beach) the week of Vincristine next month so I’m hoping that we can wait and go in on Friday when we get back to town instead of Wednesday. We’ll see. She’s on a research protocol so they may be pretty strict about it. I would hate to change our plans now.

We also got our date for the Children’s Cancer Association Caring Cabin in April. We are just ecstatic! Everyone that we know that has gone has had just a wonderful time so we can’t wait. I wrote in my last journal entry about the radio-a-thon with 105.1 The Buzz and wanted to let all of you know that they raised over $230,000 for CCA which will be used to help local families like ours who have a child with cancer. That is just awesome!

Well, better get to reading Narnia before they bug me to death! Then I hope to hit the sack early.

Love-Hope-Courage-Faith,
Melenie

Oh, we are planning to do a couple of fundraisers this year. We just haven’t had a moment and my absolute best fundraiserer (Rhonda) needs prayer as she battles with medical issues. They are in the works and details will be coming soon.