Another Long Medical Week Followed by Some FUN!

The week started as most of our weeks do....with more Dr.'s appointments. Wednesday, AnnaGrace had an MRI, under general anesthesia, to rule out any brain lesions/tumors. This was an unexpected blip on our radar. Annie has been our healthy one all year; however, several weeks ago, following an EEG for some miscellaneous symptoms, a follow-up MRI was ordered.

Praise God AnnaGrace's MRI results were all-clear!

The bright side of the MRI...we saw the inside of yet a new hospital. (Did you catch the sarcasm there?) That's at least the fifth hospital we've been admitted to or had a procedure performed in this year.

After Wednesdays MRI, Sarah Mei had her platelets checked on Friday. We discovered that they dropped to a low of 16 (normal is 150-450). Needless to say we didn't pass go, we didn't collect $200, but we went straight to the "party room" as the hematology office so aptly dubs the treatment room, for a Rhophylac treatment. The great thing about the hematologist office is how painless they try to make everything. SarahMei had her pick of snacks, beverages, DVDS and even got her own blanket to bring home.

We will go back tomorrow to check the platelet count again to confirm the effectiveness of the treatment.

Sarah Mei in the "party room" watching a video and getting her treatment.



We also had 2 dentist appointments and Isabelle's normal weekly physical therapy appointment, but we don't even count those sorts of appointments anymore. If we only see two Dr.'s a week, I count it as a "good" week.

I must confess I'm looking forward to 2011. I'm sure it will be a less busy medical year!

After another crazy medical weekend, we had a wonderful family weekend in Aiken, SC watching Torie compete her Thoroughbred horse, Brego aka The Original Mr. Simon. Both she and Michaela compete in eventing which consists of three phases of competition.

First the horse and rider are tested in dressage which is the equivalent of the ballet of the horse world. Judges critique the horse/rider team on the precision and gracefulness of a preset series of moves performed in a 20 x 40 meter arena.

Torie and Brego - DRESSAGE PHASE



Later in the day the horse and rider are tested in the cross-country phase. This test the pairs' fearlessness, agility and speed as they gallop and jump immovable obstacles. Torie's jumps were up to 2'11" in height and as wide as 4" at the base and 3' wide at the top. On this particular course they had 20 jumps and 5 minutes 22 seconds was the optimum time to finish the course. Torie and Brego jumped the course clear (no stops, falls, etc.) and finished in 5 minutes 15 seconds.

Torie and Brego - CROSS COUNTRY PHASE



The final phase is on the 2nd day and is show jumping. Show jumping shows the horse's ability to recover from the physical demands of the 1st day of riding and jump obstacles with rails that will easily fall if rubbed by the horses' legs. Torie and Brego also went clean (no rails down and no stops at jumps) in the show jumping phase.

Torie and Brego - SHOW JUMPING PHASE



Michaela watched intently all weekend while Torie competed. She is Torie's chief right hand "man" and groom at these events. Torie will get payback soon because Michaela's Thoroughbred should be ready for shows as early as this fall.



Isabelle did't take the entire eventing thing quite so seriously....



Sarah Mei, on the other hand, appointed herself junior groom. She sponged off Brego's legs after his hard work was done for the weekend.



"Sons (Daughters) are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from Him"...."Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." Psalm 127:3, 4b

It was a great outing! One of the best parts of the weekend besides watching Torie compete was catching up with friends, Bill and Alison Ibsen. Phil and Alison have known each other since high school, and Phil and Bill were college room mates at the Citadel.

In addition to sharing meals and great conversation, we also discovered that Bill is a gifted photographer. All the photos on today's blog (except the one of Sarah Mei at the hematologist) are thanks to Bill! I can't wait to see all the photos he took and post more on the blog this week.

AnnaGrace is 10!

Wednesday we celebrated AnnaGrace's 10th Birthday.

She chose Everest Grill, one of our favorite local Greek/hamburger restaurants, for her lunch date locale.







I am always surprised by how excited the girls get to have Phil and I ALL to themselves on a date. This lunch date was no exception!

In the evening we continued the birthday festivities by eating my mom's famous tacos (always on our birthday menu) and opening presents.

My mom gave AnnaGrace PlayMobile horses and riders. We started a PlayMobile collection more than fifteen years ago for Torie and have added to it every since. It is a favorite timeless toy for all our girls.



After opening presents, we enjoyed a homemade ice cream cake. AnnaGrace chose a pound cake/ice cream cake recipe...delicious! It's actually a recipe that my little sister made for our family last year, and I think it will be our new birthday cake recipe. Unfortunately Lora wasn't here to enjoy it with us since she's deployed, with the Air Force, in South Korea...sigh. We'll have to make her a cake when she returns!





Despite the fact that it was AnnaGrace's birthday, every day is a party for Sarah Mei. She dressed up like Snow White (a great garage sale costume find) and made her own fun while AnnaGrace opened presents.



She likes to "honk" Phil's nose to see what noises he'll make. (Wouldn't his high school students where he is high school principal be surprised at this!)



Our prayer for AnnaGrace this year comes from Psalm 1 which she has memorized...

(AnnaGrace's) "delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law (she) meditates day and night. 3 (She) is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever (she) does prospers." Psalm 1: 2,3

Another Child - Home Forever

Yesterday we had the privilege of seeing another Ethiopian child come home. Eyayu joined his family, the Hoffmans, after 13 LONG months of paperwork and waiting.

Eyayu was one of the Summer of Hope children who stayed in Charlotte last summer. He is the third Summer of Hope child to finally make it home. I can't explain the tears of joy I cry each time one of them makes it home.

I wish I could share all the "God stories" in Eyayu's homecoming. Just three or four weeks ago his paperwork was still lost in the system. Through a series of God events including an unexpected visit to Ethiopia by a physician, prayer intervention by an African national stateside, many phone calls, and God "interventions", Eyayu is now in the states where he can get his much needed heart surgery.



My favorite moment yesterday morning was when the Hoffman family stood together, for the first time - all seven of them including little Joseph - born to the Hoffmans just six days before Eyayu passed court in Ethiopia as their son. How sweet that the Lord blessed this family with two more sons within six days.

The Hoffman Family (baby Hoffman is in the sling)



Seven more of the Summer of Hope children are waiting to be joined with their adoptive families but four are still on the list to be matched with a family. If you've ever considered adopting, please consider a son! The four boys that wait are ages 10 and 11.

Michaela - One Week Post-Op

This is Michaela last week in the hospital. I'm not sure if she's hiding from the camera or from the surgeon??

Last Saturday a.m. we were at Presbyterian Downtown waiting for her urinary tract surgery. It ended up being much more involved than we had hoped.

Her surgeon, brilliantly, opted for the anesthesiologist to give Michaela an epidural (while she was under general anesthesia) which made her 1st 36 hours of recovery bearable since she didn't have any pain. Unfortunately she was VERY sick from the general anesthesia...yuk!!

She came home Sunday evening and has spent the remainder of the week on the couch. Yesterday she begged to go to the final youth group Bible study at church. Amazingly she made it through the entire 1 1/2 hour study but than collapsed when she got home.

The Dr. told her two weeks of complete rest and four weeks before she can return to a full slate of activities.

In a few months, when we're in Swaziland on our mission's trip, this will be a faint memory!!

You got to love that smile...even in the hospital!

Another Zoo Outing

Friday evening we made a trek down to Columbia, SC for a members-only zoo night. Mistakenly, we thought it would be a slightly cooler, less busy time to visit the zoo! Evidently every zoo member thought the same thing. Not only was it HOT, but it was CROWDED. Oh well, we still had a blast.

One thing we're discovering with the younger girls (9, 4 and 2)is we forget we haven't done things with them that we did with Torie and Michaela (20 and 14). On this outing we discovered that the younger girls had never ridden a Merry-Go-Round or tasted an Icee. That had to be remedied!!

I confess we saw very few animals Friday evening. The zoo was only open from 6-8 p.m., but the girls did ride the Merry-Go-Round, not once, but twice and they loved it!! (Special thanks to Torie and Michaela for riding it not once, but twice...you can see the slight blue look on their faces after going round and round that many times.)





The Icee's were another story...the girls really wanted to like them...but only AnnaGrace actually enjoyed drinking hers. After the picture, each of the girls found a trash can to deposit her beverage into.



While the little girls sipped their Icees, Torie and I just pitifully eyed the "closed" Starbucks sign...sigh.



After we left the zoo, we went back to the hotel and went swimming. The girls loved swimming after dark, and then thought it was an extra special treat to order pizza for dinner at 10 p.m. at night!








After a good night's sleep and a leisurely morning at the hotel, it was back to the zoo to actually see the animals...




Sarah Mei asking Torie, "Is that a male or female lion? And is a male a boy or a girl?" She still can't quite keep that straight.




Oh My....Look at that Gorilla!!






When Sarah Mei got tired, she took the spot in Isabelle's stroller. Isabelle thought it was great fun to try to push; however, Sarah Mei wasn't sure they were making enough forward progress.



Next we fed the Lorikeets. This was another first for Sarah Mei and Isabelle. Torie showed them how it was done!









This Lorikeet was getting a little up close and personal with Michaela.


I think Torie and Michaela were just relieved to survive the Lorikeets!!



At the end of our time at the zoo, Phil took Sarah Mei and AnnaGrace through the Rain Forest exhibit. The older girls and I just couldn't face the humidity in the exhibit with the humidity outside, but the little girls enjoyed seeing the fish!!



By 2:00, the heat chased us home, but it was another great outing and family time! We love the diversity of the animals at the zoo. Who else but an awesome God could create such an array of magnificent creatures!

Simple Living - Don't OverCommit

(This is a photo Phil took while on his mission's trip in Peru in May...God's amazing creation!!)

I'm linking up with Linny again on her Simplify Saturday. One of the easiest and yet insidiously difficult ways to simplify our family's life is to 1) Just Say No and to 2) Just Stay Home.

Years ago I read a book, Margin, by Richard Swenson, which profoundly affected my outlook on my time. Swenson is a medical doctor who decided to practice medicine only half-time in order to allow for "margin" in his life. He quotes in his book,

"Margin is the opposite of overload. (In the United States)We don't want to be underachievers, so we fill our schedules uncritically. It is rare to see a life prescheduled to only 80 percent, leaving a margin for responding to the unexpected that God sends our way." pg. 92

He goes on to give this example..."I think back to the nine years our family enjoyed on the lower slopes of the Kilimanjoaro in East Africa. There, while our work was sometimes tense, the pace surely resembled more a walk than a run. There were plenty of green trees to sit under and a conscience that allowed us to sit down under them,' comments former missionary Mildred Tengom. 'We weren't constantly being told that our value depended on how 'active' or 'involved' we were." pg. 96



Swenson recommends leaving at least a 20% margin in the areas of your emotional energy, physical energy, time and finances. Unfortunately I find, so much of the time, our family is going Mach 3 with our hair on fire, instead. It's hard to be obedient to the Holy Spirit's prompting to help our neighbor when our schedule is SO full or when we're physically exhausted because we're TOO "scheduled." (Can you tell the Lord is using this post to "remind" me of the truth again...ahem:)

We try to say "no" to over scheduling and overcommitments, so we have margin in our life.

2) The 2nd way we try to simplify our life is to just stay home. I know we are a little spoiled because we live on a really fun small family farm. (This farm is an answer to a prayer that I prayed for OVER 15 years. It's a really cool story of God's amazing, abundant provision. I think I will blog about that another day!!)

Back to simplifying...I find that when our family stays home....

we spend less money

we connect with each other by spending time together playing games, riding the horses, doing farm projects, etc;

we're not exhausted by having the children participating in multiple different activities each

we can invite other families over to the farm and enjoy their company.

Different things work for different families but simplifying for us means saying "No" to outside commitments that steal our time and keep us away from home and each other. Most importantly I pray we'll get better and better "at leaving a margin for responding to the unexpected that God sends our way."


This photo is of a sunset in the Keyes taken by friends of ours - Bill & Nadine Loftis.

Swaziland - Here We Come!

Michaela and I are thrilled that. Lord-willing, we are going on a mission's trip to Swaziland in Africa in October. (We thought we might travel to Haiti this summer but the doors kept closing and now we know why!) You may remember, back in April, when the Lord stepped on my toes...ahem...and instead of using my garage sale money to buy flowers, we began supporting a sweet little girl, Thabile in Swaziland?? To be honest, I had to look Swaziland up on a map, back then, to figure out exactly where it was in Africa.

Since that time the Lord has fanned into flame a real passion both in Michaela's and my heart for the people of Swaziland. We never dreamt we could actually travel there, but in God's providence, some doors opened and if all goes as planned, we'll board a plane on October 2nd and fly to Johannesburg, South Africa. Then we'll take an 8 hour bus ride to the Nsoko Project in Swaziland where we'll spend 10 days in-country.

Swaziland has a population of just over 1 million people in a country the size of Rhode Island. The average life expectancy is only 28 years old due to the high HIV/AIDS rate. Many children are orphaned at a young age, and the country has no formal orphanages. This leaves children taking care of children. Children's HopeChest, the organization with which we will travel, is setting up CarePoints across the country, which offer safe havens for the children to congregate and get meals, medical care and love from local pastors and full-time missionaries. We'll get to offer love and support to both the orphans and the workers while we are in-country.

Just to explain how amazing God is in providing this opportunity for Michaela and I...the ONLY time I could go on a mission's trip this entire year was October 2-11. Phil has a fall break at school, and he can be home with the 3 little girls during these dates. Because I don't feel comfortable leaving the girls unless he can be with them, I prayed that if the Lord wanted me to travel with Michaela, the dates would fall over "fall break." What are the "chances" of a mission's trip falling on those dates? With God all things are possible!!

We called Children's HopeChest and asked the dates of the Swaziland mission's trips. Of course we had to fit into a group...they don't allow individuals to travel alone. The only group with an opening, just "happened" to be based out of Atlanta and was traveling from October 2-11. You gotta love it!!

It gets even better. The team is traveling to Joyela Care Point which is located in the same geographic region as the little girl we support. So if all goes well, we'll even get to spend some time with Thabile while we are in-country. That is just icing on the cake!


Thabile


Please pray for God's provision for the travel costs for both Michaela and I. And also pray for my health to stabilize. We are believing that if God wants me to travel that all of that will come together!