Brendan update

Brendan is doing great! We're still watching that lymph node. I think it has gone down some, but is still very large. His follow-up is on Wednesday.

A rough couple of days

We had a little scare with Brendan this week. He woke up with a high fever, discomfort in his chest, eyes, body aches and a bad headache on Thursday, so I called the hematologist and then took him down to Texas Children's. He went through the usual gambit of tests and got IV antibiotics and fluids. The pain/sensitivity in his eyes frequent headaches and big lymph nodes had them leaning toward doing a spinal tap. I urged them to wait until the blood tests and other tests came back. They said they would give him a 24 hr. observation period and do it in the morning. Lucky for us, they didn't have any beds available on our floor in the hospital, so they sent us home for the night (with the IV), and we went back first thing in the morning. Brendan did great overnight and his temp was nearly normal in the morning. They did a few more viral tests (epstein-barr and something else), gave him more antibiotics and sent us home this afternoon. He has a follow-up next week in the clinic and we'll find out all of the results then. We are still a little concerned about one very large lymph node on his neck. It looks kind of like an egg in his neck, but hope it's just an over-zealous gland fighting whatever bug he had. It should go down soon since they gave him the strong anti-biotics. I'm trying not to be a worry-wort. Keep those prayers coming though.

Late night egg hunt

We got back from LTC just before evening worship, on Sunday (Easter), so we stayed for that and then went and had dinner before we came home. It was pretty late, and very dark, but while we were unloading the car, we noticed some eggs in the yard. (Turns out my easter bunny-in-laws had been by earlier) We busted out the flashlights and let them hunt eggs in the dark. Too fun! Here's proof.

We're back from LTC!

Wow! What a great weekend we had at the Leadership Training for CHRIST convention in Dallas!

Ryan and all of the kids did a really good job on their events.

Here are a few photos from Ryan's events.

The BIG crowd is Bible Bowl. The back 3 rows were adult observers, but the rest of the hall was FILLED with participant kids and scorekeepers. all of the kids in there were answering questions about I Samuel for about 3 hours. Ryan's Bible bowl team got a gold and he got an idividual gold. The blurry picture is of Ryan at his Bible Bowl spot, between rounds. He's the kid in the white shirt between the 2 girls in yellow shirts.

You also see him giving his speech, and his puppet team doing their skit. Ryan was the giraffe and the voice of GOD. They did the story of Noah and the Ark from the perspective of the animals.(gold on both events) His pre-convention events were Service challenge, Bible reading and Video Bible Drama The whole convention and LTC process has been a great blessing and learning experience for Ryan and our whole family.

We were also blessed to be able to spend so much time with the other families, and can't wait until next year. ( although we will enjoy the slower pace in the meantime)

Spring is here!

I love Spring!!! All of the azaleas are blooming and everything is so fresh and green! I wish I'd thought to take a picture last week since the azaleas were actually fuller then, but here's our home and the pretty azaleas. I had to get far away, but if you click on the picture you can see the flowers better.

Remembering great times with great friends

I just heard (phone) from a wonderful friend who lives in Sendai, Japan. Ai and her precious daughter Miu last visited us in January, 2005. The first time Ai stayed with us was when we lived in Hawaii and she was only 15 years old (I think around 1994) Here are a few pictures from their visit in 2005. Thanks so much for keeping in touch Ai!

Just hanging out

The boys like to ride bikes over to Brendan's school and play on the equipment at the playground. Brendan is a firepole maniac. He basically loves to climb anything.

Brendan, Jonathan and Griffin were "sleeping" in the hammock. In the "Bear Hunt", the kids had to go find a series of clues that led them to the "Bear". When they found the bear they had to shoot him with their dart guns until he gave them goodies. Uncle Shawn was a very good sport. It was a hit!

We're still here!

By now you may be thinking that we have completely fallen off the edge of the Earth. It's okay. We're here, just painfully disorganized.
For the most part, everything is going very well. Although Brendan did have to spend last weekend in Texas Children's Hospital. He's doing great now, but he had a fever, pain in his chest, a really bad headache and a very high white count. Most of you know that our boys have a blood disorder and no spleen, so it's a big deal any time they get a fever. He had a gazillion tests and got pumped full of IV antibiotics. We don't know what he had but we're glad it went away.
Ryan turned 11 last month and Brendan turned 7. Here are a couple of pictures from their party. The "Bear Hunt" was a blast. Okay, the system won't let me post any pictures right now, so I'll try again later.