Yeah they are back!

Yeah the kids are back and full of smiles, songs and stories. I have to confess.. I cheated….I couldn’t last the whole week. I called the camp counselor on Tuesday and she told me the kids were having a great time. She also went on to tell me how wonderful they are and that Thomas had been given the “campers award” the first two days. One for being a good friend, the other for eating a worm!! Wow, no wonder kids don’t like camp food. Apparently it was nature day and they got to eat things like cattails and white pine bark and other non-toxic thing found in the woods. Thomas was willing to try a worm with the counselor (and he complains about my cooking!) so that night the kids voted him most likely to try different foods (the irony of this is just too much for me to even write about). Now that they are home we have verified that Tom ate a worm…he told us the secret…”You just swallow, don’t chew it.” Ah, good to know. All the kids are happy and well and ready to go back for the winter camping.

We have good news from Lisa’s docs…so far all test from last week have come back clean. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are still waiting on the bone marrow, but I’m feeling pretty positive it will be good. We are ecstatic and focusing on how to enjoy life and count our blessings daily. God sent us a reminder today not to take life for granted. As we were picking up the kids from camp, we saw one of the teenagers we know from Motts. Her family was there picking up her sister who had been at camp. Sadly, she is not well. Her cancer is back and pretty fierce. We had met her a year ago during one of Lisa’s first treatments. Emma was on the upswing and had just returned from camp. While Lisa was going thru most of her treatments last fall, Emma was in remission. When Lisa was finishing up bone marrow transplant, Emma was fighting cancer again and getting ready for bone marrow transplant. Her BMT gave her 18 days of clean scans, but after that the cancer was back and now is taking it’s toll. While Emma puts on a good front, it is a heart-breaking thing. She was released from the hospital today and given doses of morphine so she could come to pick her sister up from camp and say hi to her friends. They stayed for only a short time before going back to the hospital. It is a heart-breaking thing to see these young people faced with this ravaging illness. Please offer up a prayer for Emma and her family.

As for us, we are very blessed and pray that God’s plan includes a long, pain free life for Lisa and all of our children.

P.S. Four kids is a lot harder to manage than one! I forgot how noisy and how much commotion there is when all of them are home.