Disney World

We survived our trip to Disney World! We had a great time although I have to say we stayed rather exhausted. We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort and visited all the Disney theme parks. Our poor kids were tired of getting up early while on vacation, but we were determined to get to the parks early. We had 3 rides that broke while we were either almost to the line, returning with our FastPass or even worse, on the ride itself. We spent some time in Downtown Disney shopping and eating. We took the kids to Planet Hollywood and loved it! When we visited the Animal Kingdom, we rode a ride called Kali River Rapids (actually rode it twice). The kids and I opted to purchase panchos to prevent us from getting wet. Trace decided to brave it. Well, instead, the kids and I were soaked and Trace walked away with barely a sprinkle of water on him. However, when he rode Splash Mountain, he did get his fair share of water!

Here are a few of our favorite pics:

While it was a great family vacation, I can say without a doubt that I am not planning on returning! Once was enough...

Just Another Day in Paradise...

It has been awhile since I've posted anything on the blog! Here are some updates on our lives in paradise. Lately, things have been pretty uneventful. Brock's health has been good. He had a seizure last week (kind of a big one), but he recovered and did not experience any ill side effects, thankfully! I have been traveling for my job in the past few weeks which always seems to make life a little hectic for us. Brock celebrated his 6th birthday (and I had my 30th, which is a whole other story). Brock informed me that he is now an adult because it takes two hands to show his age! We are getting ready for our first family vacation to Disney World. We leave this Friday and will be there for a whole week. It is quite exciting, but I have to admit I have had many nightmares about this trip. In one of my nightmares I dream that I put Trace in charge of packing for all 5 of us and getting our stuff in the car. Since I am out of town this week, this could have been a reality. In my dream though, we arrive at Disney World and we do not have any of our travel documents with us. Then, when we do finally get in our room, I discover that Trace has packed me clothes that don't fit me anymore and he has only packed 3 days worth of clothes for the kids. Do you see how this can frighten me? If you know me, you know I'm a planner. I like to plan everything out and know exactly what I am taking and what I am going to wear each day. I have to tell you, when I woke up the next morning, I was so mad at Trace for potentially ruining our vacation! It really was unfair of me to be mad, but it was kinda funny. This is just one of many nightmares....the rest just resulted from me reading the book "How to Survive Disney World with Kids". The planner in me thought this would be beneficial, but instead it just made me paranoid about the sheer magnitude of DW and all the things we "needed" to see. Now that our vacation is quickly approaching, I don't have time to plan. I am in Washington D.C. this week for work and will not be home until Thursday. We leave Friday. More panic and stress! So here is to hoping my work trip goes quickly and that I can actually pack everything we need when I get home. We are ready to vacation!!

Thanksgiving

As a kid, I never really enjoyed Thanksgiving. It was just one holiday closer to Christmas. I am not a huge fan of all the traditional Thanksgiving day foods. I think the only parts I liked were watching the parade and putting up our Christmas tree that night or the next day. Even as an adult, the holiday still didn't hold too much meaning for me. There were no firm traditions in our family for this holiday and I never felt connected to it. That was until 3 years ago.... 3 years ago we decided to drive to Iowa to visit my family there. My grandparents and my uncle (and cousins) lived there. We stayed the entire week with my Uncle Andy and cousin Sammi. The kids stayed up late playing games and being goofy while the adults played games. The rest of the family (siblings, all aunts/uncles, cousins, parents, EVERYONE) came to stay as well. Between the whole bunch of us we had around 25 people (lost track). I spent majority of my time cooking for everyone, which I love. I cooked mounds of food and desserts in my uncle's tiny, vintage kitchen. My husband even helped with lots of the cooking! The most magical part of the trip was on Wednesday. It snowed. Being from Texas, we were thrilled beyond belief! We rushed to the nearest K-Mart to buy snow pants, hats, boots, gloves, etc. We all spent the entire day outside playing in the snow. We built a snowman (who was the centerpiece of our Christmas cards), went sledding, had snowball fights and even made snow angels. It was unbelievable. I got so busy playing in the snow that I forgot about some of the goodies I was supposed to be baking. We stayed up late getting them completed. Then Thanksgiving arrived and we were out in the snow again! We had one mishap which resulted in a broken sled (sorry Sam). This led to yet another trip to K-Mart to buy a new one. I think we walked away with only one real injury (Aunt Terri got snowballed in the eye). The pictures speak for themselves :) None of us will ever forget the enlightening game of Balderdash the adults played.....there were some interesting definitions in that game!! Now, every year we look forward to our trip to Iowa for the week. It doesn't even have to snow. We love spending time with everyone and just hanging out as a family. We have caught up on old memories and even learned a few things about our family that we didn't know. The kids enjoy their time to stay up late, watch movies and just be kids. I think for all of us, it has become quite a fun time to look forward to. My kids started counting down the weeks to Thanksgiving back in August. Now that it is very quickly approaching they can hardly wait. I am thrilled that we have created this amazing Thanksgiving tradition that my kids will remember all their lives. This isn't just a holiday that we have to get past before Christmas, now it has special meaning for all of us. Here are a few pictures from the first Iowa Thanksgiving.

Me & Trace

Mareck's Snow Angel

The Whole Family

Mindy, Me & Laura

Our Snowman

7 Months!!

Brock has reached 7 months of fever-free life! That may not seem like a long time for most people, but it is the longest he has ever gone without fever or being hospitalized. It has been great for us in so many ways! Brock is now enjoying a much freer life and a less painful life. We just pray that it continues for him.

5 Months!!

We are very excited to have reached the 5 month mark!! Brock has had no disorder related fevers in 5 months! I can't say he hasn't had any fever because we did have one little bout with a cold in April, but it proved to be minor. We are ecstatic that he has made it this long with no complications. Previously we could barely go 3 weeks without a problem. He was experiencing fever for about 4 days and then it took almost a week to recover from that....and then only about 1 good week before he was sick again. Brock feels like a different person now (and us too!). He asks me when he is going to get sick because I know that he feels like it will creep up on him at anytime. We have that feeling too, but for now we are just enjoying our new found freedom. Our doctor's appointments have been spaced apart and he isn't having to do blood work nearly as often. What a fabulous 5 months it has been!! Can't wait to see how long the trend will continue!

Here are pictures of Brock at his preschool graduation. He was so cute! When it was time to get his "diploma" he didn't just walk to the stage, he ran full speed!

We are so proud of our little "Brock-oli".

Thank you for your support!

Sherri

Our Lives Lately

It has been awhile since I updated everyone on Brock's status. Things have been going really good for him! This has been the longest stretch he has ever had of being "well". He had one bout with a cold a few weeks back, but he recovered fairly well and only had some small seizures during that time. He has been having small seizures and/or night terrors again at night. We did some more blood work yesterday to check his trileptal levels in his blood. Once we get those results we will be able to determine if we need a medication change or not. Our thinking is that the neurologist is going to put him in the hospital to do another video EEG in the EMU (epilepsy monitoring unit). That is never fun, but Brock is fairly cooperative and enjoys flirting with the nurses. Other than that, he is enjoying being a normal boy for a change! He knows that things are a little different with him right now....he occassionally will ask me "when will I be sick?" Since that has been a very common occurrence for him, he feels like it could happen at any time.

We're not sure what is causing him to have such good health right now. His doctor is just as stumped as we are! We will just continue with his current medications until we are told otherwise....we have orders to notify the molecular immunologist as soon as there is ANY change. Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes for Brock! They must be doing wonders.....we can only hope and pray that maybe his rough times are behind him....but only God knows....

Our family at the beach in Galveston.