a Rhen post

Rhen has been a little jealous of all the attention Moose has gotten the last few days so I thought I would post one special post for him. We are in trouble with this little cute one because how do I say no to this cute face...

Rhen is such a happy boy, always giving kisses, always smiling and making odd random noises. He is boy and lets everyone know it. Last night he finally figured out his four wheeler toy and was riding around with his elbow out to the side and his back arched bumping into walls and furniture just laughing. We love this kid!!!

meet..moose

Our new dog!
Now those of you who know Jake, you don't need glasses or a new prescription, us girls just wore him and down and I am sure he just gave in so he didn't have to listen to us anymore or he is just a really, really nice guy. I am pretty sure a little bit of the first and a lot of the second. He is a golden retriever, the runt of the liter. Our neighbors breed them, they are great people and we new those dogs were taken very good care of, and they let us spend some time with them since Chloe loves dogs they let us pet them. Well we fell in love with this one. Very laid back. So
this was his first night at our house!

Chloe has to be careful not to let the dog lick her face, she can't brush it's hair or of course clean up poop, and lots and lots of hand washing. We have him as an outside dog, so all these things made it so the doctors said she can have him. She loves to play with him at her recess time from home school!

He is a lot of fun and the laid back one of the bunch of his bros and sisters. He doesn't yipe at all at night. I didn't sleep much the first night, not because of the yipping, but because I thought he was dead or something. I can only speak for me but it is fun to have him around.

So thanks to their great dad, they are able to smother and love their very own dog.

and the test results are...

no sign of cancer!!! yaahoo!
We are so glad to post that her marrow came back clean of disease. The test results showing how the t cells are developing, or how many are donor are not back yet but we should know that in the next day or two. The docs said her having GVHD may be a pain but it acually helps fight off any cancer cells. From the taper off steriods she is showing small signs of GVHD so we are staying on the small dose she is on so we don't have to go backwards.

It is such a relief to hear. This is such great news for us! Thanks to all for the prayers said in her behalf.

birthday girl

Chloe's 8th birthday was last week and we celebrated by going skiiing. Tal come over (thank you thank you Tal) so that I could go too! Elsie stayed with Tal to help out plus it was her choice, she wanted to stay with Tal, Tal is a favorite around our house. It was wet and we got cold but it was fun. I am almost as good Chloe and Addie and at one point me and chloe crashed into each other, I'm pretty sure that was my fault. Good times. Chloe wanted a cherry pie so we came home, had her favorite dinner, opened presents and ate pie. Spence and Tal and Avery were there to celebrate with us and we had a good time playing Snorta! We found that we can all immitate barn animals pretty good, but no one was as good as chloe! I have a few pics but I am to lazy to find the cord to put in the computer to download and do all that clicking and posting, aaahhh so much work :). Maybe tommorow I won't feel so lazy.

No news on Chloe's asperate yet.

Clinic

Today was another clinic appointment. After a chest x-ray she was put under to have a bone marrow sample and spinal tap. It's been a while since she has had to do that. She says she likes the way the anestesia makes her feel and she likes the nap because her sisters always keep her up late giggling.

They have been taking those xrays every visit lately because she has been on a lot of steroids. So far the xrays have come up clean. We won't know the results of the bone marrow sample for at least a couple of days, maybe a week or more. So we just have to wait and hope the results are that she is 100% donor cells and clear of any signs of cancer. All of her blood tests have been coming back great so hopefully all is well deep in the marrow too. Still, it's stressful waiting for the results.

365 trip

To celebrate the 365'th day we decided to take a family trip because it's been a while. Chloe has gotten the ok from her docs to go Skiing - if it's not a real popular resort that is busy (lots of people in lift lines, bad. Being outdoors in the clean mountain air, good.). She also has the ok to swim if the pool is not the public pool. So nice hotels or private home pools - as long as certain criteria are met. So when we asked Chloe what she wanted to do for a trip she said she wanted to take a ski trip and go to a hotel with a pool.

So we hit up the Beav here in CV first to get warmed up and then we headed up to Boise to ski some more. I know, I know, of all places why Boise. Well, several reasons. Utah resorts are always packed and kids here were out of school which made it worse. In Boise we were able to see Zach, Mal and Eliza which we rarely get to do. Also we had stayed in a nice hotel there before that was brand new and clean so we were comfortable taking Chlo there. Having booked several hotels before online that looked nice but turned out to feel eerily like a crime scene - it was important to us to know where we were taking our fam, especially Chlo. I had a few people questioning our choice for Boise to go skiing (including a Boise local), but I was actually pretty impressed with the resort up there as it was very family friendly and pretty affordable. I'd definately go there again. However, Utah does have better snow.

This is near the summit at Bogus Basin. When leaving Boise we thought it was going to be a lousy weather day, but near the summit we broke out of the couds and it was sunny and warm all day.
Unfortunately Rhen is just too small to fit into gear yet. That, and he can't walk. So Stacie decided to take him out on the town while we carved it up rather than have him last 30 minutes and then be miserable and cold. Hopefully next year we'll get them both up on skis with us because we missed them a lot. I cried on the lift once or twice. Elsie just learned how to ski on this trip and picked it up pretty fast. She struggled with turning, but once she watched me and Zach take a run down the face she suddenly seemed to know how to turn. Luckily she didn't learn how to biff it like Zach did going real fast (we didn't have our poles and he lost his balance - not his fault. Or was it? Truth be told, anyone that knows Zach knows he is an excellent skier. I had a hard time keeping up because I'm old, soft, and people kept stopping me to see if I wanted to borrow some "just for men" hair color.

Luckily for us Bogus Basin seems to have a greater night skiing following. We were able to ski most of the day with really small lift lines. The night skiers start coming up in the afternoon so it started to get busy and we had to leave - but the girls were getting tired anyway. They swam at the hotel every chance they got and as long as we would let them. Chloe still has the picc line in her arm but it didn't slow her down at all. She just threw on her blue balloon to keep the water out and turned into a fish. It was really fun to get away for a bit.

Thanks Zach and Mal for hanging out with us and hooking us up once again with some Great Harvest goodies. Nothing quite compares to the Downtown Boise Great Harvest bakery on Fairview Ave. Stop in for a free slice of bread if you're in the area. Maybe buy yourself some whole grain goodness. Thanks Rob for taking my lesson so we could get away.

Almost all the pics I have are of Elsie because Chloe and Addie just wanted to go faster. They did 2 or 3 runs per 1 that Elsie and I did. It was fun to see them skiing around together. They are a bunch of cute sisters.

day 365!!

I have been looking back at past blogs of what we were up to a year ago. My heart goes out to that family, but then I think wait, that was us!! I was so stressed I couldn't even talk or think right, but I think of all those people we have met through this trial who struggle like we do to fight for our childrens life and how they have given us strength. The nurses who, bless them, do what they can to make life a little easier. The doctors who know, who have studied and gone through schooling for protocols of cancer, relapse and transplants. For family and freinds who pray and do all they can to help. For my little family, who have struggled so hard to be strong with only one parent and who were scared for Chloe and couldn't see her everyday. My heart is full for all of you.
Chloe is doing well and although this GVHD is a beast to get rid of she is fighting, and I am amazed at her strength. I am thankful for that mother who donated her sons cord blood eleven years ago to give my sweet chloe a chance at life. A long road is hopefully coming to an end. Cancer does not beat us, and although I am sad that is has taken some of her "normal" life away from us, we are stronger, smarter and know how precious life is. So to my girls and my boys who have had one of the hardest years of our life...we made it 365!!!

Clinic

Clinic went good yesterday her counts are good and so far the tapper has only brought on a little bit of the itchies, not the full on rash and bumps like last time. We had a three week spread from last apt to this apt so I was hoping to get them more spread out, but it was because of the holidays. We go back in two weeks and she will, as she puts it, go to sleep. They will do a bone marrow asperation. We are hoping that the count of the new marrow is as good as it was in March, or better!

The best part of the holidays...

...is time off work, so we can just be together all day long. I think I get on Stacie's nerves a bit when I'm around all the time, but whatryagonnado? Since Rhen was sleeping while we went snow shoeing, he didn't get any camera time so I thought I'd post some pics of him from the weekend too.

Rhen expressing his disdain for Dell's chosing to outsource its support overseas.

Kisses for Mommy. expressing appreciation for his mommy that is always there to support him and she understands what he asks for too.

When we got to Grandma's he went right for the cupboards to see what goodies he could find. Grandma and Grandpa were looking forward to that.

Then he reset the remote for them.

And trying to figure out what and how he can burn something in that empty stove.

Snow Shoe

Over New Years we decided to head up to Wyoming to visit Grandma and Grandpa. They really know how to party it up, so we figured this would be a good opportunity for us. We stayed up late watching the old school Parent Trap with the girls - they thought it was hilareous. At midnight we ate our first breakfast for the year and it was delightful. The next day, we took the kids up to one of our favorite parts of the valley for a little snow shoeing. It was so peaceful in the mountains with the freshly fallen snow; and peaceful on the way home because the kids were worn out from all the walking.

Addie and Elsie in their "hut".
Chlopants trying to keep warm and keep her balance.

Elsie just being her cute little self.

Addie, dodging a snowball after she pegged me in the face.

Stacie striking a pose.