The Characters

Two of Sawyer's favorite things:

Rides

Characters

He absolutely loved meeting the characters.

Make-A-Wish set up a meet and greet with Belle and Beast.

Then characters from the parks would come to Give Kids The World each morning.

THEN

When we went to the parks, the characters actually sought us out.

Amazing.

 This is my favorite because he said,

"will you marry me?"

We showed up at the end of Gru meet and greet.

The handler came over and asked us to wait by the gates.

After everyone had gone, they came out just to meet us.

On our first day at Universal, a young boy came up to Sawyer and gave him a very large Minion stuffed toy.  Such a sweet thing.

Judson is my only Harry Potter fan.

Didn't matter.

Dream come true to meet THE BEAST.  

Meeting Belle was cool, too.

Jesse followed us out and kept hugging Sawyer.

She obviously was touched in some way by Sawyer.

She touched us, too.

There are even more character photos but I will stop with these.

Amazing experience!

My Favorite

My personal favorite park was Sea World.  

It is the perfect balance of rides and shows. 

Plus, I love the animal interaction. 

We petted and fed the sting rays and the Dolphins. 

We saw the whale show too!

We rode rides too!

Sawyer loved all the rides.

(Yes, I rode rides but not spinning rides.  I also sat out on rides just so I could get a glimpse into their faces.  Priceless!)

I was telling Sawyer's oncologist about our trip.

I told her how much Sawyer loved the rides, especially roller coasters.

Her comment?

"Boy am I glad we gave him platelets before you left"

It seemed like each day produced an act of kindness.

This day, we received trays of shrimp to feed the sting rays.  It was not part of our 'package'.

They also gave us sting ray teeth.  We were given a little science lesson.

Apparently, sting rays shed their teeth frequently.

To the tune of maybe 10000 teeth in their lifetime.

Magic!

A child (in the US) will be diagnosed with a life threatening illness every 38 minutes.  We are one of those families who faced such a diagnosis.  We are one of those families fighting for our child's health.  It is an all encompassing battle.  You live it 24/7/365 until it consumes you.  It permeates every aspect of you life. 

This past week, we were given a break from this battle.  No, our child was not 'cured'.  For one week, we were given time to enjoy life with as few restrictions as possible.  Someone else took care of the details.  Someone else cooked and cleaned.  Someone else made sure we could enjoy a few hours of fun.  All we had to do was choose what we wanted to do and when we wanted to do it. 

It was MAGIC!

These are only a few of the pictures taken around the Give Kids the World village where we stayed.

Awesome place.

Awesome people.  (Mostly Volunteers)

Awesome experience.

More later.

Because He Is Worth It

He needs you

Check out this link.  The little guy needs you!

Thankful!

Is It Over Yet?

Historically, October has been our busiest month.

2014 is no exception.  

It has been a super busy.

Soccer.

Doctors,

Dentist.

School.

Scouts.

More Scouts.

More school.

Etc

etc

etc

We have had lots of fun

and hope to end with a bang

on Halloween!

We had a party at Camp Sunshine.

The kids loved dressing up.

We tried to watch our 2nd eclipse.

Front row seats!

We celebrated a birthday!

Judson made the cake.

Enjoying his 'new to him' birthday present,

Table and Chairs.

Picked green beans!

Still in the process of freezing them.

We had a fun hoedown experience.  

The kids reluctantly tried dancing.  At the end, I couldn't get them to leave the dance floor!

So much for which to be thankful.

We are enjoying each and every moment.

A Day In the Garden

We went with Judson's science class.

A most glorious day, as weather goes.

There were more but they were not easily corralled

Early Morning

We got up early to see the Lunar Eclipse

Luckily it was very easy to see, even in the burbs!