The Huge Highs and the Little Lows

It is funny, I used to be so good about making near daily

posts on this blog.  Now that Kean is finished with treatment

(and hopefully cancer forever) I'm lucky if I check in once a week.

So here goes:  our week in review-- and what a week it has been.

We had a church/neighborhood Rodeo-- the real thing.

From 3 legged races...

 to jump houses that Kean didn't ever want to leave...

 to massive egg toss competitions (come now, doesn't every

rodeo have an egg toss)?

 The highlight had to be the pig chase--

yep, picture 100 kids madly chasing after a good sized

hefty, squealing pig with fifty bucks taped to its hind leg.  And they

did it twice with two different pigs!

Byron and I even ran into an old friend from our single days in Arizona-

Maurice Matsumori. 

 Kean had a ball.... riding horses...

and deciding after all that Cotton Candy is a good thing.

 I cursed him by telling everyone how well he's been doing.

The next night, we spent most of the night in the E.R.

 Poor boy got a double whammy-

Croup and Stridor-- both respiratory issues.

He's fine now, thankfully.

 Greer and I spent much of Saturday at the Music Theater of Idaho's offices

building a bathtub as part of the set for The Little Mermaid.

Then we raced home, scraped the paint off of our hands and arms

and did our best to clean up.

Our family was invited to the big Make A Wish gala event.

 It was in the Stueckle Sky Building-overlooking

BSU's football stadium.

The views were stunning of our fair city (and

Greer looked just as stunning-- so grown up)!

 My mom kept Kean and brought him up later

for the program.  I was the keynote.

But we had a blast leading up to the dinner.

The attendees all buy "wish bucks"-- think monopoly money

they pass out to BSU athletes who pull off the craziest antics

to earn money.

 They have players from all the big sports teams at BSU and

they compete to see which team can earn the most.

This guy was from the wrestling team.  He showed off

a talent only a mother could be proud of-- he drank down a

water bottle through his nose.

Ick.

 The football team sang and danced...

 Reese's favorite was the gymnastics team--

they did back flips, cartwheels and all kinds of

bendy things down the hallway.

 Holland was adopted by the Track and Field team

(she runs track for Eagle High)...

 And this tennis player serenaded the family in French.

 In fact, I think we had every team do something for our family

What a fun and crazy night.

All of a sudden, the BSU marching band came streaming out

of the elevators- playing their fight songs full blast.

They literally pushed everyone into the room for dinner to be served.

 Once inside, some of the coaches spoke, we had more

players do some pretty crazy things

and we had a lovely dinner.

 Well, the little bit I ate tasted fine.

I can't eat a ton and then get up and speak.

Suffice it to say, the speech went well, there were tears

in the audience and most importantly, people gave generously

to Make A Wish when all the talking was done.

 We treasured our trip to Disney World, Universal and Sea World.

Looking forward to it kept us going for those three plus dark

years of Chemo, surgical procedures, vomit and hair loss.

And now, we have those memories-- and what amazing memories they are--

to always fall back on.

Thank you Make A Wish for an incredible evening and

a trip of a life time.