This has been a BIG summer! WAY better than last summer, being in the hospital! We decided to really make this summer count and make some great family memories. John is feeling really well. He has pretty much normal energy levels and does almost everything he wants :) His immune system is still weak but at least it is not cold and flu season. He has started going to sacrament meeting in church and he loves it. Maybe in a few months he can go to all his meetings. We have been very busy playing as a family.
Summer started out with the birth of a new niece - Audrey Ann. We love her and are so happy to have a baby around. John can not get enough of her.
We surprised the kids with a trip to Park City! It was one of the best vacations ever! My sister Emily and her husband Ross gave us a week at their timeshare. It was months ago and of all the places we could go, we chose a Marriott 35 minutes from home :) Which turned out perfect since it was also Abby's performance week of "Into the Woods" so we were back and forth almost every day. We had a fabulous 2 bedroom unit and the resort had a super fun kids area with video games, pool, ping pong, a mini movie theatre and tons of daily activities. They had a big pool and 6 hot tubs :) We took a day and bought passes for Park City Mountain Resort and rode the ski lift, alpine coaster, alpine slide, zip line, zip rider, mini golf and a few other activities. It was the funnest day and we did not want to stop for anything! And it was right at the resort, so we would run in to eat when we had to :) We also took the ski lift to the TOP of the mountain. It was a 20 minute ride and one of the most amazing experiences ever! It was so fun to vacation close to home and experience so many fun things.
We also discovered a fabulous reservoir. Pineview Reservoir is only one hour from here. The beach area is decent and the water is warm. We love that it is close and it was super fun. Other than we did get rained on for an hour and left early.
John had a birthday! We were in Park City but came down that night for Abby's show. We met all the family at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate and it was a fun busy night.
This was John's fathers day and birthday present :) I gave him a trip to Austin, TX to go to his sisters wedding! We didn't think he would be up to going, but he was and felt fine. I was nervous sending him on his own and worried about airport, airplane, hotel, rental car germs! But, he was good about sanitizing and cleaning. It was way too expensive for all of us to drive or fly, so I sent John. He took 4 days and had a great time. He had his own weekend to himself and stayed a few days after the wedding to sightsee, since he had no reason to hurry home!
He still has this rash thing on his body. He was finally sent to a dermatologist who did a biopsy. Turns out, it is called spongiotic dermatitis - which is a fancy name for bad eczema. Most likely a result of chemo and eventually it will go away. For now, just treat it with creams. We are so glad it is NOT GVH and can taper his cyclo more now and stregthen that immune system.
And as if that isn't enough . . . John has officially started a job!! Today! He still has his 12 voice students too. Be The Match offered him a job that he was more than happy to accept. He is the Drive Attendant for the state of Utah. He had gone through the volunteer training to run his bone marrow drive and has volunteered his time for other drives. The person who was running Utah drives has quit, so they offered the job to John. It is perfect for him, since it is working from home other than going to the drives on weekends. It is 30 hours a week for now (but hoping in the next 6 months it will be full time with benefits). I don't love that he is gone most Saturdays, but when he is gone a Saturday he gives us a weekday where he doesn't work. He has kind of been "working" for a few weeks, just without being officially hired. Luckily he gets to roll those hours into his pay time, now that it is official. He has a big 2 day drive this weekend which one of our leukemia friends wanted to do. He is so excited for it.
It was kind of funny to have to wake up this morning and get up and get kids up and breakfast with out John. He was up and in his office working. This will take some getting use to. It took time, but I got use to having him home and helping me! With his voice students he is now working 45-50 hours a week! Time to get adjusted to our new normal - again :)
