WISH

I am so excited to share that Olivia was granted a Wish through the Make A Wish Organization and we will be leaving in less than a week for Disney World. I'm just so overcome with emotion, I'll warn you now that this will be a long post.

Now that I've shared the big news I can start at the beginning. When Olivia was inpatient last summer I met several kids who were looking forward to their wishes or had just had their wish granted. Our Social Worker in the hospital suggested that I begin completing the paperwork to apply for Olivia to have a wish granted by the Make A Wish organization. The medical team at Duke encouraged and supported Olivia's Wish application enthusiastically. They all felt it would be great for Olivia to have something so positive to look forward to. I completed the paperwork shortly after Olivia was discharged from the hospital while we were in the apartment in Durham. Olivia and I met with some volunteers from Make a Wish and at that point she was able to communicate with them, she said that she wanted to see Mickey Mouse and the princess but that she did not want to go on a boat. The Make A Wish volunteers confirmed that this meant that Olivia was interested in going to Disney World in Orlando and that she did not want to go on a Disney Cruise. They continued putting the application packet together with the help of her transplant team at Duke. We found out that Olivia's wish had been granted shortly after we moved from Durham to Fayetteville. Since Make A Wish is a volunteer organization we had to be assigned a different group of "Wish Granters". In March we met with Olivia's Wish Granters here and we began to discuss Olivia's wish in greater detail. It's so sad to me that at this point just a few months later Olivia was no longer able to tell the Wish Granters that she wanted to see Mickey Mouse. Our Wish Granters were fantastic to work with and we all moved forward with the wish planning. The most complicated step seemed to be finalizing a date. The transplant team recommended that we go before school ended for the summer or after school began in the fall because of Olivia's suppressed immune system and on top of that if we waited until the fall then Olivia would most likely be off of all transplant medications and without a port. Basically the transplant team was strongly recommending that we wait until the fall. Mike and I went back and forth, of course we wanted to do what was best for Olivia medically but we wanted her to be able to understand and appreciate the experience. Finally we opted for after school started in the fall and our Wish date was finalized. I still don't know if we made the right decision but I've decided to stop stressing about it. We've known for months that we would be going to Disney World in September but we finally got to learn about some of the trip details this past week.

Olivia and 2 of her Wish Granters, I think we're especially lucky because we've been able to meet 5 FANTASTIC volunteers with Make A Wish throughout this process.

Before I continue I just have to talk about the Make A Wish volunteers. Everyone that we've had contact with throughout this experience has been wonderful! Each time we meet someone from Make A Wish they bring toys for Olivia, they brought toys for her to play with on the plane. This process has been so emotional for me, from Olivia expressing her wish to see Mickey to her not being able to talk much at all. These volunteers have all been fantastic.

Mike, Olivia, Peter, my sister Amy (Olivia's Godmother), and myself will all be heading to Orlando for a week! We will be staying at a special resort near Disney specifically for families that are visiting Orlando as part of a Make A Wish experience called "Give Kids the World". We'll be spending some time at the Magic Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom as well as Epcot, Universal Studios, and Sea World. It is our goal to give Olivia the best Disney experience possible. My parents are hoping to be able to meet us in Orlando for part of our trip. I am completely overcome with gratitude and appreciation. I just cannot find the words to express what a blessing this is, I don't even know where to begin. The mission of the Make A Wish organization is to "grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy." They have already done that and we haven't even left the house yet! And after reading that again I am crying all over the place so I'll just end here and maybe I'll be able to pull it together in time to pick Olivia up from school in a few hours.

The End of Summer....

I think NOT! We're so not ready for summer to end around here! After our years of living in the Pacific Northwest we're still soaking up the sun! We took full advantage of the long weekend around here.

I LOVE that we're just a quick 2 hour drive to the beach, but I think there's someone in our little family of 4 that appreciates it even more than I do......

 

Peter LOVES the beach. He loves the sand, the waves, the birds. He loves to grab shells and throw them back into the ocean.





We hung out in our backyard.





Leave it to the boys to make the slip and slide even more exciting.




We headed to the neighborhood pool.




Who knows what they are looking at but it's not me or the camera!




We hung out in the back yard some more. Thanks to some end of season sales we FINALLY have an umbrella for the patio. Mike and I enjoyed our coffee on the patio early in the morning while Olivia got to play on the swing set in her pj's. No pictures of that experience, it was too early for the camera!


We headed to downtown Fayetteville and went to the US Aviation and Special Operations Museum. The museum was neat, Mike really appreciated this poster about operational security........



A brand new restrauant just opened in Fayetteville and I know that my friends from South Carolina will appreciate this.....



That's right, Fayetteville has a Kickin' Chicken! We went for lunch and everybody loved it!

It was a great weekend but I'm just not ready for summer to end yet. I want to see how many more day trips to the beach we can squeeze in before it gets too cold!

First Week Recap

Olivia did so well during her first week of school. I tried so hard not to have high expectations about school but I know it is going to be such a great experience for her. She gets so excited when I tell her that it is time to get ready to go to school. She runs to her classroom each morning. Olivia waves goodbye to her teachers each afternoon. Olivia's teacher was so excited to tell me that Olivia said "Mama" on Friday afternoon, we both cried over that. It's been months since I've heard Olivia say "mama". I actually picked Olivia up early from school Thursday afternoon because she had a fever. I think that she just got a little over tired because she had been having a great day, she had PT and Speech at school, she ate a good breakfast and lunch and then really played during recess but then she started running a low fever. Her temp only got up to 99*, we came her home and she took a 4 hour nap then woke up ready and rearing to go. Since she had left with a fever though she had to be fever free for 24 hours so that meant no school for Olivia on Friday.

In the meantime Peter and I are having a blast. He's growing up so fast! I am loving the time I get to spend with my little guy. I took Peter with me to run some errands the other day and he was just looking so adorable that I had to take a few pictures.



He knows that he's looking adorable!

First Day Recap and Other Ramblings

Olivia's first two days at school went wonderfully. I think that the teacher wasn't really prepared for Olivia but they have already started the process of getting more aides into her classroom. Olivia even napped at school and she's starting to follow some of the classroom routine a little bit. I am confident that school will be a great experience for Olivia. It is amazing how much I can accomplish with just one child in tow. I know people that complain about not being able to get anything done with a toddler but Peter and I are having a blast and we've accomplished more over the last 2 days that I would normally be able to accomplish in 2 weeks!

Mike and I had to spend several hours at Care Team training last night. Care Teams help care and support the spouse or family of a service member when they are killed, captured or injured. We're glad we went to the training but it was not a plesant evening out. I just cannot get over how ironic it was that we spent the evening learning how to care for widows when they learn their husbands are killed in combat while the President addressed the nation to declare the end of combat operations in Iraq.