The BIG Apple with my oldest!

It's getting too real that Abigail is about to start her SENIOR year!  I'm trying to check off some of her bucket list items before this end comes quickly to a close.  I have a reeling that I'm going to have my running shoes on year in order to keep up with all the "lasts".

Planes, trains, and automobiles...and LOTS of walking!

Took the ferry over to Staten Island.  Lady Liberty in the background.

Humbling to see take Abigail to the Twin Towers Memorial.  Abigail was due on 9/11 so she's heard us talk about the terror of that horrible day in history all her life.  The Lord saw fit she arrive three days early, thankfully.  David was furloughed from his new commercial airline job of three months soon after.  It was a crazy time in our family as well as the entire country, of course.

Time out for some yummy pizza on the street!

Wall Street

Grand Central Station

HAD to stop in at our fave.

Rockefeller Plaza

In the craziness of Times Square

Central Park

We searched and searched for a cool rooftop.  Found one and this was overlooking Lincoln Center!

LOVE you, baby big girl!  I had a blast spending a whirlwind trip with you.  I'm shaking in all these sweet memories with you.

As you can read...It was challenge getting home from our NY adventure! We waited on 5 flights.  They called our names. Yes, BOTH our names.  Whew! WE thought we were all good, but when we walked up to the gate they had room for only one.  I sent Abigail. Five minutes later she reappeared from the jet bridge. (and we texting all that trying to figure what to do all in a split second!).  They'd miscounted and now she wasn't on board!  So..."the Team" got to wait for another flight.  WE finally got on the 6th and final flight of the night.  We realized we looked exactly the same.  We both had white shirts on, ripped jeans and tennis shoes, same glasses, same earrings, and both have red backpacks. Monkey see, monkey do!  Fun times!

When your child inspires you

December 2016 was the last time I posted?? Wow.  Writing use to be my cheap therapy, and I have gotten away from regularly writing and updating about my life (although I'm quite certain my updates are for my out of state family only!). I think about blogging all the time then I get distracted and don't make time to do it. Well, I'm making a change.  My Miracle #1 (aka baby big girl or Abigail) has started a blog, and her vision for "starting where she is" has inspired me to blog again.  Thank you, Abigail!

SO much has happened in the past 1.5 years it's overwhelming to try recount everything.  That's why I've put things off- I kept telling my organized self, "your stories won't be in order, your pics won't be in order, your thoughts are going to be all over the place...Well, yep they will be when your skip 1.5 years of your life in blog form!

For those who started following me many years ago because of my illness here's a brief update.  For about three years all of my labs have been normal.  I've traveled. I've water skied.  We've moved. We've renovated.  We've had surgeries (and about to have another) and a concussion. A LOT of life has been happening with a pretty "normal" in remission type of body!  About three weeks ago (kinda out of the blue) I started having some symptoms of that pesky dermatomyosits disease. Since I don't mess around with those kinds of symptoms I headed straight to my rheumatologist to get labs done.  That night he called to tell me sure enough my CPK was quite elevated (remember that number I've charted for the seven years and kinda has looked like a roller coaster?! Yup, that one.). My initial reaction was shock and some tears.  Chan and David were standing right there when I was on the phone with the doctor.  Remember, Chan has never really quite understood what all this disease has done to me since it was before he came into the picture.  I reassured him my tears were really not from fear but from complete frustration.  Frustrated that I'd COMPLETELY gotten of my steroid 6 months and have been tapering off off my other "steroid sparing" meds for months as well and have done great! I've slept better.  I've not had the brain fog. Did I mention I've water skiied all summer? In other words...I've felt STRONG.

My next response was- "Let's pray!  I'm NOT going down this spiral again, and I certainly am not going to to listen to satan's lies that want to trip me up!" I made a couple more appointments- one with my Chinese medicine doc and other with my holistic medicine doc.  I got chewed on a bit from the last doctor, and honestly, I deserved it.  When verbalizing to her the timeline of going off my steroid (which was approved by my rheumy), tapering the other meds plus detoxing my body through a pretty dramatic diet/lifestyle change I'm thinking to myself, "Ummm, yep, that was a lot for my body to get used to.  Bad girl!" So...I'm back on some meds that I have a love/hate relationship plus an entire slew of supplements that have helped before, and I already see some improvement.  Hubby has put me on "house arrest" by limiting all my activity level.  Ugh.

Other things happening on the home front is that I have three teenagers in the house! Abigail has just started her senior year in HS and filling out college applications as I type.  She's a starting player on her varsity volleyball team again, and she loves it!  Audrey An and Chan are now in 7th grade- crazy. Audrey An is following in her sister's footsteps with volleyball, and she is one determined little gal.  Love watching my girls play a great sport.  Chan is all thing computer, science and math. He's so smart and even got the highest GPA in math last year.  Pretty unbelievable he does so well with only being in the USA and speaking English for four years.

We've had some great vacations the last couple of years, and we are all so grateful.  We've moved since my last post.  That was and is a complete gift from the Lord!  I can't remember what our summers were like before this one-one without being able to literally walk 5 minutes down to the dock, push a button on a lift and drive off in our boat.  It's been the source of many many happy memories, parties and spur of the moment "let's go for a sunset cruise" with lots of friends and kids (almost 90 this summer!) from school and church. We have taught kids to knee board, water ski, and wake surf (but I'm leaving walk boarding lessons to someone else due to Abigail's accident and concussion last year!).

Here are a few pics from this summer.  Maybe I'll do a more detailed post of some of the adventures later...

Wake surfing is so fun..l.don't think I'll ever slalom again.  Wake surfing is way easier on this "older" body of mine!

Sisters skiing!

David's a professional now.

Being goofy at her senior pic day! I "might" have shed some tears!

First day of school!

This morning was breathtaking- no filter!

Family Cruise

We had a blast on a family cruise back in July.  It really was a once in a lifetime trip.  Our family didn't know until the day before if we were going to have to drive down to Miami or we'd get to fly stand by.  In typical family fashion we had to go on different flight, but we made it there Friday, enjoyed a Saturday in Miami and connected with the rest of the family, then boarded the Allure of the Seas on Sunday.

David's sister, Deborah, with hubby, Reagan, and Jessica and Jacob.

San Juan, Puerto Rico was beautiful!

We celebrated Audrey An's 8th Gotcha Day on the cruise...not too shabby!  The wait staff made her a beautiful cake and sang "happy Gotcha Day" to her- fun!

Love these two sisters! This was couple of hours AFTER Abigail fainted on the island.  Thankfully, a doctor and nurse were standing right next to us. Her blood pressure dropped very low, was "out" about 20 seconds" and was just limp dish cloth.  It was very scary.  We came to the conclusion she was very dehydrated (we've had this issue before!) and not much to eat...not a good combination when in extreme heat and continuous sun.

Audrey An on the flow rider!

Abigail zip lining on the ship.  

David with our friendly "washy washy" gal.  EVERYTIME anyone enters the dining room we were greeted with hand sanitizer stating us to "washy washy"!

My man, my father-in-law, John, and sister-in-law, Deborah

leaving Labadee, Haiti

We all rock climbed (well I did...barely- have no upper body strength, but I tried!), but this was Chan's favorite activity on the ship!

Yep, that's mama bear.

My neice, Jessica, charmed our wait staff to provide her LOADS of shrimp cocktail each time we ate!

Some of the gang before we boarded the ship.

There are perks of having the pool to yourself when you board early!

Who would've though...ICE SKATING on the ship.  A first for Chan!

Jake and Chan snorkeled every time they could.

Different day of the fainting spell, but Abigail didn't feel well on our first day into port, St. Marrten.  Bless her!  She'd been looking for to THIS particular stop for months.

Chan stayed with us on his super cool bunk while All the girls stayed in a cabin, John in a seaport cabin, and Jake stayed with his parents.

San Juan

The girls and I ventured off. on foot for a very quick, self guided, walking tour of San Juan.

Rock climbing shoes are so stylish!

Fun to get dressed up with my gals!

We had a RECORD non-rev, standby experience on the return trip.  We  disembarked the ship at the earliest time possible in order to HIPE to catch early flight back home.  3.5 hours from ship tour door step...AMAZING!