our winter so far

We had a surprisingly good Christmas. While it was strange without family, it was kinda fun to have a white Christmas. Thanks to generous and kind people all around us we were given enough gifts and money to make Santa come all the way to Ronald McDonald House for the kids. We all had lots of fun shopping and playing with all the gifts. The House put on an amazing dinner with China and linens and all the trimmings. Santa also visited the house and one little boy (named Cal) had all kinds of questions for him, like "where are your reindeer?" It was great. We flew home late New Years Eve, in fact we were some where between time zones to ring in 2008.




At Mayo we discovered that the problem with Cloey's breathing lies in her brain. It means there is nothing we can do to "fix" it, but it also means there were no surprise conditions or unexpected surgeries, truly a blessing. She came home on a Bipap ST machine in a last ditch effort to avoid putting her on a ventilator. Unfortunately it did not work and Cloey was placed on the vent about two weeks ago. This is a machine that is breathing for her, which makes her eligible for the Make A Wish program, so we have started that process. There are many complications that could arise with the vent, the most concerning being that she may eventually become completely dependant on the machine to breathe. That would make it hard for her to continue to go to school, church, and participate in so many other things that she loves about life. This pulls on our hearts and we have been on our knees in prayer trying to make the best decisions for our sweetheart. For now, she is only on the machine at night and is doing well on it. It is giving her the support she needs to sleep and wake up to be Cloey all day. We will take it one step at a time and continue to live our life. Whether it's buying a house, taking a job, having a baby or whatever. We don't want to sit stagnant waiting for Cloey to leave us, hopefully she won't, and we don't want life to pass us by in the meantime. That being said we are making sure we spent lots of time together as a family. We hope to go to the beach, camping, Disneyland and all the things we have not been able to do because we are always getting ready or recovering from some surgery or something. Our focus is now on Cloey's quality of life. There-It's all said and you can take a break to cry if you want to.




-sigh-

Ty is applying at various cities around the valley, we are hopeful it will happen this year now that he has his degree. In the meantime he is working as an electricians helper and looking for a part time job to supplement our income. He is also really enjoying the Wii that he got for a graduation present. He was released from the Elders Quorum and will now be the scouting program Chairman. Thanks to Uncle Albert and Aunt Robin he got to take Cal to monster trucks, once again he came home with more pictures of the trucks than my son, so I think it is safe to say they had a good time. Ty and I have recently come to the realization that we are old. Friday will be 10 years since we met, and St Patrick's day will be 10 years of being together, crazy. So I changed my hair and got a pedicure :)







As if we didn't get enough snow in MN, the kids had an ice skating field trip where they had a lot of fun. Our amazing Ward did it again with huge yard sale benefiting Cloey's medical care. It was even in the local papers. There is no way we would make it to Mayo without that help. It is so comforting to see how much good is around us, so many people put so much effort into the sale just to help one little family. Words can't describe the spirit that was felt by all involved. We are all recovered from the flu and bronchitis we had two weeks ago, it was horrible. Cloey was in the hospital and Ty was rationing my cough syrup with codeine because I was so miserable I kept asking him to bring me some. Little Lainey had her tonsils and adenoids removed on Mon. She had to stay overnight because she is under 4 and has asthma, but she is doing much better now. It is amazing she is already not snoring! She has snored like an old man since she was born. We think she will start feeling better and maybe gain some weight now. Now that Grandma Hall has helped us out with a computer, hopefully I will be able to update more often. We love and miss everybody we don't see nearly enough.
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