Big News

Ok so I can finally share our big news & the decision we came to. It's scary but super exciting. In January Julia will start a clinical trial of a new medicine called cyclodextrin. It is going to require monthly 5 day visits to NIH in MD, so I am taking an intermittent leave of absence @ work. It is also going to require surgery (this is the scary part) to install a port in her brain called an ommaya reservoir that will be used to deliver the medicine. We have the utmost trust in the doctors & faith that God is in control. This gives us renewed hope for Julia's long term future.
Prayers would still be appreciated as we continue on this journey :)

The Rest of the Story

Sorry couldn't resist with the title. So where was I? Well we had an absolutely awesome time in Phoenix & at the Race track & meeting Kevin Harvick. But in reality there was much more to our trip. We left Phoenix on Monday Nov 12 in our rental heading to a few sightseeing areas. The first place we stopped was the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. It was breathtaking. The hike down to the Natural Bridge was a little challenging but it was so worth it! Be sure to check out the pictures I've uploaded on the family photos page. We left there & didn't quite have time to make it to the petrified forest like we planned so we headed west into Flagstaff to stay the night. The next day we headed up to the Snow bowl, a skiing resort. It was closed but there was plenty of snow on the sides of the road so we stopped & Julia completed her mission of making a Snow-angel. That made her day! We also stopped along the way & had a snowball fight, not something we usually get to do in Fl. The coldest temperature we saw was 21 degrees. That's too cold for me :)   Next we drove to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, snapping lots of pictures along the way, as you can see. The Grand Canyon is beyond words, it's so large it's almost incomprehensible. If you've been there you understand. At the Grand Canyon it was still pretty cold & the wind was blowing so we didn't stay as long as we would have liked, but we did stop & see the Grand Canyon I max movie on the way out. It was pretty cool. Our next planned stop was Hoover Dam. As we drove & it started to get dark we were thinking about getting a hotel for the night, but when we realized how close to the Dam we were we decided to drive a little while longer so we could see the Dam @ night. That was very neat. Then we realized we weren't too awfully far from Vegas & as this was the girls & my first time in that part of the country we said what the heck! LOL. We drove a few hours more & cruised down the Las Vegas Blvd to witness all the lights. Wow!! That was cool. We ended up getting a hotel just outside Vegas that night. The next morning we had plans, Jason's cousin whom we hadn't seen in 18 years had payed for a helicopter flight over Hoover Dam for us. I was soooo nervous!!! But it was soooooooo awesome!!!! We were so amped after that we wanted to go back to the Grand Canyon & do a helicopter tour there. Instead we started making our way back towards Phoenix. Julia had a date on Thurs with a cute Fireman :) Tommy was a Make a Wish Volunteer & a Firefighter. Him & his guys offered to make lunch for Julia @ their fire-station. It was so awesome!! They made soft tacos just as Julia requested :) They gave us a tour around the station & let the girls water the grass with the fire hose. Julia got to get all decked out in a fire-suit  too! We all had so much fun! Our last night in AZ we went & got reacquainted with Jason's cousin Tammy & her husband Frank. They live just outside Phoenix. They had never even met our girls so it was really quite a reunion. We left Phoenix the next day & headed home. hen our plane landed Make a Wish had made sure we had another limo waiting to bring us home. We were extremely tired but our hearts were so full of beautiful memories.  So that is it in a nutshell. I just want to make sure everyone knows what a wonderful organization Make a Wish is. All of the Volunteers we met on this journey were awesome!!! I can't thank them enough. They truly provided us with the Trip of a Lifetime :)