Buc's day

As my mother loves to remind me, one of the first phrases I learned to translate was to tell her that the people at the orphanage would tell me to “be still, go to sleep”. We were laughing about it tonight. It seemed to be so mean to say that to a little one, tell them to just be quiet and go to bed.

And then I had kids. Now I feel like I should send those orphanage people a fruit basket or something.

Rachael’s school gives each kid an agenda where all her assignments are written for the day and any communication between the teacher and parents can take place. Three days this week I got a note from the teacher about Rachael talking during lessons, Rachael talking during seatwork, Rachael talking during Bible….basically a great big “Your kid won’t shut up!”

Again, my mother laughs. I tell people that I got the children that my mother always wished I would. I have one that’s too smart for his britches, one that can’t keep her mouth shut, and one with all the crazy medical problems…I’m raising 3 me’s! I told Rachael’s teacher at the very beginning of the year “She’s a talker, she loves to talk….she comes by it honestly, but she’ll have trouble with that”. What can I say? At least I didn’t pass her some weird random spitting gene, talking we can work with.

We have had an insanely busy week!

It has just been one thing after another and it never seems like there’s enough time to get everything done. So there’s a lot of things left undone at this point.

We are creeping up to the date of the Cure Kids Cancer Walk, less than two weeks away! It’s amazing to see what people with a passion can get done when they set their hearts and minds to it. We got this started in July and now just a few months later we are really looking forward to a hugely successful event. We are well onto our way to making our donation goals, so we’ll just have to raise the bar for next year.

Tomorrow night is going to be such a special night. A place called the Pottery Patch has donated tiles for us to use as awards and sponsor acknowledgement. We are going to have a bunch of our cancer kids come in for a painting party and they are going to decorate these tiles…those are going to be the best little handmade, personal trophies ever! It’s going to be a fun time giving these kids paintbrushes and just letting them go wild….I hope the Pottery Patch is prepared.

Peyton has her clinic visit in the morning, a simple visit for counts just to make sure everything is on the up and up. I would think we could just about skip it because if her boundless energy level and happy sassiness is anything to go by, she’s fine. When she’s feeling so good and she looks just wonderful, it’s hard to think that this kid is still in cancer treatment. But she is and I try to never forget that without these medications and endless trips to the clinic, she wouldn’t be here in our arms to tell “be still, go to sleep!”

We were treated to a fantastic day by the Pediatric Cancer Foundation today. We got to spend the day on the surface of the sun! No, really, that’s what it felt like! What we did was get to go to the Buc’s first home game of the season. We were front row in the endzone and it was an awesome game. The Buc’s rocked it! But it was so miserably bright and hot, the kids were melting all over the place. We were there with 4 other families and we kept taking the kids up to sit in the shade because they couldn’t take it. We finally left at the beginning of the 4th quarter and were so thankful to sit in the air conditioned car that it just solidified my belief that we are pampered whiners….but we’re air-conditioned, pampered whiners, so that’s all I’m worried about.

Holly, David, Samuel and Conner Wirth

The king goofball, Nathaniel

Peyton prepping for the cannon blast from the pirate ship every time the Buc's scored

Carlee and Debbie Vessel

Holly and Peyton, best of buddies

Rachael and Sam Lee, sweaty and loving it

Kevin, Joanne, Samantha and Matthew Lee

Rachael trying to beat the heat…good luck!

It was such a fun day and the friends we went with are so much fun to spend time with that made it extra fun. Once again, I am blown away by the blessing of friendship that we have been given through Peyton’s cancer. Thank you to the Vessels, the Wirths and the Lees for a wonderful day in the boiling hot Florida sun! And a HUGE thank you to Davin Johnson, the Buc’s player who donated our seats and the PCF just for being who they are.

f.r.o.G.
–Anissa

ps…This was Peyton's steroid snack gross-out…..a chunk of banana dipped in A1 steak sauce…ugggg