I'm embarrassed that it is the middle of October and I'm just now posting about our busy and fun summer. I have worked on this post many different times over the last 2 months, but with what seems like a million pictures to go through and very little free time I'm just glad I'm finally posting it! I thought I'd have all this free time with Mason in Kindergarten, but that really isn't the case. I do help at least two days a week in his class (which I love by the way), but also with kindergarten being less than 3 hours long it seems like by the time I get the morning mess cleaned up, showered, and a load or 2 of laundry started... kindergarten is over! The good news about kindergarten so far is that Mason has not missed a day of school for being sick! Hooray!
Mason continues to get an IVIg infusion every month. (That's actually where we are right now. It's Wednesday night October 15 and we are spending the night for his infusion). Tomorrow morning we will go to transplant clinic. It's been two months since Mason's last clinic visit and echo. That is a long time for us! We have gone two months a couple times in the past, but his rejection would always start to creep back up and we'd be back to more frequent visits. Hopefully that's not the case this time! He seems to be doing GREAT so I'm praying that means a great clinic visit too! His next heart cath/biopsy is scheduled for November 13 to follow up on his rejection.
So here it is... a picture summary of our summertime fun. Cousin's camp, a wedding, California, baseball, and a 2nd trip to Lake Powell kept us quite busy from the middle of June until school started the third week in August! Lots of fun memories...
Cousin's Camp and Cousin Elise's Wedding
The annual Strickland Cousin's camp was a lot of
crazy fun as usual! And then to add to the excitement,
all of the cousins took part in the first wedding of one
of their cousins! Kaitlin was one of the bridesmaids,
Ammon and Mason thought they were in charge of the
golf cart shuttling guests to their cars, and Preston and
Braiden helped take videos of the fun evening! I think the
little kiddos favorite part of it all was the sparklers used
to send the bride and groom off at the end of the night!
Elise and Micha's celebration
The morning of the wedding, 3 of my sister in laws
and I ran the American Fork Canyon Half Marathon.
It was my third time running it and it was so fun to
have some company to run with this year!
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Southern California beaches was where we headed next for the
week of the 4th of July. Mason and I got to skip the long drive
there because he got sick the day of his last biopsy. We were
supposed to leave for Cali the day after his biopsy, but instead
he and I were stuck in the hospital! Thankfully though, he seemed
to be much better three days later so we flew down to Cali
to catch up with the family. The stinker that he is though,
the fevers came back and he felt pretty crummy for a lot of our
trip! A call to our pediatrician and the transplant team back home,
some antibiotics, and some rest enabled us to stay on our family
vacation at my most favorite place of all... the beach!
Mason loved our plane ride!
Kaitlin and her cute friend Kelsey on Monday morning
caught the train in San Jan Capistrano to go up to
EFY(especially for youth) at UCSantaBarbara for the week.
The rest of us just had a relaxing week on the beach!
Feeding pigeons and making sand castles is always fun
at Doheny Beach in Dana Point!
We celebrated the Fourth of July at Riviera Beach
in San Clemente with some patriotic face painting
(colored zinc sunscreen), body surfing, boogie boarding,
relaxing in the sun, playing beach baseball, and visiting with some good friends. It was an great day!!!
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That night we watched an amazing firework
show from above the Dana Point Harbor.
Preston got some cool photos of the fireworks as well!
Early morning surfing.....
We were even lucky enough to have cousins at the
beach with us for a couple of days this year!
We had fun hanging out with cousins at Salt Creek!
Although, Mason was not feeling so great this day :(
Saturday morning we picked the girls up at the train station after their fun week in Santa Barbara.
EFY at UCSB
After they returned from EFY we spent a couple more days
in beautiful Southern California.
We were so happy to have these darling fun girls back with us!
Family photo at Salt Creek
Our kids +1..... I loved having 1 more girl with us! Usually
Kaitlin and I are over powered by all the boys!!!
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It wouldn't be the summertime truly without a few more
baseball games for the year right?!
Mason was there for every single game as Braiden's #1 fan!
Braiden and Mark also took a trip to New York in July
with Braiden's baseball team. They had a great time!
They saw a couple Yankee's games,
toured the Yankee stadium and museum
(holding Babe Ruth's bat and Derek Jeter's jersey below),
visited Time Square,
and toured the 911 memorial. These boys
worked hard this year to earn this awesome trip!
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Kaitlin spent 2 1/2 weeks in New Hampshire with
3 of her cousins nannying at Lake Winnipesaukee.
They worked hard, but I know they also had some fun too!
A few times a day they dropped into the lake
from about 55 feet up from this rope swing!
(Kaitlin and her twinner cousin Brooke)
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We ended our summer vacation with a 2nd trip to Lake Powell.
We spent a week on a house boat with family and friends.
It was a beautiful fun way to wrap up our summer!
Crazy huh?! But, well worth it!
The week was filled with...
wake surfing, wake boarding, paddle boarding,
cliff jumping, sea-dooing, picture taking,
(You can sure tell that all these beautiful cousins are related!)
The nights were just as beautiful as the days!!!
I will say... I'm so grateful that Mason has been
doing so well! Healthy enough for Mason and I
to enjoy all these fun family memories this year!
Just to wrap things up, It's now Saturday October 18 and I'm finally finishing this!! The IVig all-nighter went well. Mason is such a good sport about it! Then clinic the next morning was fantastic! His echo looked great, his blood work was good, he has but on almost 4 pounds (putting him up to 35 lb's), and the transplant team was pleased with how well he has been doing. So hopefully he won't need to be seen until his biopsy next month. An exciting parts of clinic was meeting the transplant team's newest doctor to join them. We actually knew him at Stanford! He had been doing his pediatric cardiology fellowship while we were there waiting for Mason's heart. It was just so great to reconnect with someone from Stanford. Mason and I had such a great experience at Stanford that I've missed being able to go back! And, I also know he will bring some great knowledge and experience to Primary's Transplant team.
Sorry for the long post. But, more than anything I do it for
my own journaling. My next post will also be a catch up post,
we celebrated Kaitlin's sweet 16 birthday in September!
So so so very crazy that she is already 16!
I hope that all of Miracle Mason's
followers are doing well and enjoying life!!
1 comment:
I love reading about your family!
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