So we got in from Texas last night after a fabulous week at the Halo Clinic.

Noah worked diligently and happily…he was all grins all the time.

My Mom and I gained some valuable insight into some of the difficulties that we have been having with getting Noah to spell.  Erika was able to troubleshoot and gave us some new strategies to use during Noah’s lessons.  I tried some of them this afternoon with Noah and I can already tell a difference.  I’ve got a lot of hope that we’ll be able to move him on to the next level.

Besides our sessions at Halo, we did a lot of sightseeing.  The weather was incredible…sunny and crisp with highs in the 60s and low 70s.  The wildflowers were in full bloom and I couldn’t believe how green everything was.

Here’s some pictures from our trip…

Noah at the front door of Halo…

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center…hiking one of the trails with my Mom…

Love those Texas Bluebonnets…

Natural Bridge Caverns…

The “Natural Bridge” that sits over the Cavern entrance…

Noah in a field of Bluebonnets (boy, did I need my Neti Pot later)…

I took these pictures in a neighborhood park that was about a mile from our hotel…

So that’s it for our week.  It was a huge blessing…thank you for praying for us.

When I get a chance, I’ll write about our unforgettable flight on Sunday and how I learned that airline barf bags are not nearly large enough.

And about some other random things as well.

Ya’ll have a blessed evening…

So my Mom, Noah and I leave early in the morning to fly to Texas for Noah’s “camp week” at the Halo Clinic.

Noah will have two sessions a day Monday through Thursday.  We fly home Thursday evening.

We’re planning on doing some sightseeing while we are there.  We have a list of things we wanted to see last summer, but just didn’t get to them.  This time we’ll visit the Texas Capitol, the Lady Bird Wildflower Center and the Natural Bridge Caverns outside of San Antonio.  If there is time, I would like to go to the LBJ Presidential Library.  The weather forecast is perfect…much cooler than the 105 degree days we had while we were there last July.

Noah is so excited about our trip.  I hope that he remembers that he’s got some work to do while we are there.

Please pray that Noah’s sessions will go well and that he will have even greater breakthroughs than he had last time.

In other “catch up” news…

2 weeks on the market.  6 showings.  0 offers.

Next subject…

The surgeon in Atlanta called me back and told me to send him my records.  (This is a different practice than the one I originally contacted last year.  After I sent my records to the first practice, I discovered that the pioneer of the surgery that I want to have…a Laparoscopic Supracervical Hysterectomy…is right there in Atlanta as well and he actually trained the surgeon that I originally sent my records to.  Hmmm….I said to myself…Why go to Obi Wan when I can just as easily go to Yoda? )  I’m hoping to hear something back next week.

Isaac loves to make Miis on the Wii.  He’s made all of his family and friends and some really random folks as well.

He’s made me 6 times.

Should I be offended that every single one of those Mommy Miis has a great deal of junk in her trunk?

Well, I’ve got an early morning ahead of me, so I’d better head for bed.

Ya’ll have a wonderful week and thank you for praying for our Noah…

So I’m not sure that I’ve gone this long between postings since I started this little blog 2 1/2 years ago.

Time is flying and the days are a blur.  I truly cannot believe that 10 days have passed since I last sat down to write something.

Anywho…

Since I still have a stack of things on my agenda today, I’m going to activate my bullet function and do the list thing.

Here we go…

• We’re in the middle of a most exciting time in the life of our church.  We’ve been bursting at the seams during our second service, and now we’re about to add a full Children’s Ministry to the first service, which previously had none.  This will kick in February 21…just two weeks from now.  We’re going to shift our service times 30 minutes later to help make that early service easier for folks with kiddos to get to.  And we’re trying to finish the build-out of the back room in time for it all.  Whew.  It’s some crazy, busy stuff…but a total blast.
• God blew us away this week.  With our COBRA coverage expiring on March 20th, the church board asked me to begin to look for an insurance policy for our family.  After shopping for private policies 17 months ago…and spending untold hours applying and talking to different insurance companies…I learned that both Doug and Noah are uninsurable under any private policy.  Group coverage was…and forever will be (unless things change) their only option.  So after following a few leads from other Calvary Chapels, I contacted a company in California that writes policies for churches…and does a lot of business with Calvary Chapels.  When I made first contact with the company, I was discouraged to learn that their policies are medically underwritten…meaning that they might deny coverage for certain health conditions.  I was quite upfront with the representative…spelling out all of our medical history and Doug and Noah’s history of being denied for health and life insurance.  He very kindly told me to fill out the application anyway…to be as detailed as possible…and that they would look over it.  Imagine our shock and awe and THANKFULNESS when we found out a few days ago that they are offering our family a wonderful group policy with very competitive rates.  We are still waiting on the details to be finalized, but our new policy should kick well before our COBRA coverage expires.  Can I get a woo-hoo? God is GOOD.
• The above paragraph means that I actually can look forward to the end of my endometriosis/adenomyosis/JUST RIP IT ALL OUT saga.  Our new policy will be with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and guess who is in network with BC/BS?  Yep.  The endometriosis/laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy specialist in Atlanta that I would like to go to.  How awesome is that?!  When the pain that I have been dealing with for so long woke me up at 5 o’clock this morning, I started smack talking the thing.  “Enjoy it now, you little freaky uterus”…said I.  “Your days are numbered”.  “You are going to get chopped up and yanked out through my belly button and you ain’t gonna bother me NO MORE”.  “HA”.
• I’m just sayin’.
• So have you heard about how gold prices are really high right now and how you can sell your gold at a jewelry shop or gold party or mail it in for cash?  Yeah, so have I.  I’ve thought about it, but didn’t move on it until my Mom told me how she went to a local jewelry shop and made over 300 bucks selling old scrap pieces of jewelry…most of it broken or missing the matching piece.  I went home and promptly dug out some of my old 80′s bling…a gold coin ring (?!) and a groovy gold bracelet.  I took it to the jeweler and he gave me $103 cash for the pieces.  Nice.  I’ll really miss that gold coin pimp ring, but I think that I can learn to live without it.
• I booked another camp week for Noah at the Halo Clinic.  My Mom, Noah and I will be going the last week of March to work with Erika.  Can’t wait.  Right now I’m reading the Boxcar Children with Noah and my Mom is studying the Middle Ages with him.  I’m still having a hard time figuring out how to get him to spell for me, but he is nailing it on the comprehension end of it all.  So I guess it’s just a matter of time.

Well…there’s lots more, but I really need to keep moving.

Ya’ll have a great weekend, and hopefully it won’t be another 15 days before I’m back here again…

I have yet to talk to anyone who is mournful about the passing of 2009.

Was that a crazy year, or what?

For our family, it was a year of transition…and a year of incredible blessing.

At times, the “transition” part of our lives was a bit stressful for me.  After being so “settled” as a wife of a Pastor who was also employed as a full-time Disney musician, I had to learn to live with a bit more uncertainty after that full-time job ended and Doug went to part-time employment.  Like just about everyone else in America, we had to figure out how to make do with a whole lot less income…about half of what we made before.  But let me tell you…I’m thankful beyond words that we had income at all.  Every time I dropped our mortgage payment in the mailbox this year, I uttered a prayer of thanks.  Our needs were more than met, and we were still able to do some fun things and provide for Noah’s needs as well.  And ya know the craziest part of all of this?  As I look at our bank account and financial records from last year…when Doug was a full-time employee and had a full benefits package…we had LESS money in our savings account than we do now.  So not only have we had every need met and all that…we’ve got more money saved.  I have NO idea how that happened, but it did and I just have to say here that God is GOOD.  And faithful.

When Doug’s job at Disney ended in September 2008, my first concern was for Noah.  How would we even begin to fund his biomedical therapies and DAN doctor visits with the accompanying assortment of supplements and medications?  When we worked our budget based on our “new” income, we quickly realized that we would need to cut way back on all of that.  After about six months of experimenting, we’ve settled into a “bare bones” supplement list.  We’ve replaced prescription medication with Young Living essential oils…with great results.  (The cost isn’t that much less per month as far as oils vs. prescription copays, but we don’t have to worry about the side effects of the medication and we aren’t dependent on a doctor to write prescriptions or monitor Noah’s bloodwork…which leads to less expense overall.  Woo-hoo for that.)  Noah is doing well…his OCD is under control and his gut is healthier than ever.  So as far as Noah’s biomedical protocol goes, God has more than taken care of all of that.

And then there was Soma.

Our lives were radically altered in July when my Mom and I took Noah to spend a week at the Halo clinic.  While we were there, we were handed the keys to help Noah communicate by learning to spell out words.  We’ve still got a long way to go as far as getting Noah to spell for us, but something about that week has unlocked our precious boy and he has made incredible gains since that time.  He’s calmer in social situations and is much more engaged and connected with others.  He is attempting to talk more and has more spontaneous words.  I think that it’s because he knows that we know that he knows.  Ya know?  It’s been amazing to watch.

So I’ve got a ton of hope and excitement going into this new year.

Our church is growing…we’re getting ready to expand our children’s ministry and prepare for a possible third service on Sundays.  Can’t wait to see what this year brings for Calvary Chapel of the Lakes.

I’m looking forward to taking Noah back to the Halo Clinic in March.  And to going back in April for a week of intense training for myself.

I’m hopeful that we will finally get this stinkin’ house sold and get moved up to the Mount Dora area.

And I’m hopeful that God is going to make a way for me to get my uterus yanked out so that I can be done with all of that. I’m just sayin’.

It’s exciting stuff.

Well, I’m off to do some shopping.

I hope that your new year is full of peace and hope and joy.

So this past week has been really rough for me physically.

Here goes some “TMI” stuff…

…and I ain’t holding back because I’m OVER it so pretty please skip on down in this post if you’re not into chick talk about girly stuff like um…”cycles” and such…

…

…

…I’m not kidding…

…

still here?

…

okay.  So this whole endometriosis/adenomyosis or whatever alien garbage is living inside of my innards down yonder has taken a mean and ugly  turn for the worse and has made me absolutely miserable this week.  In addition to pain and cramping, I have all of the symptoms of a urinary tract infection.  Except I don’t have a urinary tract infection.  If I did, I could treat it, but I don’t so I can’t.  I just have to suck down ibuprofen and wait until it passes.  How nice for me.

Do I sound irritated?

Well…I am.  The good thing about all of this is that it motivated me to finally finish my paperwork for the endometriosis specialists in Atlanta.  I mailed out my prospective patient packet yesterday which contained my medical records and a narrative history of my endometriosis story.  The narrative took hours to write…they want to know every little detail of my case history and want a thorough description of what I’m experiencing in terms of symptoms.  I used the term “crotch migraine” at one point.  Do you think that’s descriptive enough?

I should hear back from them within the next few weeks.  They will also check over my insurance policy (which of course does not cover endometriosis) and try to give me a cost breakdown for surgery.  This should be interesting.

So that’s that.

…..

….

OKAY!!!!…YOU CAN COME BACK NOW.  No more girly talk….

So everything else is going really well around here.   Doug continues to do the Christmas gig thing…he’s pulling a double shift today, subbing with the Dapper Dans 9-4 and then going straight to Epcot to sing in Candlelight.

Noah brought home a wonderful progress report from school yesterday.  It was absolutely glowing and his teacher commented about how he’s answering questions from passages read to him.  Sounds just like what we’re doing at home with Soma-RPM.  I’m so proud.

Isaac keeps insisting that he wants to go get his picture taken with Santa.  hmmm.  Santa wigged him out last year…I gave him multiple opportunities to go meet him.  He was having none of that.  I’m planning to try to take him next week to the mall to see if he’s serious.  We’ll see how that goes.

Well, that’s all I’ve got to report for now.

Ya’ll enjoy your weekend…