BUCKET LIST

Bonfire night at the Crowells!

Dear Friends

I am trying something new with the blog for the next little while. I seem to have a hard time trying to portray the feelings of my heart. My life seem so out of control, yet I feel so full of peace. How am I supposed to explain this? Jesus Christ is our answer. One minute I am in tears and devastated at the thought of losing Christian, then moments later I have this amazing feeling of levity and clarity that the blood of Jesus has cleared the path for us and I can rest easy and enjoy my time with my WHOLE family. I got a very thought provoking comment on my blog a few weeks back when I spoke of our ‘bucket list’. She said, “Continue to do those bucket lists activities, not because you have to but because you can”. Until this point I was feeling uneasy about using the word ‘bucket list’. It seemed to me that if I referred to this particular activity I was not being faithful to God and his miracles, or I had somehow given up on Christian. But it was such a great reminder to me that life is short – for everybody! None of us is guaranteed another day, so we will take this gift of time together as a family to enjoy. We started a short list of things that I thought Christians would like to do, things that would be fun for our family to do together. And we will slowly pluck away at them, the good ones we will do often: like sit around in our jammies and drink coffee (or apple juice) and watch the kids play, make waffles, go park hoping to see what cool parks we can find in our local area.

I digress, I started to say I was going to change things up a little bit and I got carried away there! So instead I write a few words each day about what we did and how Christian was feeling. It's starting slow but I am hoping we will quickly gather some steam.

Christian's surgeon - Dr. Mary Brindle - our miracle maker

September 13, 2012

Today was a day that we were blessed by God through a friend, Kelly Klein. Even though I had grand plans for this ‘list’ I created I had yet to move to far forward in implementing a daily strategy. At 10am I get a text asking who wants to go to the zoo.  Being that Ryan and I were the only people awake in our house it wasn’t looking good. Long story short, one hour later we were all frantically ramming ourselves into our mini van with Kelly and baby Hudson for our first ‘adventure’ we called it.  The zoo was great – even though the animals could have cared less! The kids jumped around on the rocks and played in the play park. We had snacks, lots of sun and many smiles. As we drop Kelly off to her house at the end of a great day Christian asks me, “well, what is our next adventure?” Kelly?????

Ryan's idea of fun going down the slide!

September 14, 2012

Friday was a day of errands. We wanted to get Evan and Christian out of the house and enjoying the sunshine. So of course we head to the play park at the McDonalds (isn’t that on my bucket list?) It wasn’t open (much to their chagrin) so we ate our snack and headed to Lowes where we bought two toilets instead and absurdly enough Christian and Evy loved it! They played around the displays and pretended they lived at Lowes. Cool. The evening was closed off with a fresh bonfire courtesy of the dead tree in our yard – don’t worry we cut it down first! We sat around the fire eating non-roasted, cold marshmallows. Life is good.

September 15, 2012

Was a quiet day spent watching the kids enjoy each other. So blessed that they love each other. Family dinner with the Christian’s cousins and a crazy outing to the Coopers park celebration (who stands in line for 30 minutes for one ride down the slide?????)

September 16, 2012

It was a difficult day for Chris and I as we attended the Celebration of Ty Sparks life. I cannot recapitulate the details of the event as it was so in-depth and intense but it is safe to say that Ty and his family have fully rested their faith in Jesus and they have peace knowing Ty is finally at rest, he has won the race.

We spent the evening having supper with good family friends and it was so refreshing and light to remember what it felt like to be with friends and a ‘normal’ environment. To be free to speak the feelings of my heart and my faith, to be in a room with other people who look to the lighter side of life and trying to make each day better not by possession but by trust in God.

Christian and Evelyn off on a bike ride together

September 17, 2012

Today we went to the hospital to meet with Christian’s surgeon, Mary Brindle, God’s marionette! She was so happy to see Christian doing well and healing so quickly. She had been in Paris since the morning after his surgery and quietly admitted she had been checking in on Christian while she was across the pond. What a woman! Before the hospital we make a quick pit stop to IKEA (a family favorite) as Christian tells me they make the best hot dogs (then proceeds to eat only the bun!) The kids love to play together in the pretend kids rooms and run around and jump on the boxes – I am sure the employees ‘love’ our family. I love watching Evelyn and Christian grow into an amazing duo, having so much fun together, sitting on the landing of the stairs with a giant book over both of their laps taking in each page. So thankful for siblings.

September 18, 2012

Today was a huge day in the Crowell family. A visit to our oncologist to determine the next course of action in Christian’s treatment – nothing. We decided to put our faith in Jesus that Christian’s healing is complete. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The hospital was not offering us a cure for Christian, only chemotherapy to ‘extend’ his life. However I believe he is already healed and there is no need to put him through more pain, more hospital, hair loss and sickness. There is no quality of life in that and we are all about celebrating the best that our life has to offer. We took out his PIC line (from his arm) which means tubs and swimming are much easier. Our bucket list today was Peter’s drive inn with Uncle Brent. What a great afternoon to celebrate our departure from mainstream medicine. God watch over us and help us to make the right choices for Christian. 

As a small side note I also had to mention that Christian had his first post chemo hair cut! Ok ok it was more for a trim for the crazy hair around his ears but we are officially ready for some family photos!