Happy 4th of July

In the early morning Sean had a conference call for work and took a walk. When he returned he showed us a picture he took with his phone of 2 bald eagles sitting together on a branch. Josh loves bald eagles and was so happy. He and I took our own walk to  see some bald eagles. But we didn’t see any. We went to my brother’s house, where Sean spent most of the morning and afternoon working. The kids went with my brother and sister in law to watch the La Conner 4^th of July parade, which they collect candy from everyone walking by, so they loved it!

After the parade, we went and bought fireworks, took them to a beach where we set many of them off and my brother showed my kids how to light them (with a punk). My boys loved it. The beach was beautiful, as everything is in that part of Washington. Then we picked up Sean and headed to LaVonne's parent's house for their annual 4th of July party.

This was our second year at their annual party. We really enjoy spending the 4th up there, where fireworks are legal and everyone brings them to the party to light.My boys and Faith had a blast watching them go off and lighting their own. Each year LaVonne's Uncle Tony, who owns a fireworks stand, does his own show! This year it was great, and we had front row seats to his show! It's awesome watching them go off right overhead, where we had to look up to watch the show!

Day 3, July 3rd

We got up, walked around the campground, showered took a lot of pictures, and played on the swings

while Sean got a little work in. The managers of the RV park had a sign out side of their RV that said “If the trailer's rockin’” which I’m sure you can finish! But theirs said “there’s an earthquake…RUN” I hadn’t seen or heard that and thought it was fun!

We were able to pay and check out of this campsite. We got on our way with Sean, my brother, Tyler, and I trading off driving. We hit a patch of traffic and saw an accident on the opposite side of the freeway, luckily it was not on ours.

 While in Tacoma, Washington we heard a pop while Sean was driving and the RV slowed down. We pulled off right away at a Costco. And looked at the engine.

 I called a good friend who has had many RV’s and done the same trip with her 4 children that we are doing. Her husband said it sounded to him like it was a spark plug and told my husband where to find it. Sure enough it was a spark plug.

Luckily where we pulled off, there was a Camping World right around the corner, who referred us to a repair shop a block away, which was next to a Harley Shop. So while the problem was being diagnosed, we walked there with the kids to look at the motorcycles and to get a snack in their cafe. 

That repair shop let us know that the spark plug had been stripped and needed to be threaded again at another shop across the street. The whole process cost us 4 hours. We were so thankful that we were going to make it to my brother’s house that evening, so we could spend the 4^th of July up there. Our plan all along was to get to Seattle to check out Pike's Fish Market, hoping to see some fish being thrown.

 We made it there just before closing so many of the venders had already packed up and left. We did get to see a couple of fish thrown while they were cleaning up.

Then we walked to the new Ferris Wheel that Seattle put in, took more pictures (I really want to document this trip for my kids) and ate dinner at a local restaurant on the water with a vies of the Ferris wheel. 

After dinner we rode a carousel with the kids, although the Ferris Wheel would have been more fun, it would have cost more than out dinner.

When we left Seattle, we went up to La Conner where we went to my sister-in-law, LaVonne's parent's house and got to meet my new nephew for the first time. He was a month old and absolutely adorable. Everyone took turns holding him!

We then checked into an RV Park where we would be staying for 2 nights. It would be so nice to stay somewhere for a couple of nights and not have to drive the RV all day for a day!

Day 2, July 2nd

When we called the RV campground yesterday we were told to park, since we were getting there so late, after 10pm. We didn’t see any late check in and decided to park and check it out in the morning. In the morning we showered, walked the dog, and Sean went to go check out and pay, but no one was there. So we laughed that we slept and left. We will have to give them a call when we get back home to pay for the stay!

During the day we saw quite a bit of stuff on the road. We stopped at a park to eat lunch and let the kids play. 

We drove under a train, past some colorful trucks (one was hot pink), drive through Shasta, went through the Siskyou pass, which was absolutely beautiful (and they still had snow on the mountain).

And finally an RV driver waved at Sean, but he didn’t see it!! Only I did! I think he was bummed, because he and my brother had been looking for that.

We drove all the way through Oregon and into Washington! My brother, Tyler, a Washingtonian was so proud of the nice Washington sign!

My brother drove some. And so did I, but I can't take my own picture! My brother ended feeling  a little sick during the day, then I started to feel it. I got the chills, which is why I'm the only one in sweats in the Washington picture. Luckily for both of us, it was a quick bug.

The kids all napped at the same time!

 

I brought school work for them to do! (They missed some school when I had my surgeries, and Josh really needs to catch up on his math).

We stayed the night at an RV park in Southern Washington for the night. And they didn’t have late check in either, when we called they just said to pick a spot and we’ll take care of it in the morning.

Day 1, July 1st

Today we set out on our 7 week adventure across the United States. We left at 11am, earlier than our planned time of noon.

We had a couple of stow--a- ways with us, my brother, Tyler, and his daughter, Bella, who joined us for a family vacation last week. Our trip starts with us driving them home to La Conner, Washington, north of Seattle. Day 1 started uneventful with Sean driving,, and  the kids playing in the back on the motor-home. My brother told quite a few jokes such as “It smells like ‘up dog’ in here” to which I would reply What’s up dog?’ and he would say “Not much, what’s up with you” While driving through Los Angeles, some young boys in an SUV decided to throw an egg at our RV! It  hit the passenger side window and slid back. We saw them throw an egg at a semi truck, which seemed to follow them. They were fast and got far ahead of us I called 911 and reported it. We did end up seeing them later, so I was hoping that they ended up getting pulled over!

 During our drive through Santa Clarita, where we lived at one time, we saw a war movie being filmed.

We saw Motorcycle drivers wave at other motorcycles on the opposite side of the freeway. My brother said that when he had an old VW bus, drivers of other VW busses, would wave at him. Then we started to wonder if RV drivers do the same thing.  We looked at other RV drivers and didn’t see any wave at us, even the ones we waved to.. We decided to stop just north of Sacramento at a park just off the freeway.

Another funny thing we saw was a bud light truck pulling a Corona trailer.

Update- CarePages

Update

Posted Jun 20, 2012 8:49pm

Edit: REPOSTED FROM CAREPAGES

Sorry it has taken me so long to get an update posted. It has been a difficult month and a half for me. It all started on Mother's day, then I had my 6 month anniversary of finding out I had a brain tumor, then on May 30th, I had my last vaccine, then my birthday, and then my baseline MRI, then school got out for summer. So why was all of this difficult for me? It was all the passing of time. Any reminder of time passing has been hard on me. I'm grateful to be here, but still have the "3 to 8 years" in the back of my head. There has been a lot of emotions this month for me and a lot of tears shed. This year has just flown by. I wish time would slow down for a few years so I could enjoy it more.

Sean and I are still attending our Brain Tumor support group, which has been great and really helped a lot. Although last week we learned that one of the people we really cared about, whose name happened to be Joshua (just like our son) has been put on hospice after fighting for his life. He is only 31 years old and has been fighting since he was 8 with a recurrence about every 10 years. Please keep his family, wife and 1 year old daughter in your prayers.

Also, dear friends of ours, the Children's ministry pastor at our church was having some vision problems and went in to the doctor and found out that he has a brain tumor. He will be having surgery tomorrow (6/21). Please keep Jason, his wife, Natty, and their 2 sons in your prayers. It breaks my heart to see this happen to him and his family.

We will be leaving on July 1st for our "Bucket List" RV trip across the United States. Looking forward to some family time and great memories. I will be writing a blog this summer about our journey and will be posting pictures of the places and people we visit. I will do one more update on this site with the information for the blog. I'm still trying to figure out what to call it and how to set it up.

Sorry if this update has been a downer. I did get good new from my doctor. My last MRI showed no growth of the tumor. I will be getting another one in 3 months and every 3 months for the rest of my life to monitor any future regrowth.