Christmas Curveball

I don't know where to begin...maybe it will help me feel better to just start from the top.

Last week:



Yes. The schools were closed ALL last week. Fun for us! Freezing temperatures but we have been thankful to still have electricity. Justin and Tyler enjoyed many pajama days and lots of Wii time in between playing in the snow. I was doing laundry like a crazy lady and packing for our big two-week trip to Utah.

We were watching the weather reports very closely and praying that we would be able to make our flight without a hitch on Saturday morning. A huge storm was expected to arrive later in the day. We needed to make it out before the big freeze. We drove on icy roads to the airport in time for our flight and found out it had been delayed for two hours. We ate lunch and then they announced that all flights originally scheduled after 11:00 a.m. had been cancelled. We cheered because our departure time had been 10:45 a.m.

Just 15 minutes later they cancelled everything. Justin and Travis were brave. I cried. Tyler cried. I knew this meant we would most likely not make it to Utah for many days. We were lucky to re-book a flight for Sunday evening.

We waited and waited for our checked bags and called Travis' sister in Vancouver to bring our van back so we could try to head home before the storm got too bad. We made it home safely. Trying to lift our spirits, we had a movie/popcorn night party.

Sunday:

We woke with a call from my Mom relaying some horrible news. My 9-year-old niece, Sada, has a brain tumor and is in ICU at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. Here is copy of an email Amber & Jeff sent out to the family:

"We've had a wee bit of a kink in our schedule this week. Jeff & I are sitting in Primary Children's waiting room while our oldest is having a brain tumor removed... yeah. Really. As of 11 last night life was normal. Sada woke up at 11:30 and couldn't see anything with her left eye, so we gave her a blessing and headed up to Salt Lake and are now in the middle of a 7 hour operation that Jeff would rather never have been part of his expertise. The tumor is the size of a golf ball, located between the brain stem and cerebellum at the base of the skull. The surgery team does this at least once a month here with the anesthesiologist and lead surgeon doing these exact surgeries for 15+ years each.

Looks like we're going to renegotiate Christmas this year.

It's all perception - our 3rd daughter, Megan, died very unexpectedly when she was almost 4 months old. Next week would be her 6th birthday. Compared to that experience, this is miserable, but very, very survivable. At the very least, Sada's still here to hug.

Keep us in your prayers. Miraculous experiences always follow, and we'll take as many as we can get.

Amber and Jeff
Sada 9, Alexis 7, Megan - working overtime this week, Paige 4, Jason 3, Kyra 4 months

P.S. I was just reading this off before sending, and a group of Young Women looking girls dropped off a 6"round foot tall container of coins and cash and walked out of the waiting room smiling "Merry Christmas." Told you prayers work. I hope tears don't fry my Dad's laptop."

We have been praying for Sada and for us to get to Utah so we can help! Church was cancelled due to the freezing rain and snow. We found a brave soul to drive us to the Max station. (light-rail train to the airport) And at 12:45 p.m. off we went on another adventure.




The second train we were supposed to make a transfer to was frozen, so we were shuttled to the airport by city bus. Travis got text-message updates on his phone during our long 3-hour travel time. Once we got to the airport we checked-in our bags and got our boarding passes. Flight delayed just 15 minutes. Great! We'll take it!

Just as we made it through the security check point we saw the flight was cancelled completely. Big sigh. We tried to be so strong for the boys because we were all so disappointed. Tyler cried this time. He misses Grandma and Grandpa so bad! We stopped to eat something and then waited and waited for our checked bags. The next available flight to Salt Lake City is on Christmas day in the afternoon. Big sigh.

We made the shuttle bus just in the nick of time and we were off towards home...again. This leg of the trip took forever and we were all so tired and frustrated. The train was packed and we stood the whole 3 1/2 hours besides the short leg of the bus trip. We had the boys sit on top of the suitcases. Let me just say that I will never ride the Max at night again. Crazy people everywhere and they all just had to try to talk to us and the kids. I was trying to teach Justin the joys of "do not look at them". I hate what they heard during our ride. We were so relieved to get off that train. We found another friend to volunteer her son to pick us up from the Max station and bring us home. He backed into our neighbor's new car on his way home from our house. Big sigh. We feel responsible because no one would be on the road if they hadn't feel obligated to help us. No win-win on that one.

Justin cried when we got home because it was after 9:00 p.m. and we didn't have time for another movie/popcorn night to lighten the mood. More crying from everyone and we went to bed.

Today:

We are definitely snowed in!




We don't have chains for our van, so we can't go anywhere. Our fridge is empty because we threw everything out since we were expecting to be gone for two weeks. Now we'll really test our food storage supply. We are trying to make the best of the situation and try to still make Christmas fun for the kids. This will be our first Christmas alone. We have always traded off with grandparents. Depending on how Sada is doing and how her recovery will be, we may be cancelling our trip all together. (My parents will need to care for Amber & Jeff's other kids.) I don't even like to say that. What a disappointment. We were looking forward to so much fun every single day. I can't believe this change of events.