Home For The Holidays

It's been a little while.  Sorry about that.  I'm guessing that a lot of you, like Isaac and I, are busy with Christmas being tomorrow.

This past week and a half we did Christmas with my dad's extended family in Nebraska and then when we got back, Isaac and I headed to Iowa City for Christmas with the Hintons.  Howard (Isaac's dad) and I are in a weight loss competition, so I was glad to hear that Lynn (Isaac's mom) made him a couple batches of fudge.  Unfortunately, it looked so good that I wanted to try it, and I ended up loving it so much I'm sure I ate more than Howard.  I guess that effort to trip him up backfired.

The last two full days we've been in the van with my Iowa family--and my brother.  Glory sakes, heaven spare me.  I've wanted to kill him less this year than in the past few years, but he can still get on my nerves faster than any other human being I know.  I don't even know how his brain works to think up some of the things he does.  I guess we're just wired differently.  VERY differently.

We stopped in Tennessee last night and visited with some family that we don't get to see very often.  It was fun to get to hang out with them!  The boys (Isaac and Ike) are on a weightlifting kick right now so they were super excited to learn there was an in-home gym.  They spend at least an hour seeing how much weight they could bench, among other things.

Courtney and I lifted a little bit too, but not for long.

While we were there, Isaac and I slept on an air mattress upstairs.  Nobody realized it had a small leak in it and so midway through the night I went to roll over and just about fell off because so much air had escaped.  I felt like I was sleeping on a waterbed without any outer boundaries.  Mom came up to wake me up in the morning and said that both Isaac and I were sleeping with our backs/butts on the ground and our legs were up in the air.  And apparently when I got out of the bed Isaac sunk to the ground and the bed kind of caved in around him.  Poor guy.

Today we were in the van for another eleven hours and thankfully nobody killed Ike.  Sometimes he makes it his personal mission to see how many people he can get riled up before we gang up and beat him (not literally).  He's pretty good at getting to the edge of everyone's patience.

We arrived in Orlando at 1:00am and the plan is to make our way down to Miami tomorrow.  Then we get on the cruise ship and will be floating in the ocean for the next five days.  Ahhhh...  Hopefully it will be relaxing.  I'm looking forward to it because not only is it a vacation, it will kind of be like a honeymoon for Isaac and I since.

The plan had been to go on one in August this year when he had a break in his school schedule; however, the appearance of the cancer prevented us from going anywhere and doing anything, so this is kind of like our fake honeymoon--but we'll have guests!

Night Drivers

Isaac and I spent the weekend on the road.  Almost literally.  We left Michigan around 8:30pm on Friday night and arrived in Iowa at 5:30 in the morning.  We went to bed and then I got up three hours later to do hair for Kendra and Beau's wedding and finished around 1:00pm.  I dropped three of the bridesmaids off at the church, then went home to do Ike, Mom, and Dad's hair before the wedding at 5:00p.

Immediately after the ceremony, Isaac, Ike, Court, Jess, and myself had to scoot on to the reception hall quickly.  Ike was in charge of setting up the projector and computer for the slideshow and I'd volunteered Isaac and myself to plate and refill the desserts.  The reception was a lot of fun!  I love being able to chat with people and socialize with family that I haven't seen in a while.  I even ventured out to the dance floor for a little bit.  I had a few heart palpitations or something while doing "The Twist," so my husband recommended I sit for a little bit but other than that my health seemed to be holding up!

By the time we hit 10:00 that night, I was just wasted tired so Ike, Court, Isaac, and I left the reception and ended up falling asleep in front of the fireplace at the farm.  Actually, Ike, Court, and I fell asleep in front of the fire and my husband went upstairs and studied for a little bit.

The next morning, we went to church, had lunch at the farm, and then hung out for a couple hours.  Around 3:00, Isaac and I jumped on the road again because we wanted to stop and have time to visit with Lynn and Howard on the way back to Michigan.

At some point while talking to the Hinton's, my job status came up and Isaac shared that I have been talking with Helen Paves, the manager of the salon that I think I want to work at.  It reminded me that I'd been meaning to ask Howard if he had a particular professional camera that he would recommend us investing in at some later date so I can digitally document my work with pictures of high enough quality to display on a website in the future.

You should have seen how excited he was.  His enthusiasm was probably equivalent to if someone had asked my dad about tractors or field work.  He ran downstairs and grabbed a camera and several lenses to let us borrow and then walked me through the basics of operating it.  In the end, I was sent home with two lenses to play with and a 250-page instruction booklet.  Needless to say, I have plenty of reading material.

After chatting with Howard and Lynn for a bit, we hopped back on the road and began the rest of the trip back home.  We talked for about four hours of the trip and then I fell asleep shortly after we switched drivers.  At 4:30 in the morning we finally arrived home.

Twenty hours of road time in a 48-hour period is just a little too much, I think.  But it was SO fun!

Here's a few pics from the wedding on Saturday!

Court and I

Isaac Jordan, practicing his smiles!! :)

Court and Mom

Jess and I.  Forgive her smile... her cheeks were really tired by this time...

Up-the-nose shot of Isaac Dean.

The lovely married folks!

It Keeps Getting Better

This time of chemotherapy seems to be going the best so far.

No reactions to the drugs I'm taking.

No constipation issues (so far).

No extreme pains anywhere.

I'm just so sleepy....

Before cancer, it was pretty typical for me to get up around 4:30am to make it to Surefire Bootcamp on time and then be up and at it all day long until around 10pm or so.  That was my normal and I loved it!

Today, I slept until noon.  I took a nap from 5:45 til 8:15, and I'll probably go to bed around 11pm.  Translation: I will probably only be conscious for about nine hours today.

It's frustrating sometimes because I feel like I'm "wasting time."  Although, when I sit back and think about it, there's really not a whole lot I can do anyway.

Isaac likes to poke fun at me when I sleep this much, calling me a slacker and a bum, but then every time, he'll turn serious and say, "No, really, Ash... your body is just working on healing.  Go to sleep.  Sleep lots."

I'm glad he's an advocate for it, because that's about all I'm getting done right about now.