Half Way Mark!

We had an awesome trip to Santa Cruz this weekend. What a perfect way to mark the half way point of Danny's chemo! On Thursday Julie and Bennett arrived in town and we planned on picking them up and driving straight down to S.C. Danny had been feeling very tired on Wednesday so that morning we went to the Dr.s and got a blood check. His hemoglobin levels were really low (less than ha;f of a normal persons)making him exhausted (like he-can-barely-move tired). We were able to get a blood transfusion that morning which was really lucky-we were thinking we'd have to come home from S.C. to get it because it takes awhile to radiate all the blood before they give it to him. The transfusion takes about 5 hours (and get this-it cost $7,000! Thank heavens for insurance huh?!) so while Danny was getting blood we picked up Julie and Bennett and got to play a bit. Danny almost immediately felt better afterwards (he had a lot more color too) and that evening we drove down to Santa Cruz. The next morning we drove back to San Jose and the girls picked up Emily and the boys picked up Luke. All the girls went to Princesses on Ice in San Jose-okay, let me just tell you, IT WAS AWESOME! I had no expectations and was really surprised how cool it was. The costumes were incredible and the dancers were really very good. Lucy got in her Snow White dress and was enthralled checking out all the other little girls' princess dresses.





Lucy sat on my mom's lap (mom loved the hugs) during the first half of the show. She got super excited when Minnie and Mickey came out at the beginning and then had a enthralled/excited/slightly scared expression the rest of the time. I kept looking over at her to make sure she was okay and she was just wide eyed taking it all in. When all the princesses started dancing together at the end of the first act she looked at me and said, "All of my friends in pretty dresses!" and then just kept repeating "All my friends!". I have to admit that I started crying at that point-a random mixture of joy and sadness I guess. The second half was the Cinderella story in better detail than the others and Lucy LOVED it. When Gus got on the stage she freaked out. She adores that little mouse. Okay-that is enough detail about all of that-we loved it.






The rest of the weekend is a bit of a blur fro me. We walked a block down to the ocean and went on several walks along the cliffs. Lucy had a riot playing with/bossing around Bennett. She really loved having someone to play with. We watched episodes of Glee and Modern Family, I read a terrific book, and we went on a fun shopping expedition downtown.



We really just loved hanging out with Danny's family. It was theraputic to talk about what we've done for the past twelve weeks and what we expect for the next twelve and beyond. Thanks for sacrificing and coming Julie, Luke and Emily! We're half way there!