Thanks to www.SmoresSmiles.com and The Mombloggers Club for letting me brag a bit! Happy Summer!

We are also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julias-Rainbow-Fund/110275019015856?ref=ts

Our goal is to Encourage the families, Support the kids and of course above all … Find a cure! Please help us to help them! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Peace,

K

I know we have all heard about the next big thing online that will help us make big money. This isn’t it. This is a way to save  money when you are shopping and instead of joining a group and paying more for the privelage, you GET paid for following the links. For instance, I got a check for over $100 after my Christmas shopping. Not big money but it IS money in your pocket and not theirs!
http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=taj9r7XGiEgRxhpWSHQl6A%3D%3D

Thank you for checking it out and letting my blog be the  beneficiary of your referral. Each person that you send to them gets a $5 bonus and you yourself will get $5 just for signing on. I have been using them since November of 2009 and have collected enough to keep my blog going. Not a windfall but it is always nice to have a little extra.

Peace,

K

We started this summer by making our first trip back to New York since we left almost 5 years ago. Yes, we made quick one and two day trips for a christening, a goodbye to one of our dear friends, and I made a solo trip to Manhattan to see some college friends this past Fall, but this was the first Family Vacation and true visit back to the Hood.

I will sum it up to say it was truly the best trip of my lifetime! I am blessed to have a baby brother and sister-in-law who I love and love my children as their own. I will say the same for their boys … my heart is still partly behind with them on Long Island. I headed up to NY with my Three _____ (the title changed on different legs of the trip) while Tom stayed behind to finish up his work week.

I loved just piling them in, buckling up and heading on out. I don’t understand the heroically strong women in my life that were amazed by the fact I would travel with my kids by myself.  ”Aren’t you afraid to be alone with them for that long in the car?” I am alone with them for much longer amounts of time in much less controlled circumstances! At least here in the ‘Burban I can strap them in place and control the volume! I have a cell phone and AAA registration … it is all good! Hell, I have done Disney by myself with them, this was cake~

I was so excited to travel to Upstate, NY after leaving my kids with their Aunt and Uncle for the weekend and reuniting with my sorority sisters at our Alma Mater or what could better be described as the Scene of the Crimes. It did not disappoint.

For the first time in the 12 years I have been a parent, I left my kids with someone that wasn’t their parent for more than a few hours. It should have been a nerve wrecking, stressful time but thanks to the love my kids were getting on the Island and the love I was surrounded with up on the Lake, it was the perfect weekend for all of us! I think it is safe to say I have not laughed that hard in decades!

The week following was filled with running around to see good friends, eating good food and laughing, laughing, laughing!!! We traveled from E. Meadow in Nassau County to Amagansett at the far end of the Island and everywhere in between! Halfway through Tom flew in and joined us on our Farewell Tour. It was just fabulous.

All of this culminated with a High School Reunion with my oldest and dearest friends and again more laughter than a woman with 3 children can stand without the assistance and insurance of Depends!

So my kids want to move back AND live where we are now; both at the same time. They don’t understand that when you live somewhere it isn’t a party every day. Work, school and responsibilities follow you wherever you go. It is great to know though, that YES! You can go Home again!

Thanks to everyone we got to see and Sorry for those we still couldn’t catch up with. I promise it won’t be 5 years until our next trip …. we can travel now without the threat of hospital stays and port accesses!!!! Yea!

Peace,
K

I now know where I can buy viagra, ativan and ritalin, get computer programs to teach me several different languages, have contacts in Nigeria that are willing to split their inheritances with me and am updated on every message board involving Motherhood in the entirety of cyberspace.

So if you have sent me an email in the past month or so and I haven’t responded I apologize. I have dropped the ball in this whole blogging thing but will now attempt to rejuvinate myself and my site. Thanks for your patience and I hope you stick around to cheer me on or critique me when necessary, which I have a feeling will be more often than I would like!

Off to sleep so I can work my paying job in the morning and look forward to a summer of writing ….

Peace,

K

Well all of this was worth the drama when Jen called with her PERFECT results! Yes! It has been 15 1/2 months since Julia completed treatment and she remains CANCER FREE!

Off to the pool to celebrate!

Peace,

Kathy

She wore pink all weekend though, as she reminded me time and again, she really doesn’t like pink anymore. She wrote a speech that she will read at a memorial service at Camp Care next month and then decided that she would attend her friend’s birthday party because she knows that’s what she would want Ellie to do if it was her.

So that is the update of how Julia is dealing with losing another friend to cancer at the ripe old age of 8 years and 1 month old.It gets more difficult as she matures and as the numbers keep climbing. It is a horrible feeling of loss when you see children dying and no one able to stop the madness!

Julia has a clinic appointment tomorrow  morning and we wait with baited breath for the blood results as we always do because we know there is a chance it could be our child next. How do you possibly make this okay and right in the world?

Hello friends and readers. It has been a while since I have updated here, but the end of school and a fabulous trip to our Hometown in New York have kept me away from the keyboard. I would love to tell you in  detail about our Excellent Adventure, but that will wait until another day.

Today I am writing to say goodbye to one of Julia’s dear friends and fellow cancer warrior, Ellie. Yet another angel has joined the ranks of those that have gone before us and obviously, at eight years old, entirely too soon.

How old were you when you lost your first friend? or loved one? Me? I was 10 when my Nana passed and I know how that rocked me to my core. It was my grandmother though and that is the way nature intends it to be. Oldest to youngest. The loss of my dad when I was 26 and my husband when I was 29 were the first devastating losses I suffered. Hard enough to live through … barely. Yet my daughter has lost too many friends to count and she is EIGHT! It rips at my heart and hurts my soul in ways you can only imagine.

So it was with much dread, angst and grief that I approached her to tell her about Ellie. How do you break this news? Why can we not protect our children … all of our children? This should not b happening to babies!

After I told her I had some news about Ellie she looked at me with two big tears running down her face. She knew before I told her. “But Mommy she is going to camp with me in a few weeks! How can I go without my friend?!” I am sick. “Well Jules, Ellie will be there with you for sure, just not in the way we were hoping.” She resolved there and then that she would be doing something special for Ellie and her other friends when she got to Camp Care next month.

She also enlightened me on a game she had taught her friends to play while in 1st and 2nd grade. “All I have to do is think of something special and it goes straight to Heaven. Right now I am sending Ellie a trampoline.” Apparently she and her friends started this when she lost a friend a while back. Krista was her buddy in NY and they went through the first year of Hell … err… treatment together. She told me they used to send great presents to their friends and family in Heaven and, “Mom, Jenna Grace even sent Christmas Trees!”

I can’t argue with the love and heart of a child and I think I  love her game. I am ashamed, however, that I never knew about it until now and shudder that though this is a great coping skill, that my baby ever needed to come up with it to begin with.

Tonight as we put on our pink dresses to say goodbye to our friend, we will be wishing and sending her ocean breezes, seagulls and clean beaches. Pretty great, huh?

Peace,

Kathy

Yesterday was a biggy here. Julia and I went for her first mani/pedi and I didn’t have to be neurotic about the germs!  She has done the Sweet and Sassy and Bibbity Bobbity Boutique type of nails before but this was her first foot soaking, hands wrapped in plastic, massage chair spa treatment ever. I knew she would be thrilled but I was not ready for the extreme SILENCE! She did not utter a word the entire time! I think she was just saoking it all in and was just grinning through it all. Made my heart swell!

Then I went off to a Mother/Son Sports Jam with Greg. What can I say? Off we went with matching Carolina Panthers attire and enjoyed the 90+ degree heat. I have to admit I sweat more that evening than I did earlier that day at the Y! He had a FANTASTIC time though and it was worth every second of  the sweltering heat. This morning he nonchalantly looks at me over his breakfast and says, “Mom, why is it I love you so much?” When I just looked at him and smiled,  he shrugged, “Hmmmph, guess it’s just one of life’s big mysteries huh?”  How could I not love this kid?!

Thomas is having a big moment tonight too. He and his “12 in 4 days” grown up self is babysitting tonight for the first time. Cellphone will be next to me all night with our number on speed dial for sure! I wonder if he will call for a rescue from me sooner rather than later?

How did we get here so fast?! Can you believe how fast the years are going? Doesn’t it seem like just yesterday we were …. well … younger?! As the prom, graduation and birthday pictures of my godchildren, neices and nephews roll in I can’t help but wonder how they keep growing up and I still haven’t!

Have a great day and please take a moment to check out our new organization, Julia’s Rainbow and if you are on Facebook (and who isn’t anymore) please join our page athttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Julias-Rainbow-Fund/110275019015856  .

Peace,

K