Happy Fourth of July!

Avarie is doing great. The Drs came in today and are really impressed with how well she is doing. She is still tolerating food and most kids have stopped eating and are on TPN by now, she also still has no mouth soars like we thought she would by now. She is happy and playing and is just doing really well. We also had one of our Dr's from Emanuel come and visit us today, we love seeing familiar faces that we know and trust. Its not that we don't trust Doernbecher Drs, its just that you don't get to know Dr's here the same way you do at Emanuel. So we were very excited for a visit from Dr. Faith (thats what we call her).
I came home tonight and Craig is spending the Fourth up with Avarie. I am taking the other three kids to the beach for the weekend. My parents have a beach house that they have had since I was a kid, but they have just sold it and this will be our last chance to go. So our entire family, that is still around, will be going and spending the Fourth down at the beach together. Addisen asked me tonight how many people were going to be there and we counted 31. Its funny but that is only part of our family we are still missing 16 other family members and this is all just my immediate family. It will be busy and crazy, but hopefully a lot of fun, it will definitely be a nice break away from the hospital.
Avarie, unfortunately will not be able to watch any fireworks. She is not allowed to leave her room which is too bad because there is an amazing view from out in the main hallway over the Willamette River. Avarie is up on the 10th floor and I think they may be able to see fireworks from there. Luckily she is so young she doesn't really know what she's missing. She's just excited to wear her 4th of July shirt.
We had an amazing friend stop by the hospital today and bring Avarie some great gifts and brought our family some much needed help. The funny thing is, is that it is a friend that I didn't even know that well from High School. But that didn't stop her, she heard there was a need and she stepped in and helped. Through out this whole experience I have been amazed at the people who I don't even know that well and people that I do know very well that have come from all around to help us. Thank you will never be enough to those people. They have helped pick our family up at a time when we are just incapable of doing it for ourselves. Its really sad how fast life can spin out of control and if it wasn't for the amazing friends, family and friends of friends who have stepped up to help us, I just don't know where we would be. Thank you just seems so little, but THANK YOU! To everyone who has helped a little or a lot, and Thank you for all of your prayers and kind thoughts and words they have helped us through some very tough times. I wish all the tough times were behind us, but I know we still have a ways to go.
I will be out of town for the weekend, so there will only be updates on the blog if something happens or if Craig decides he wants to post something. Sometimes he surprises me and posts the most amazing things on here. He might just do it, because I know he is going to be so bored at the hospital until Monday when I switch him back out.
I just remembered, but last 4th of July was when our journey actually started. It was that night one year ago that she began complaining of pain in her sternum and we took her into the emergency room the next night. The Drs thought she had a bruised sternum and thought she must have fallen on something during fireworks. But Craig and I knew that she hadn't. For her to have hurt herself that badly, and she was in so much pain she wouldn't move for days, we would have seen something, or she would have come crying to us if she had fallen. That is the night that this story actually began. I can't believe that was a year ago. What a year!