Category Archives: Family Activities

Wild Anniversary Adventure (Day 3)

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First of all, thanks to everyone who stopped by yesterday and joined us in our Sarah Celebration.   It’s hard for me to fathom that it has been ten whole years since our lives were changed so irrevocably.  Eating dinner with her last night and looking across the table to see her sweet, precious face just about brought me to tears. Thankful, indeed.

We spent some time talking over what each of us remembered from her diagnosis and subsequent treatment.  She said that she was glad that she doesn’t remember a lot of it and I told her that I was glad, too.   I will never be able to forget the pain of that season but I’m so thankful that I can carry those memories and she doesn’t have to.

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Ten.

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TEN YEARS AGO, on May 17, 2002, we heard the words, “Your daughter has cancer. She has a 15% chance of surviving five years.  It’s very, very bad.”

TEN MINUTES AGO,  I returned from taking my “probably won’t survive cancer”  daughter to High School, where she is earning straight A’s and doing great.  As I left the school parking lot, I wiped tears from my eyes as I thought about how very differently things could have turned out.

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Snowy Goes To College (Part 2)

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Today we continue the Snowy Goes To College Series which I originally posted on  Smithellaneous Classic over two years ago.   I love this whole series so much I just had feature it again.  My only regret is that my photo skills were not quite as good back then so the pictures are a bit wobbly.  But it’s still fun to follow the story.

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Snowy Update

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We don’t have Internet at home right now (our router bit the dust) so it’s a little harder to keep up to speed with replying to comments and letting you know how Snowy is doing.

We ended up not taking him to the vet today after all because as the morning went on, his coughing thing lessened a little although he’s still doing it some. Thankfully, he started using the bathroom fairly normally although he’s still drinking more than usual.

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The Kleenex Box

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I was just thinking this morning that we are about six weeks away from Sarah’s 10-Year Diagnosis Anniversary. (May 17, 2002.)  And it occurred to me as I looked back over these past years that when you have a child who is diagnosed with cancer, you don’t just deal with the trauma of the original diagnosis day.  You also have to survive the countless follow-up visits, scans, tests and ensuing results.

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Sheepish.

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Last week after dinner Sarah suddenly looked up from her plate and exclaimed,  “Animals!”  I need pictures of animals!”

I stared at her in some consternation since she is not one who usually blurts out random statements about animals and the photography thereof. But as it turned out, she had pictures due for her photography class at school the next day and the assignment was to bring in photos of four different animals.

Hmmm. We are not exactly an animal-centric family.

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Tomorrows Into Memories

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My computer is presently in the shop so I don’t have my usual resources on hand with which to do a blog post.   Since Sarah has graciously consented to let me use her computer while mine’s being repaired, I decided to poke around in her picture files and see if there were any gems I could uncover with which to inspire a post.

And she didn’t fail me.  She had lots and lots of  Miscellaneous Smithellany for me to choose from.  Since they’re from her computer, most of them are of her but there are a few thrown in there with the whole family.

Although I love every single picture, the last picture in the line up I don’t love quite as much.  You’ll know why when you see it.

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A Cake For God

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A cake.

It was the first thing I saw when I walked into my church office on that quiet southern evening. The cake was just sitting there on my desk, accompanied by an envelope emblazoned with one simple word.

“God.”

I have to tell you that it’s not every day in my work as a pastor’s wife and church secretary that I come across a greeting card for God, especially when it’s attached to a festively frosted cake from Wal-Mart.

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