All is happy and bright

I know I didn't post over the weekend (sorry to my grandma, she worries), but it was only because we were enjoying our life without chemo for a little while. Ally just completed her 16th day without any chemo and she is back to the old Ally. The delay does scare me, but really I know it is all in God's plan as to how this road map is going to go for us. I think the delay allowed her new classmates and teacher the opportunity to see who Ally really is, because when she is on chemo it is really not a true representation of who she is. Likewise, it allowed Ally to get back into the school routine last week...followed by days outside playing with her friends. The weather has been so good, and she didn't have any fun days like that over the summer. We are making up for a little lost time.

Even with her feeling so good, she still tires out. Her body is still smaller and weaker from everything. She still never wants anything to touch her chest where her port is. So it really surprised me today when she wanted to do this bungee/trampoline thing at the Beavercreek Popcorn Festival today. We had to wait forever, I mean forever, in the heat to do it. Normally I would have said no, but we did it because she wanted to. And then tonight we were up swimming at my Dad's house and she went down the big 38 ft water slide all by herself. Earlier in the summer she had gone down once with her Dad but was putting on the brakes the whole way down. This time she just flew down the slide. I am so thankful that she got to do that before it gets too cold to swim again. I couldn't help but think back to our trip to the Bahamas in May...just days before she was diagnosed. She wouldn't go down the waterslides there, and I didn't know why. I feel so bad about it now. She was really really sick then and I didn't even imagine it was leukemia. Check out this video of her doing the bungee jumping thing....she has some energy now-watch!


We also did some very very normal things like go over to our friends house for pizza on Friday night. We used to do this every Friday, and I don't think I had been over there since Ally got sick. We usually spend every Friday at Children's Hospital instead! We also had a Buckeye party out on our back deck. This is one of our favorite things to do...Jerad moves the flat screen TV out above our fireplace and we cram our deck full of neighbors. I counted it up and we had some or all of the people from 11 houses in our neighborhood. It was fun, but why did OSU have to lose it in the end? Hmph.

Script Ohio....did you see the tuba smack the cameraman? wow

Carly loved sitting with Sissus Booher (and Mr Booher is Sister Booher)

We Buckeyes really get into this....

Jerad and I also took a little time for ourselves. People at the hospital (and everywhere really) keep reminding us that we need to do little things to de-stress and get away and such. Soooooo....crazy as this sounds....we ran a 5k race together (well, him much faster than me) and then we went out to breakfast. Not your normal date, and we were home by 10:30 am to take Evan to soccer, but we squeezed it in. And got some exercise to boot. Here we are with our friends who did it with us...Larry and Suzanne Booher, my brother in law Gavin, and our personal trainer friend Kevin Manning (behind me). I proudly wore the prototype shirt we had received that says "ALLYS ARMY"
That pretty much sums up our weekend. Pretty much a normal family (although still not taking Ally anywhere indoors). I have one more thing I want to remember....I was sitting in church today with my Dad and my sister. I was just looking around at all the people around me and was surprised to see so many people that I don't even know wearing the Ally's Army bracelets. Orange everywhere. And then they showed a video of the the construction of the new church (our business Synergy is building it) and I see more Ally's Army bracelets in the video. Construction guys were wearing them. All for our little girl. Her spirit is contagious and we will win this battle. How could we not with the power of all these people supporting us? I am so grateful.