Happy New Year!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  We sure did!  We were able to spend time with family and friends over the Christmas weekend.  On Christmas Eve, we celebrated with Russ's mom side of the family.  Korene, Russ's cousin, and her husband, Al, decided to have a raffle to raise money for ABC 4 Maddy.  All of our family members bought tickets for a chance to win a high chair and a child's table and chair set that Al had built.  After all was said and done, we raised $1020.00 for Relay for Life.  It also reminded us of what Christmas is really all about.

On Christmas day, Santa was good to us.  He brought Maddy an electric scooter and the video was taken Christmas morning.  We just had to share.  As you can see on the video, Maddy had a little difficulty remembering to let go of the throttle before trying to get off the scooter and she sacrificed her body to save Andre's car.  Good thing her platelet count was up on Christmas-  not too many bruises!  After that first ride, Maddy kept saying that Santa brought her a dangerous toy.  Shame on you Santa!  Since then though, she has gotten used to the scooter and loves it!

We are now looking forward to celebrating the new year.  Maddy had counts twice this week, and she still isn't where she needs to be to start her next treatment.  We are now looking at next week.  On one hand, we are glad that she has been able to enjoy the holidays.  On the other hand though, these delays just prolong this whole process.  It just reminds us that we have to enjoy each day and not waste time trying to control  things that are beyond our control.  This of course is often easier said than done!


Happy New Year!