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A couple weeks ago, we went to San Diego on a half vacation / half business trip. A huge thanks to Ben & Joel for agreeing to let my family come along!

Knowing that we’d be driving to San Diego and Orlando this year, we took my Trailblazer in to have the AC fixed as well as have 100,000 mile maintenance performed. As that work was being completed, the mechanics discovered something wrong with the front axle as well. All in all, we spent about $1700 getting my car ready.. and that’s on top of the $800 we spent on new tires back in May.

All goes well on the San Diego trip of course.. right? Of course not.

Halfway through the first day of travel, both Monica and I start thinking the air just isn’t being pushed out strong enough. It’s cool enough, but the pressure just isn’t there like it should be. Once we get to our destination for the first day, I call the local Chevy dealership to see if they can get it in. Nope, they can’t — not until 5 days from then. Well that obviously won’t work, so I call a dealership in San Diego and they said they’d be able to look at it if we have the car to them first thing in the morning. The only problem is that we’re 12 hours away from San Diego still, so we decide to let the girls swim, eat some dinner, and then pull an all-nighter.

Along the way, we start hearing a sound like something’s hitting the car. At first I thought it might be the antenna coming loose, but that wasn’t it. I look down at the front passenger side tire and notice a plastic part of the wheel well had come loose and was coming in contact with the tire. Plastic + Rubber ≠ Good. So I try to put the plastic part back to where it won’t hit the tire anymore, but it still does. So we pull over again at a gas station. I bought a bungee cord and rigged the plastic part to the front bumper so that it wouldn’t hit the tire anymore. In that process, Monica starts looking at the front bumper and we realize that it’s not completely affixed to the car!

Needless to say, the last few hours to San Diego were a bit nerve wracking. As we’re driving, Monica and I decide that we’re just not trusting of the car anymore and that we don’t want to put any more money in a car with 111,000+ miles on it. The mechanic we had do the 100k maintenance found something else wrong.. what if this dealership found something too? We just decide to cut our losses. I drove the car to a few local dealerships and found one to buy it. We rented a car for the drive back home. A HUGE thanks to my dad for spending so much time locating the title to the car for us. We really did know where it was.. too bad it was the third place we knew where it was..

Selling my Trailblazer was bittersweet for a couple reasons. It was the first vehicle Monica and I bought together. While minor in the end, it’s still a little sad!

More importantly, both Katie Lynn and Karyn were brought home from the hospitals in my Trailblazer.

Katie Lynn:

Karyn:

A car is just a car, but I’m definitely going to miss my Trailblazer. That being said, I’m very excited about my new vehicle! More info on that coming soon..

With Easter being Sunday, I’ve been doing a lot of reflection lately and just wanted to write down how He’s been active in my life in the past few years.

Flashback to summer 2005.. our oldest niece was born. Monica and I got bit hard by the baby bug, but it unfortunately didn’t happen for us. We went to a specialist culminating in the need to do an IUI. Odds weren’t in our favor as the specialist informed us the success rate for the first IUI was only 18%. Faith played a huge role, and He saw us through it. We were blessed with a pregnancy after the first IUI in March 2007.

We were ecstatic to learn that Monica was actually pregnant with twins, but we were saddened a week later to discover one of the twins’ heartbeats had stopped. We were naturally heartbroken, but we also knew that the other baby was okay.

The rest of Monica’s pregnancy was rather non-eventful: everything normal at ultrasounds, etc. That is.. until Monica’s water breaks a month early. After a 44 hour labor, Katie Lynn finally graces us with her presence! She was taken to the nursery for observation and ended up in the NICU. Long story short (long version here), she had three surgeries within her first 60 days of life and saw a pediatric gastroenterlogist for her first 8 months of life. Many times during those 8 months we felt “why us” and “why her”. But we knew He would see us through it, and for whatever His reasons, He decided that we were the parents Katie Lynn needed to see her through it all. He had chosen us, and it’s all about faith in Him for guidance and support.

In the middle of Katie Lynn’s surgeries, Monica has her gall bladder removed and after a single day of recovery, she’s up and about doing everything she can for Katie Lynn.

Flash forward to Fall/Winter 2009. Monica and I started talking about when we’d want a second child and whatnot. The Monday before Christmas, Monica and Katie Lynn bring “an early Christmas present” into my office and tell me to open it. And what’s inside? A positive pregnancy test. We were both so surprised we had conceived naturally given our past concerning Katie Lynn’s pregnancy. Karyn was born in August 2009 after another uneventful pregnancy — a perfect delivery and post-partem. We were released two days later. He had provided for us once again.

At that same time as the end of Monica’s pregnancy and Karyn’s birth, my Mom is diagnosed with stage 3 bladder cancer. She had surgery to remove her bladder one week before Karyn was born. It was a successful surgery that resulted in the removal of all the cancer, and once again faith got her and my family through it. Then on the day after Karyn was born, my mom was being released from the hospital when she has a massive heart attack. Luckily, the heart hospital was connected to the hospital she was already at and she was rushed in for surgery again. If circumstances had been different, i.e. she was already back at home, I’m not sure she would have made it. Blessings in disguise, and the constant is the Lord. He knew her work was not done on this earth.

In May 2010, one Thursday night I had the single most intense painful physical feeling I’ve ever experienced. The next night, the same exact pain happened again in exactly the same location. After an ER visit and some visits to a urologist, a preliminary diagnosis was made: testicular cancer. After talking with Monica, we made the decision to proceed with having the affected testicle removed. After the surgery, pathology determined it was not cancer but instead vasculitis. I was referred to a rheumatologist for further treatment. After multiple tests and whatnot, my rheumatologist determined that it was a rare occurrence of isolated vasculitis — all tests and indicators show that it’s no longer present.

In November 2010, my brother-in-law Ryan, at the urging of his coworkers, took part in a free health screening. Why not? It was free and not a bad idea to have done! Good thing he did – test results were concerning and he was ultimately diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. He had surgery the week of Thanksgiving to microscopically remove what ended up being a softball sized tumor. He’s currently undergoing chemotherapy and slated to be completed in a couple months.

So, yeah.. it’s been a very trying time for me and my family over the past four years. But faith is extremely powerful! After all of this, where do things stand?

• Katie Lynn is a healthy 3.5 year old. The only remaining “signs” of her ordeal are her scars and her petite frame. But hey, there’s much worse things to be!
• Monica’s doing just fine without her gall bladder.
• Karyn is a healthy albeit ornery almost 20 month old!
• My mom is going on 20 months of being cancer free. It’s not always easy, but she’s doing amazingly and getting stronger as each day goes by.
• I’m doing great. Each follow up appointment with the rheumatologist gets spaced out further and further apart from the last one.
• Ryan is still having his chemo treatments, but at this point is cancer free with a very positive prognosis.

The Lord is SO present in my life, and His impact on me is immeasurable.

I’m going to close this post with the lyrics to two of my favorite praise songs – To The Glory and The Way You Love Me both by Danny Lacey:

I will live my life
Walking in your way
A little more like you
Each and every day
Learning how to trust
I trust you’ll make me change
So That I can live
To the glory of your name

Jesus I want to walk like you
Jesus I want to talk like you
Jesus I want to look like you
To the glory of your name

Glory and honor wisdom and power
Are yours forever amen
Glory and honor wisdom and power
Are yours forever amen
Amen

You say your love for me is higher than the heavens
Deeper than the oceans and the sea
And I could never comprehend the depth your love reaches
But I know it reaches the deepest part in me
And praises rise from the depths of my soul
And I say

Thank you for the way that you love me
Thank you for this life that you gave me
Thank you for the way that you set me free
Thank you for the sacrifice
The way you came and gave your life
The way you made this blind man see
Thank you for the way that you love me

Beautiful. Simply Beautiful.

No, this isn’t an entry about Billy Joel.. It’s been quite a while since I have actually blogged about something meaningful, so I figured tonight would be a great night to write.

Where to begin..

Monica is now out of the first trimester and into the second. All is going well, and we’re looking forward to the big sonogram in six weeks. Just as we did (or didn’t) with Katie Lynn, we’re not going to find out the baby’s sex. So few things in life are truly a surprise, so we are just going to let the baby’s sex be a surprise. To keep up-to-date with baby news and goings-on, feel free to use subscribe to the RSS feed or just follow our updates over at tomandmonica.com.

Katie Lynn continues to amaze me. She’s growing up so quickly; it’s hard to believe she’s already sixteen months old. She’s enjoying her day care, her friends there, and her teachers. I love the social interaction and skills she is developing at this young age.

Wrigley is doing so much better. For those that don’t know, she had ear surgery a couple years back to resolve a condition affecting her ears. The surgeries went well but, in the end, did not seem to stop the condition. The vet in Lubbock said this was normal, so we took the “professional’s” word. When we moved to McKinney, we naturally had to find a new vet. Our new vet took a look and in five minutes knew there was a problem and how to treat it. The vet also diagnosed Wrigley with hypothyroidism, so she simply has to take one pill with her food.

Work is going great. Site5 was recently bought out by a couple of industry veterans. I had known that was the plan for quite a while, so naturally there was this sense of uncertainty. I’ve got to say though.. I could not be happier how things have turned out. Ben and Joel are exactly what the company needed, and I’m excited to be a part of the “new” Site5. I do miss working with the old owners and CEO, but luckily I still get to chat with them on a frequent basis as they’re all great friends.

I turned thirty last week. My wonderful wife planned a great surprise party for me. I had a great time, and are thankful for my family and friends that attended.

I’m still loving the MacBook that I bought back in October. I recently purchased an Acer LCD monitor to use while working. I used one back when I worked at DC, and I had forgotten how much I loved having one.

I’ve somehow gotten addicted to Twitter.. it’s even linked to Facebook. Who would have thought that I would be so into this whole social networking scene after being anti-MySpace for so long.

Instead of writing some corny summation paragraph (oops, too late), I’ll just end with some great pictures.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll just link..

Blessed Are We

My lovely wife tagged me in a recent blog entry, so I figured I’d better follow through or face the wrath.

The object of the picture tag is to:

1. Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer
2. Select the 4th picture in the folder
3. Explain the picture
4. Tag 4 people to do the same

NO CHEATING! (cropping, editing, etc!)

This is a picture of Monica and our niece Madison from January 2006. Kim and Madison were visiting us in Lubbock, and this picture was taken during that weekend.

So now I get to tag four people to do this same thing: Kim, mjp, Ben, Amanda. Tag! You’re it.

Thanksgiving.

Its meaning varies from person to person. For me, Thanksgiving forever changed in my eyes last year. It’s about family and friends. It’s about being thankful for the things in life so many take for granted.

But back to family. Thanksgiving is about celebrating family. It’s about taking the best traditions of two families and merging them together while adding new ideas to the mix.

I’m so damn lucky. I have an absolutely beautiful wife — inside and out. I have a precious miracle daughter whose resilience amazes me on a daily basis. I have a wonderful sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces that I am so glad are in my life and live close by. I’ve got a loving, supportive mother and father that have been there for me every step of the way. I have a caring and encouraging mother-in-law and father-in-law. I have an energetic and kind-hearted sister-in-law. Then there’s my uncle, aunt, cousins, etc.

Yep. I’m thankful.

And one of the things Katie Lynn’s ordeal taught me is that Thanksgiving is one day out of the year to reflect, but it’s most important to live it every day.

Today is my daughter’s first birthday.. and this morning I cried.

Wait.. aren’t birthdays supposed to be fun?

Absolutely!

And what a fun day we had today. Monica and I decided to take the day off to celebrate Katie Lynn’s birthday. We started out the day taking one year pictures and family pictures. After lunch and picking up the photos, we drove over to the Fort Worth Zoo and spent two and half hours there. Tonight, we had our family over for dinner and cake to help celebrate the day.

So why the tears?

For those that don’t know, Katie Lynn had a rough start to her life. To be where she is today is nothing short of a miracle. Last night I experienced a plethora of flashback dreams: Katie Lynn’s birth, all three surgeries, changing ostomy bags, TPN bags, etc.

This morning we were getting ready for the day. I picked up Katie Lynn, hugged her, and just started crying happy tears.  My little girl has been through so much.

So yes, I cried. And I am not ashamed to admit that.