Scary Night in Celestine

Last night Brady and I experienced something we thought we would never experience, and one we hope to never experience ever again.  

About 3:20 am, we were awakened by a very loud storm.  The lightning was incredibly bright, and the thunder shook the house.  We do not have a basement, so we stayed in our bed.  The storm got very loud and then, almost as soon as it started, it was done.  I brought my cell phone into the bedroom and set it on the nightstand.  At about 5:30 am, my cousin, Renae, called.  She was frantically asking if we were okay.  I said, "Yeah....why?"  We then found out that what would later be determined to be a F2 tornado came through our neighborhood, just on the opposite side of us.  

We then realized how lucky we were to escape with hardly any damage.  I'll post a few photos of our neighborhood.  

We had two satellite trucks from Louisville come and do live feeds.

This was the worst hit house in our neighborhood.  

The sign to our neighborhood now stands in solidarity in front of the house in the previous picture.

This RV came into their garage.

This is looking towards the Community Center.

This is in our neighborhood.  

Overall, Celestine is very lucky to have no major injuries.  It was a rough night, but the community has come together and everyone is helping each other.  

Here's one of the news stories that were posted after the cleanup had began.

Step in the Right Direction

Things are starting to look up for Brady and I.  As my last blog post said, we are finally starting to get some answers from our testing.  

It appears that Brady and I are both carriers of a very rare disease called Meckel-Gruber Syndrome.  What?  Never heard of it?  We had never heard of it either before Hope and Ben were born.  We keep passing the gene that carries this disease on to our children.  There are things we might be able to do one day to have a healthy child, but we have some things in mind already.  

On to the part where things are starting to look up.  We really, really want to do some testing so we can eventually know what is going on.  However, this testing for Meckel-Gruber can cost upwards of $6000 if you have to test all genes associated with the syndrome.  I have already said how awesome our geneticist, Karrie, is and I have to say she's even better now.  She found us a research study at the Mayo Clinic that we can get in on.  This means that they would test all of the associated genes for FREE.  If something is found, we may have to pay a small laboratory fee, but that would be it.  

I don't think I can really articulate how much of a relief and how great of news this was!  Any day you can save $6000 is a great day!  

We've been getting such great news this week!  I can't wait to see what the weekend holds!  

Purpose

I've enjoyed telling everyone all about our recent adventures, but here is a post about moving forward.  

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven."

-Ecclesiastes 3:1

I think the biggest part of moving forward would have to be getting closure.  We did not get any closure with Hope, mainly because we weren't sure what was going on and all of our doctors thought it was a fluke, a one time occurrence.  When we found out that Ben had similar issues, we knew we wanted to get closure and, more importantly, answers for the future.  Well, we finally got some (sorta).  

When I was pregnant with Ben, we started meeting with a geneticist, Karrie, at the IU Prenatal Diagnosis Center.  (In case anyone ever has to go there, they are AMAZING.)  Karrie is great and helped us to plan out our "testing plan" for when Ben was going to be born.  We had paperwork attached to our files at IU and Memorial, just in case he was born there early.  (We had a delivery scheduled at IU in December.)  There was one scenario we didn't plan on.  Evansville.  However, Brady and I had an extra set of the paperwork in our overnight bag for when we went to the hospital.  I consider that good planning on our part.  Ben was born at St. Mary's Hospital in Evansville, and Dr. Hughes was able to collect cord blood for testing. 

Fast forward to the end of January.  We had an assessment with KateCares.  After meetings about our cases (They collected all the notes from appointments with Hope and Ben.), they came to a tentative diagnosis.  Our families and friends have already been notified of this, and one day I might be willing to share it, but I'm going to keep it a bit more private right now.  (Or at least until we know for sure what it is.)  

The passage above from Ecclesiastes was sent to Brady and me by his cousin, Kasey, and his girlfriend, Elaine.  I have always liked this passage and I always thought I understood it, but I don't think that I really understood it until now.  Some people may wonder how I have been able to see the 'reason' behind all of this, but here is what I have come to the conclusion of.  Hope was sent into our lives, and her life was very brief.  I believe she was sent to us to be more thankful for what we do have in our lives.  On the other hand, I believe that Ben was sent to us to let us know that we do have a genetic issue  with a recurrence risk.  He let us know that it is okay to pursue adoption, should we want to, and that again, we should be thankful for what we have in our lives.  

We are thankful that we do have more information now.  We have been blessed with doctors who want us to get an answer and geneticists who are willing to do anything for us to get us that answer.  We keep praying that we continue to be blessed and one day we have the family that we long for.  

Sled Riding

Just when we thought we were done with snow for a little while, we got some more.  It snowed 4-5" last Thursday.  (And yes, it is supposed to snow again this week.)  I always enjoy going sled riding with my little buddies and it is even better when we can go down their Grandma and Grandpa Buechler's driveway.  They have the perfect place for sled riding.  

The four-wheeler was the quickest way up the hill.  We had so much fun.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.

A day with my little buddies makes me forget about everything bad that's happened and remember that something good will happen soon!  Those two are my best form of therapy!  :)

Snow Day!

It's been quite a week!  I went back to work on Monday after having six weeks off for medical leave.  (It's hard to believe Ben would be six weeks old already!)  Mother Nature decided to reward me for going back to work with snow.  I wish it would have rewarded me with 80 degree weather, but I guess we can't have everything.  It started snowing very early Tuesday morning...or so I've heard, I was sleeping.  It was enough to cancel school across the county.  Since I am off on Wednesdays, I decided to go and play in the snow with my niece, Kendall, and nephew, Trevor.  I like to refer to them as my little buddies.  :)

Once we were outside, we realized that the snow was too fluffy for making a snowman or even snowballs to throw at each other.  It reminded my little buddies of this.  Instead, we decided to do a little sled riding.  It was pretty fun.  

It was a pretty good day off.  Now that I've had my fun in the snow, I'm ready for it to melt!

Christmas Cards

I love getting Christmas cards, and I especially love getting the photo cards.  I love seeing how seeing how my family and friends grow each year.  The kids are always so cute!  I've always wanted to do something with the photo cards, but I never really knew what to do with them.  After chatting with my cousin, Shannon, who is super crafty and artistic (she is a high school art teacher after all) about what she was going to do, I knew what I wanted to do. 

I came up with a little Christmas scrapbook with the photos in them.  I used some of my 8 x 8 scrapbook paper and used my sister's Cricut machine and the Christmas cartridge to add a Christmas flair to each page.  I think the final product turned out pretty well. 

The pages turned out pretty well too.  Here are a few shots of some of the pages.

Those are just a few of the pages.  I think this will become a yearly project.  I hope the books get thicker each year as we get more photo cards! 

Who Invited This Guy?

Happy New Year!  On New Year's Day we went to eat at Chicago's Pizza in French Lick with some of Brady's family.  Then we went to see "Little Fockers" with his sister, Autumn, and her boyfriend, Nick.  It was a great movie, and we really enjoyed ourselves.  After the movie, the boys decided they wanted to do a little indoor go-kart driving at the new track.  There was a 30 minute wait, so we decided to try our luck at the casino instead.  

The French Lick Resort & Casino is a beautiful resort any time of the year but around the holidays, it is even more beautiful.  Autumn turned out to be our only winner in the casino.  She turned $1 into about $75.  It was a good night for her!  :)  After the rest of us lost some money, we went to look at the big Christmas tree that is always so beautifully decorated.  It didn't disappoint, so we took a few photos by the tree. 

Then, of course, we couldn't just take serious pictures.  Brady and Nick have a competition at Faye's house to see who can find the pickle in the Christmas tree.  For some reason, these two thought they would find the pickle in the French Lick tree.  

No such luck!  Instead, Nick decided to do this:

Brady and Nick decided to have a little fun on the escalator (think about the movie Elf), and this is the entertainment we were treated to:  

Then while we were walking through the hotel, we heard music from a wedding reception.  We knew that Brady and Autumn's cousin, Jodi, and her husband, Nathaniel, were attending his sister's wedding there, so someone, who is not married to me, decided to stick his head into the reception and take a look around.  He's pretty sure he saw Nathaniel dancing to Cotton Eyed Joe.  ;)  

Please ignore the double chin.  :)

We promise we're not stalkers, but it did sound like you guys were having a great time!  

It was a great way to begin 2011!