shooting

Last weekend, Beth and I drove up to west TX to visit the Cottles. We love going up there...it's so quiet and there are no people or traffic around and we were able to live the ranch life for a few days. I tried to put Lora into labor while we were there by making her run around and lift things but sadly, no baby showed up. So we spent our time making a month's worth of freezer meals for after the baby is born, organizing baby stuff, and shooting guns with Jeremiah. That's the life...








Beth is posing with our targets. Mine is the one on the right which is, by far, the better one. :)

verge of a miracle

I'm in Virginia! Aahhh...it's so nice, especially after such a busy summer!
A few days ago, I made an uncharacteristically last minute decision to fly up here and spend a week with my sisters before we head to Tennessee for Family Play Time (vacation). Dad was so sweet to get me a ticket (first class, no less!), but I think he knew it would free up a seat in the suburban for the long drive to TN. ;) I flew in to DC last night and will just stay here at both houses until they all drive down to TN next week. We're already having major fun up here. Dave and Kristen went out for a much needed date tonight, so before they left I took the 5 oldest kids to the store and let them pick out any treats they wanted. When D&K left, we watched a movie together and ate cookies, candy, and root beer floats! I'm pretty sure I'm the favorite aunt right now.

A couple of days before I left, good news came to us in the form of an email. A friend of ours who we've known for several years, just moved down to SA with his family. He's a doctor and is now stationed at Wilford Hall, which is my hospital. My dad and I were talking to him about a week ago and he asked us for any updates on my medical stuff and who my doctors were. I told him that we were definitely at a standstill because my neurologist won't listen to me or to my other doctors, and that he was not interested in trying to get me some real help. Our friend told us that he knew an amazing neurologist at Wilford Hall and that he would talk to him to see if he could help.
Long story short, our friend was able to meet with the neurologist and he agreed to take me on as a patient and and take over all my neurology care. This means that I never have to see my other neurologist again! This new doctor is a Christian and everyone I've talked to has had only good things to say about him. I am so excited... By now I know better than to get my hopes up about stuff like this, but I am just so relieved not to have to deal with my old doctor anymore. I was so frustrated with him and it made me give up on trying to get better. I have never blamed him for not knowing what to do, I only blame him for not trying.
I've never been one to put unrealistic expectations on my doctors. I know alot of people do because for some reason, the general public seems to think that doctors are superheros. There is no room for uncertainty or error or ignorance anymore in hospitals, and that really makes me sad. They're people, just like the rest of us, and they have a really hard job. I try to keep that in mind when I'm with them because I'm sometimes tempted to get angry with them when they can't tell me what's wrong or when they know what's wrong and they tell me it's impossible to fix. That stuff is really frustrating and sometimes it's unbearably hard to hear. But I know they don't know everything and I know by now that I'm a pretty tough case. I completely understand when they tell that they can't do anything for me. BUT, I'm only ok with that after they've exhausted every test, procedure, and treatment they have available. I'm NOT ok with them saying, "get used to being sick" after one single drug fails to work, which is essentially what my old neurologist did.

Last month I hit the 3 year mark of being sick. In some ways, it feels like that day in July 2005 was just a few days ago, and in other ways I feel like I've lived an entire lifetime in these 3 very long years. In some ways, I feel stuck at 18 years old...like I've lost 3 whole years. In other ways I feel like I should be 40 years old right now because of what I've just walked through.

My gut tells me that there will be a day when I post on here and say, "I've just hit the 20 year mark...", but my heart tells me to hold on and still hope and pray for a day when this will all be a memory. I'm praying this new doctor will be just what I need to take the next step towards healing. I don't know if he'll be any wiser than the rest of my doctors who tell me I'll have to live like this forever, but I sure hope he thinks of something we haven't tried yet! And I hope that if he really has no clue and honestly can't figure this out, that he'll allow me to go out of network to a research hospital and let them take over (something my old doctor was adamantly against). Please pray with us that we will find some answers and that this new neurologist will be what God uses to bring this all to a close. And please pray for my all of my doctors as they try to work together...pray for wisdom and good teamwork! Thank you!!

Getting ready for the stage

The hours before performance....
Melanie works magic on Cody's face.



The handmade, handpainted set flats.

Charis and Montana, or, Melody and Harmony...makeuped, hair colored, and all microphoned up.

Alex and Malachi, ready for rehearsal... Such cuties!


Psalty and Psaltina, ready to go on stage.

People who made our lives easier

We couldn't have done this thing alone. There were dozens of people who did things that we couldn't do, or did them better than we could have. Here are some of those people...

Blair graced us with her presence during dress rehearsal, and volunteered to spend 13 hours with us on performance day. That's dedication. Emily was supposed to be our Project Manger, but we're not sure which project she's working on right now.
Cheyenne was my Assistant (I have an assistant!) and was with us for every rehearsal for 7 months and helped with pretty much all areas of the musical. Here she is, the day before performance, helping us finish up some projects.


Here's me and Melanie. Melanie also showed up for the 13 hour performance day and helped us with curtains, crowd control, moral support, and did the stage makeup for the cast.
Nathan was forced to show up. He helped us eat our tacos. Oh, and he set up all the wireless mics, helped with the sound system, ran errands, lifted heavy things, and harassed little children.
Dirk pretty much did everything for us. This was probably the only time he sat down during the 13 hour day.
Teresa is a genius and made all of the costume shells. Here she is, 8 hours before performance, doing some emergency work on the books.
There were other people we weren't able to get pictures of. That probably means they were working harder than the rest of us! Thanks to everyone who helped us bring Psalty to life!

Well, we pulled it off. The musical was a success, mostly because we got through it without killing any children. But also because we were able to finish the set flats, make 5 book costumes, hand-make 30 cards and flags, convince all the little boys that the stage makeup was for their own good, miraculously pull half of our kids out of their I-Will-Never-Sing-In-Front-Of-Anyone Shells, recruited no less than 20 teenagers and adults to help us with a 12 hour performance day, found enough caffeine in 3 HEB stores to last us 2 entire days (that was SO a God thing), seated 160 people for the musical, and had enough BBQ to feed cast, crew and audience.

We must have been on genius pills or something... Here's some pictures from the dress rehearsal, the day before.

more psalty stuff

Here's a very bad picture of the stage flats we are painting. Last Saturday we had a 4 hour musical rehearsal at our house and while the kids were practicing, most of their dads stayed for the morning to build these great flats for us. There's 5 of them, and they're all 8ft x 4ft. We are so thankful for our church men who built these for us, because we're not too good at that sort of thing. :) When they were finished, we got to work painting them to look like the inside of a barn. Some of the crafty, artsy ladies from church came over on Monday to help us paint (and to break our trampoline...) and we'll hopefully have these completely finished within the next two or three days.

With 30 kids ages 4-12, rehearsing a 60 minute musical gets confusing. From week to week, the smaller kids forget where they're supposed to be, what group they're supposed to sing with, or who their partners are for certain songs. As the director, I was losing my mind trying to tell the kids over and over again what group they're in, where to stand, etc. So the girls and I made these nifty little posters that have every scene and every song drawn out, including our curtain call at the end. We've blocked out each scene and labeled where each child is so that there is no confusion as to where anyone is supposed to stand. :)

A few shots from mine and Beth's room these last few days. Lots of crafts going on...we're making props, cards, posters, costumes, etc.



And here's a sneak preview of 3 out of the 5 book costumes! These are our 3 booklets...Melody, Harmony, Rhythm. These are all handmade by COG people. Once the bodies were assembled and glued together, they were brought over here where we've done all the ribbon, names, and the decorating is still happening as we speak. My goal is to have all 5 books finished by this weekend.



So...yeah. If you were doing this stuff, you wouldn't be blogging either! ;)

we can sleep when we're dead

Believe it or not, I do have some good excuses for my blogging hiatus. Life in our house has been absolutely insane these last 6 weeks. For 3 weeks straight, we have had/will have people in our house every single day. Whether it's for Bible study, Family Dinner Nights, Theology Question nights, Psalty rehearsals, craft days, game nights, or just because they have nothing else to do, families from church have been here every single day and we will continue to have people here every day until the end of the month. None of this is a bad thing at all. We LOVE having people in our home, especially our church family, because, well, we love them. But it has kept us pretty busy, which I will use as Excuse #1.

Dad and Mom have spent years building up their reputation as friendly, loving, hospitable people. Any woman who walks inside is treated like a daughter and sister, any man like a son and brother, and any children like grandkids. Everyone who knows my parents know that our doors are always open, our table always has room for more plates, our rooms always have an extra bed, and kitchen always has room for one more handwasher. :) One of my good friends was over here a few days ago and of course, other people were coming and going as well. She told me how cool it was that all these people knew they could just come in...no knocking necessary, no invitation required.

And come in they do. Tonight we had around 85 people here, and smaller groups will be here every day for the next 2 weeks. The main reason we've had so many people in and out is because we are a week and a half away from our children's Psalty musical! Beth, Shelley and I are directing it and if I'm allowed to say so, it's going to be completely awesome. We have 30 kids in the production, a few adult actors, and a team of about 15 teenagers and young adults that we've recruited to help us backstage and in the sound booth. Because we don't have a church building, we're renting a theater building from a private school for the performance. We're only allowed to have it for one day, so most of our rehearsals have had to be on our deck which is the closest we can come to simulating the actual stage. We've had practices at our house at least once but sometimes twice a week and some have lasted up to 5 hours. And in San Antonio heat, it's not the funnest (Warren word) thing in the world. Our kids have been terrific though. They are working hard, despite the heat, and their musical is coming together nicely.

When I'm not directing rehearsals with 40-something people, the girls and I are spending the rest of our time making tons of props, making lists and schedules, sending out endless emails and making tons of phone calls, decorating 5 huge book costumes (this is Psalty, afterall), building and painting the enormous stage flats, blocking scenes and making posters, doing silly dances in our room to iron out the choreography, making countless trips to Lowes, Target, and Hobby Lobby for supplies, and basically eating, breathing, and living all things Psalty. (This is Excuse #2.) The reason we have not gone completely insane is because we have fabulous people helping us with all that, and I am very happy to delegate jobs and projects to willing parents and teenagers so I don't have to worry about everything.

I've taken alot of pictures of the whole process and was going to post them, but I'm on a slow computer that won't let me. I'll try again tomorrow so you can see the book costumes, the flats, our adorable kids, and our great helpers.

If you live anywhere in Texas, you NEED to come see our Psalty musical!! Our sweet kids have been working so hard for 7 months and it will be one entertaining night! I can't wait to see them put together everything they've learned and sing and dance their hearts out. Oh, and Shelley will be wearing a huge 10 pound yellow book costume. Who DOESN'T want to see that? :) Let me one of us know if you can come and we'll give you directions.

Covenant of Grace Church Presents
Psalty's Funtastic Family!
Saturday, July 26, 4pm