September 30- October 2 2008 camp out celebration

Lately Valorie has been making tremendous progress. She went to visit her doctors in Kansas City last week and amazingly she has gained a whole kilo and grown an inch! Tim took her for her -every 3 month- visit. "Whatever you are doing is working, so keep that up", was the comment from the medical staff. There are many things that have been our regular daily routines, along with the most recent camp out that we had here. She slept in the tent with all of us for the first 2 nights. The third night was going to get cooler (43 degrees f.) so we had her and Georgia sleep in their regular beds and warmth. Anyways, we want to thank everyone of you for your prayers and concern for Valorie, we know its only through the Lords' healing that she is doing this well. We would appreciate continued prayer that this progress keeps up though. Thanks.

Oh, for the love of horses.

Here are some pictures of our visit to Houston 2 weeks ago. Valorie, Georgia and I (Maya) went for 5 days. It was a quick trip that had only 2 days- prior to the trip- planning. We went to go visit the stables that Terry volunteers at from time to time.

latest..... happenings

Here are some pictures of our most recent visit to Kansas City- for Valorie's Doctor appointment. She did her regular PFT (Pulmonary Function Test) and well, she has set a new record high for herself. The cool thing is that since her April appointment she has grown (I think they said 2 inches-) but the downside is that she has lost some weight. However her overall health looks good. We want to thank everyone for your prayers for Valorie. If you could just keep us in your continued prayers, as we are needing to keep on our toes with her weight gain. She can get picky and her likes and dislikes will change on a daily basis.
She has another appointment coming up on September 16, 2008 so if you could pray that there is noticable progress in both her weight and height, that would be WONDERFUL!!

THANKS,

An evening at the local carnival

There was an opening to where some friends invited Valorie, Georgia and I to the local carnival here in Vandalia. The girls were both really excited.
This pink ride was not quite as 'bumpy' but not having a place to rest my feet- I wasnt so excited about.
Valorie went on the ride 3 times, on the last time I accompanied her, she was really happy about me riding with her. I have always been scared of these rides- ever since I can remember.
Valorie dragged me along on all the highest rides of the carnival- she particularly liked this ride. After the 5th time it wasn't as scary a ride for me. But she loved it every time. It not only went up in the air but each individual car spun too.
I thought that this picture was cute, as everything else is out of focus, but Valorie's face is in focus.

Georgia went on the smaller rides, and while Valorie found all the highest ones for us to go on next Georgia would stay with our friend - who was also the photographer.
Here Valorie is making sure that her seat belt is attached properly.
This bike belongs to one of the friends that went with us to the carnival. Kids just had to have their pictures on the bike.

Georgia wasnt so fond of this spinning dragons. But she was happy when they stopped.

I know that I shouldn't really be scared of the ferris wheel, but I wasn't as fond of it a Valorie was - as you can tell in most of these high rides. The difficult part of the 'adventure' was that she wanted to go on the rides more then once. It was so nice to see the girls happy.

Valorie today

She slept 4 hours yesterday and when she got up she didn't have a fever, but was VERY HUNGRY. I was happy about that. She ate pizza, chicken noodle soup and a chocolate pudding, then 4 pop cycles. I had to somewhat put the skids on her eating otherwise it would have been an all night activity. I am happy that she is hungry more often.
Here is a picture from just 2 days ago. She was really enjoying the pancakes and strawberries that Tim made on Monday - our Family Day-. Anyway, I wanted to thank you all who prayed for her yesterday. We do appreciate all your prayers for her.

Today

Today, Valorie woke up and wasn't feeling so good. She told me that she was 'cold' so she wrapped up in my big beach towel and laid down. I then felt her head and sure enough she has a fever.
However she still ate her chicken noodle soup. She really likes it a lot. She will ask for it in restaurants and well they don't serve it all year round, so I bought her two big cans yesterday as we were heading back up here to Vandalia for this week. We arrived here last night. If anyone knows of a good recipe for high in calories chicken noodle soup, send it to me.
Valorie has gone back to sleep and it is barely 1pm, so please pray for her. Pray that she will get over this fever and that there won't be any negative repercussions from it. Thanks and we'll keep you informed.

We're back in Vandalia, MO

Here we are, back in Vandalia after 5 months. This is where we come to spend some time away to focus on Valorie and her health care needs. The Grand Vandalia Hotel is a building that is 100 years old and has a lot of antiques. The family that runs the place is really really nice, they have a lot of children. They have adopted children from different countries and even from the US here. Many of them even have some health care need. One particular one is Janai she is 9 and she is originally from China. She had to have heart surgery as an infant. Janai and Valorie are really good friends and get a long real well. (We will need to post picture of them soon) But here we are going to post some pictures of our time here. There's this community pool that we were able to get some passes to and so Kiona, Valorie and I all went. The water was pretty cold though. After the girls swam for a bit we then went to the local 'Pharmacy/Ice Cream/Coffee shop' the girls each got some ice cream. Kiona got, Summer Morning (it was a mix of Vanilla and orange sherbert. Valorie got Rainbow sherbert. They both really enjoyed their snack.