My Pumpkins

October is in full swing and we are gearing up for our first Halloween in a house. We are excited to stay home and trick or treat in our own neighborhood, invite people over and pass out candy from our own door step. We decorated with spider webs and pumpkins. The kids are looking forward to wearing their costumes and eating fun treats.

Angela 

Angela is in love with peacocks right now. She is always looking for them, as we see them in our neighborhood about everyone couple of days. She is big brothers little shadow. They love playing together most of the time. Her nickname right now is Tornado, because she hits in full force and destroys things in her path, from plates on the dinner table, to Tyler's towers, to glasses full of milk.

Tyler

Tyler has his first Halloween party at school on Tuesday. They don't wear costumes, but get to celebrate with a decorative napkin and cookie during snack time. This week they had a pumpkin patch at his school where they got to explore pumpkins.

Dave

Last week we were informed by the Hematologist that his platelet count was still in the 76,000 range. He decreased the dose of prednisone again to 30mg and said come back next week. 

We decided to go see Dr. Lebel in Santa Monica again and see what ideas he had. Dave went by himself this time and came back with a bag full of supplements... sesame seed oil, renafood, gut flora, herbal mix, and a throat gargle. He is instructed to drink Parsley tea (which is just parsley boiled in water for 20 minutes) all day to cleanse the kidney's. He also was told not to eat dairy or sugar for three weeks. He also did some more ear acupuncture. Dave feel great and continues to exercise. Please and Thank you for continued prayers for his healing!

Shelby

I've been busy learning new things to cook for the family. With recent changes in health and things I h I have been learning about health, we have decided to make some changes to our eating habits. I have been using a new website that I love...www.100daysofrealfood.com. I was inspired after hearing Dr. Sears daughter, Hayden Sears speak about nutrition and kids. When she said today's kids eat 5lbs of sugar a week. I thought that was crazy, but after a lot of research I can see how it's true. A lot of food is filled with junk. Anyways, I have learned a lot and am trying to make some changes, change is hard but I feel like necessary for us. 

I have also been very involved with a new organization/ministry called Family Promise of San Gabriel Valley. I am the coordinator for our church. It basically helps homeless families with children stay intact and regain stable housing and employment within a supportive, volunteer-driven network. I coordinate 35+ volunteer for a week at a time to bring food for the families, stay the night at a church facility that hosts the families, purchase groceries, and host activities and meals for the families. We started it near the Pasadena area about 1 year ago. It is an organization that has been in the USA for 25 years though. We are graduating two families out of the program this week.

One Voice Church out for lunch after church...our weekly tradition. Not everyone goes, but there is usually a large group. Here we are at a Mexican Restaurant called Margarita Jones.

One of a couple of the stations at Tyler's preschool for the pumpkin patch.

Weigh and measure the pumpkin

Ty's favorite...see how many pumpkins you can push?

The Court yard of Tyler's preschool

Ty pushing pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving with Nolan and Jace.

Photo op at a Halloween Party. We had already taken off Angela's Costume. 

All dressed up for church

An afternoon craft that Ty and I made. They will be pumpkin lanterns outside for Halloween night.

Some of the supplements and medicine Dave is taking

Optimistic

Counts are at 72,000 this week, so Dr. Wang(hematologist) said to hold off on treatment again. YEAH!!! They went down a little from last week (88,000) but are still higher than they have been and Dave has been decreasing his dose of prednisone. We are hoping to avoid the Rituxan if possible. We have another appointment next Tuesday, so we will go from there. We will play it out week by week. Thank you for your endurance and your prayers.

The kids are doing well. They are busy little bees. Ty LOVES preschool. He is the oldest in his class. He loves playing out on the "Big yard". They have two yards at his school for outdoor play. He is learning about "me". Angela will be 18 months tomorrow and is starting to talk a lot. She does not chatter like Tyler did though. She is much more relaxed about her speech. She is so proud of herself when she accomplishes a new word or new task. She will clap for herself. She still loves to be held and cuddled. We can always find her following big brother around whether at home or at the zoo. She is always watching an imitating him.

We are getting ready for the holiday season. They both have their costumes. Angela will be a pumpkin princess and Ty will be Iron Man. Ty wanted Dave to be Ironman also so he will be the none super hero version and I will be his girlfriend Pepper Potts. We got our plane tickets last night to fly to the midwest for Christmas. It will be a quick trip, but we will get to see both families.

Free play house...a cardboard box that we painted and cut a door and windows in. Has provided hours of entertainment.

It rained in Pasadena. Here you can see it on the other side of downtown. This is taken from the 10 freeway heading east.

Ty, Jace and Sander at the LA Zoo on Monday. Right near here they were filming for the show The New Girl.  We saw one of the actors Lamorne Morris.

Everyone making funny faces outside the new Lair exhibit. It has lots of snakes and reptiles.

Photo puzzle from Grandpa Knight of he and Ty on the "scooter". Ty is having fun doing puzzles these days. 

Ty helping Ang on the slide. We realized this morning that we can ride our bikes to this park. 

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Bring on the Balance

With the plethora of choices we have in our Western society today it can cause some anxiety. Fortunately for us,  we experienced some relief this week looking into different options for Dave and his ITP. So last week, the plan was to move forward with the Rituxan treatment on Thursday. We decided to wait for his platelet count results before making a final decision to move forward. His counts were back up to 88,000, the highest they've been but still below average. But, they were increasing even though he was on a lower dose prednisone. With that, we decide to put off the Ritaxan for a week and look into a few other options to either supplement or treat him.
After spending hours on the internet and phone, we decided to see a doctor that was recommended by a number of people in Dave's company (Keller Williams). They suggested we see Dr. Marc LeBel in Santa Monica. Dave and I went to his office on Friday for an appoint which lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. We spent a lot of time with the doctor. He asked Dave lots of questions in relation to past and recent history, lifestyle,  diet, events, anything that may have contributed to the onset of his ITP. He then used his expertise in the area of Auriculomedicine, which combines ancient wisdom of traditional Asian medicine, western naturopathy and homeopathy and reflects modern findings in neurophysiology to diagnose and treat patients.
You may be wondering what that looked like for us. Well, after all the questions he laid Dave on a table and used lenses, in-fared laser and pulse to look at his head and ear. Different parts of the ear are connected to the different parts of the body. He can tell by looking at each of them and talking to you which is out of balance. It was definitely interesting and a new experience for us!
What he suggested: He said because of the prednisone Dave needed to do some things to protect his Kidney's, so he gave him a supplement called Renafood and told him to make a tea out of Parsley to cleanse the Kidney's. He thought that Dave's onset of ITP was most likely hereditary. He also wished we had come sooner so he could have done more to help from the beginning and possibly avoid the rituxan but then encouraged us to go through with it if the levels did not go up again. He said he would help us after the treatment and mixture of herbs to rebuild the bone marrow and raise the platelet count. He said he would probably suggest sesame seed oil to prevent degeneration into leukemia. I am not exactly sure what he meant by degenerate, but trying not to think about it!  He treated Dave with Acupunture which was interesting. one needle in the ear to regulate the autonomic nervous system and one in the ear for the frontal lob which helps dissipate worry and anxiety.
We got home from the appointment and realized they actually leave the needles in your ear:) That was interesting. I guess you wait until they fall out. Well, all this to say we feel better about the course he is on and with the help of Dr. Lebel we feel he is being treated in a more holistic manor, even though it is kind of funky! Dave and I both feel more at peace due to this appointment, prayer times with friends and the prayers of family and friends from all over the world.
Dave has another blood test today and we will find out the results in a few days and see what will happen then. I will keep you posted.
In the meantime, please pray for a few other things...my 4 month old nephew Trey who has some health issues due to aspiration and reflux, my 9 month old niece Kendall who had her first of a few surgeries today to remove the mole on her head, and my in-laws with the upcoming election.

Fit for Fall

October is officially here!! I love fall, even in California. It is below 90 degrees now, so it feels more like fall. Fall means fun in my book. There is always so many things to do and places to go. One of my favorite past times was football games, pumpkin picking, pressing cider and watching the leaves fall. I am thankful our kids get to experience that once in while. Although rare, you can find places to do these things in the city! We kicked off fall with a trip to the beach.  Why not, when life gets you down, take a trip to the beach and your worries will just wash away! We felt refreshed a ready to face the world again after a trip to El Porto beach last Wednesday. We wrapped it up with a trip to my favorite Korean BBQ restaurant, Soot Bull Jeep. 

After this excursion we finished off the week strong and then took a trip to the Frary (Matt, Jenny, Jace, Sander, and Kera) family farm, Riley farm! We visited the pumpkin patch, pressed fresh apple cider, went apple picking, watch "Legend of Sleepy Hallow" as a dinner theater, and square danced the night away. 

We are getting our fun in before Dave starts a new treatment for his ITP next week. The doctors assure us that the side effects are minimal, but we want to make sure we do some things just in case. He said,"the treatment is pretty well tolerated by most people". This week his counts were about 50% lower than the week before, so the doctors decided to start him on a 4 week treatment of Rituximab(Rituxin). It is an infusion that is supposed to suppress/calm the immune system to stop killing off the platelets. He will go in to the doctors office once a week for four weeks. The treatments take a few hours each. It is a form of Chemo therapy but not the kind that makes you loose hair or anything like that. The doctor is hopeful that this will put his ITP into remission, but there are no guarantees. So, we it by Faith that God will heal him in His timing. This treatment is supposed to start on Thursday afternoon, so please pray for Dave this week. The first treatment is the hardest. We are also looking into alternatives treatments to see what is out there, so if you have any suggestion or ideas please let us know.

Angela loved playing with the pigeons

Ty and Daddy went boogie boarding

Angela and I spent some time at the park while Tyler was in school.

Ty and Jace on the fence at the Riley farm

Jace's neighbor friends that also went to the farm.

Pressing apple cider

Pressing cider with an old fashion cider press, an Olson/Jackson family tradition.

  

We helped Jace's friends set up their camp at the farm. Someday we will camp there too:)

Hayride around the farm. Pumpkin patch to the right.

Newspaper stars

 Last Saturday we decided to forgo the normal Saturday routine of Mommy sleeping in, breakfast together, Daddy playing Ultimate Frisbee and a trip to the Farmers Market. Instead, we went to a pancake breakfast to support the Fork in the Road organization and The Union Station homeless shelter. We were caught on camera. Click here to see the website for the Pasadena Star news where these photos are from.