The news isn't good...

One reason why I love the "blog world" is that I can count on at least one or two people reading the nonsense I post, and hopefully taking something away from it, even if it's just saying my son is cute or something. And I also love it because I know my friends and family who read it are also mighty prayer warriors, and I can ask them to pray, and they will. I ask that favor of you again.

For those of you who don't know, Dr. Ogle, my boss, his son has a rare form of cancer he has been battling for 10+ years. His name is Kyle and many of you have joined so many others in prayer for Kyle over the years. Well, he had surgery today, and it wasn't promising. Just a little reminder, in addition to chemo, Kyle has had NUMEROUS surgeries, one even being to remove his shoulder and arm. Today's surgery was to remove some tumors that had grown during the past few months while he was on an experimental chemo. They were able to remove one tumor that was near his heart, part of his diaphragm, and his spleen. Unfortunately, there is another good size tumor they were not able to get because they will need to remove some ribs to get to it, and they just didn't think he was up to it today. As far as they know right now, all chemo options have been exhausted. From what I know, the plan is to let him recover from today's surgery, and then go back in in a few weeks to attack again.

Kyle is an AMAZING man. And he has an AMAZING family and an unwavering faith in the LORD. To read the full story about this amazing man, you can click on his link on the right side of my blog. But I wanted to include his latest post here...


SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 04, 2007 11:37 PM, CST
Kyle posting here.

What do you say at a time like this? You hug your kids extra tight while tucking them in, and make sure they are looking in your eyes when you say I love you. Then you tell them again, just in case.

You wonder is the last time I will see them? Do they know how much I love them? Could they ever know? Have I left things “in order”?

So many things run through your mind. It is a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions.

Have I made a difference? Did I run the race well? If things don’t go as planned, who will be late to my funeral?

So what do you do?

You hold tight to His promises. You cling to your salvation. You take a deep breath, relax, and remind yourself that this is just temporary. One day (hopefully later than sooner) there will be no more pain, no more tears, and no more fear. That some day you will stand in His presence, that you will actually sing and no one will turn around and stare because you won’t be tone deaf anymore. You will talk to King David, hug your grandparents, and even fly (hopefully some of us will get an arm back so we don’t go in circles).

You remind yourself that your kids and wife are not really yours. They belong to Him. He just left them in your keeping to love and care for. He knows what is best.

So you head in to battle, steadfast, unwavering. You kiss your wife good-bye. Tell her you will see her in recovery. And like John Wayne in True Grit, Put the reins in your teeth, guns in both hands (ok, so one hand), spur your horse, and charge those cancer cells screaming “Fill your hands you son-of-a-#{%@#!”

SO I AM CALLING ALL PRAYER WARRIORS.....

The GREAT STATE FAIR OF TEXAS!!!

Ok, I know I am like a month behind for this post, but better late than never! We decided to go to the Fair the last weekend it was open. We got there when the gates opened and we were gone by 1:30. Neither of us are really "ride" people, so the fair loses some of it's appeal on us. I did ride one ride and promptly realized I am WAY TOO OLD to be doing that!! Especially since everyone else in my car was not above the age of 15!! Our first stop was at the root beer stand. You know the one with the fresh, ice cold REAL root beer. YUMMY!!! Then our next stop was, of course, the corny dog stand. I know it was 10:00am, but state fair corny dogs know no time boundaries! But sadly while Josh was getting our corny dogs, I was "attacked" by a bunch of bees after my root beer!! Some nice guy stopped and helped me try to shew them away with his ball cap, but to no avail. The root beer was thrown away, and bye bye bees!

We walked around a little more, wasted some $ on a game or 2, then went to the one attraction EVERYONE loves....THE CARS!!!! The fair is a great place to look at cars because every make and model is available to peruse. BUT, one word of caution....it will give you the bug to buy a new car. And that's exactly what we did. (Not at the fair, of course) We went straight to the Honda dealership and traded in our Jetta for a shiny, new Honda CRV! It just made more sense than the Jetta for our growing family. (No, we aren't growing currently, but we like to plan ahead.)

So all in all, the fair was FUN!! Beckham loved looking around and seeing all the sights. He even enjoyed some of our corny dogs. Here are a few pics...

Me and Beckham at the front gate

Josh and Beckham at the Midway

Josh and "Bumble Bee" from TRANSFORMERS

Beckham sleeping thru the LOUDEST place on earth!!