Again, it has been a long time, which is, by my estimation, a good thing, right?  Kind of along the lines of "No news is good news"...  
And it has been mostly good.  It is July 6, and we are moving today.  One of the things we have been very busy with is buying a house!  We have bought a house on a small lake about 20 east of Smithers, so our new address is now in Telkwa.  Weird.  I never in a million years thought I would live in Telkwa.  A huge reason that we have decided to move is because of Noah.  He has become interested in Bowshooting and other outdoor pursuits and this place has a bit of property and a perfect place to set up targets, etc.  And it has a lake.  We received some money recently which we used to buy a couple of kayaks, which the kids, particularly Emily and Noah are excited about.  We have always wanted to move out of town and when this came up, we decided that life is too short, and if an opportunity like this comes up,  we can't turn it down.  It has a lake. It will be VERY different - no high speed internet, which will be a huge adjustment for all of us; we don't have cable and out kids have been watching all of their tv online and actually so has Tom, with all of his sports.  we are hoping the TV antenna works so that we can watch the Olympics. Oh, and a 20 minute drive in to town, which is a big deal here.  People are always saying, "You're moving all the way out there???"  I have to remind them and myself that if we were in a city, we would think nothing of driving 20 minutes to work every day.  In fact, in places like Vancouver, if you only have to drive 20 minutes to work, you have a pretty sweet deal going on! But, it will be totally worth it. Did I mention it has a lake? With a dock and a slide?
As far as Noah is concerned, everything is really going well. He had his first treatment here at our hospital and it went well, so that is a huge relief.  The Clinic here is a very calm, realaxing space; they have worked hard to decorate it so that there is a calming atmosphere, which, quite honestly took my by surprise, because isn't this a hospital??? 
The only thing they need to work on is communication between the admitting guy and the emerg triage nurse.  We did have an incident when Noah had a fever, and the guy didn't pass on the info that Noah has Leukemia, so when the nurse came out, to see who was next, she took everyone else first, including the guy who needed 2 stitches in his foot.  : S  She was kind of looking at me like, "oh, THAT mom, the one who brings her kid in to emerg because they have a fever. *roll eyes*  hover mother..."  The cool thing that happened was that when we got there, I posted it on facebook and immediately people started posting that they were praying for the fever to go down, and it did!  we sat there for a while, and by the time an hour and a half was up, he was down to 37.4! It was so cool.  When we decided to go home again without being seen, I told the nurse that his fever was down so we were leaving. She asked me if he had any other symptoms, and I told her, no, but he has Leukemia. Her eyes got big and she turned kind of white.  Apparently, there is a protocol in place that says that if Noah shows up at emerg with a fever, he is supposed to be seen within  15 minutes.  That only works if the guy at the front desk actually tells them he has Leukemia.  Grrr. 
I have learned two lessons here:
1. Prayer is powerful and God heals.
2. I need to be more assertive and advocate more forcefully because people don't know.
 \
Noah even played soccer. His knees were sore and his ankles are stiff from chemo and from sitting around for a year, so his first practice and games were painful for him. And painful for us to watch, actually - he runs like a little old man, lol!  He was very tired at the beginning, but as the season went on, his ankles loosened up, endurance improved, and so did his skill.  He even scored a goal in the very last game.

Noah has been doing so well, in fact that we sent him to Edmonton for a week with my parents!  Alone. Without me.  It was very weird. I sent him with very detailed instructions for all of his chemo meds and all of the doses pre-measured, and very detailed instructions for what to do if he got a fever, etc. I will say that as they were leaving, it seemed he and I both had the same thought - he looked at me with an expression that said, is this a good idea? I was thinking the same thing, lol!
It all ended up being fine.  He had a blast, visiting with all of his cousins there, he had his 12th birthday there, and was pretty well spoiled by everyone.  He is completely exhausted and getting sick,  I think (he started sneezing on the way home yesterday), but I am pretty sure he would say it was totally worth it.  Hopefully he can fight it off soon; we are supposed to go to Vancouver and stay at RMH next week Friday!
He will have an MRI on Friday to see if the knee pain he was having while running is related to chemo, and hopefully we will see Jasper. It is possible that we won't be able to see him, or only if he isn't sick at all, because Jasper has had a stem cell transplant, and is in strict isolation. 

I do have some sad news to report, last week little Lucas went into the hospital in Vernon, and on Wednesday, he passed away.  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Please continue to pray for his parents, Christian and Nilva, for comfort and peace.
 
Other than that, we have just been living life.  Emily's leg is healing quite nicely, she is on week 4 of the airboot after 6 weeks in a thigh -high cast.  All of our kids did well in school -especially Emily, with straight As, so we are pretty proud of her.  She won a number of academic awards, so that was pretty cool. 
I should get back to packing.... ugh.  We are supposed to be out of here by noon and if that happens it will be a miracle.  Next post will be showing all y`all the pics of our new place!
Take care,