'Real Camping' at Bryce Canyon

 After spending the first 4 months of maintenance phase in and out of the hospital with neutropenic fevers, infections, port removal, lip biopsy, and lung fungus we never imagined our summer would turn out so normalish!  We went to Bryce Canyon for a family reunion and Ty had a great time!  We were expecting our summer to be a lot like last year, staying home from everything and being super careful... but we were wrong!  Ty is still on meds of course, chemo pills, antifungal, colace, and dapsone...he still has a red face from the antifungal, and we have to sunscreen him up like crazy...we still have to be careful about germs and stuff, but not freakishly careful like before...all of that is just a normal part of his life now and none of it seems to get in his way.  We had such a great time at Bryce Canyon we didn't think twice about cancer stuff. 

 Looking over Bryce Canyon with his two other 4 year old cousins...

 He doesn't like the bright sun, it hurts his eyes...

Making his own sunglasses so he can say cheese for the camera

 We did a group tour, our family filled up the whole bus so we had the tour guide all to ourselves.  He was tipped hansomely for being so patient and good natured even though there were 30 kids and 13 adults on his bus : )

 Even though we stayed in a motel across the street from the campground, Ty got to do his 'real camping' of roasting a marshmallow on the fire.  The fire was so hot he tried to hide from it behind a cousin while he roasted his marshmallow.

 Another cousin came to the rescue and helped him roast it even though it was hot...

 Finally the perfect marshmallow!

 And the perfect s'more

 Could a kid be any happier than when his hands are stuck together with marshmallow?

 We had to teach the cousins our Camp Hobe jellyfish song

Ty's 3 year old cousin (you might recognize him if you've seen the movie 17 Miracles) is now a hair taller than him, I looked up his height and weight percentages as they compare to other kids his age...according to the calculator I used, Ty is at less than the 3rd percentile for height...but he is in the 20th percentile for weight, yay!  I'm glad his weight is at least on the charts.  As I was measuring Ty's height while he was alseep in bed just now, making Brady stretch his leg out so we could get an accurate measurement Brady called me obsessed...I have no idea what he is talking about, every mom measures their kids in their sleep right? ; )

Like I said in the post before this one, we finally feel like we are in maintenance, where Ty still takes immunosuppressants to prevent relapse of the Leukemia but his life is back to normal for the most part.  We are so thankful he is doing so well and we hope it stays that way! 

Thank you so much for the prayers, concern, dinners, luminaries and cancer walks in his honor, and donations to the causes that we care so much about.  Thank you so much to those of you who have joined our team and for those of you who haven't signed up yet but are planning to, it will be an event you won't want to miss...it is even worth a trip to Salt Lake to be there so I hope to see hundreds of you there!  Also, if you have lost a child to cancer and you are planning to attend, let me know, they let go of a white balloon in honor of each child who lost the battle and I want to make sure they have a balloon for you if you are planning to be there.  Thanks!