Children, Children, Children...

Hi! I know it's been a overly long time since I last updated Jarod and my's personal blog. After his treatment ended we really just needed time to heal and recharge and figure out our life. Over the last 5 months of the year Jarod I traveled to St.Thomas in August, NYC in September, Seattle in late September/early October and then had a few weddings to attend in November and before we new it the holidays were here and gone in a flash!

Over the those 5 month we saw a lot of old friends, family members, and people that we we just hadn't see in a while, I was shocked and flattered with how many people had been reading our blog! I think I have like 5 actual followers.. which is what made it even more surprising haha!

Several people said how much it helped them understand the disease, what we were going through and also helped them know just what was going on, because they just didn't know what to do, or what to say, or what to ask, and then when I quit posting many people wanted to know what was going on so here is where we we are.. moving through the every changing roller coaster of life!

We did a lot during the last 5 months mostly based around our appreciation for Jarod's life and reaching out to others who are in need. The Young Realtors council I am on, hosts a bowl a thon for the Make a Wish foundation, Jarod and his friends formed a team to join in the fun of the event that myself and the other members of the YRC put on last November. We also did a food drive for Atlanta Shelters in late November.

In December we filled the month with fun events, of festive parties and also made time for real spirit of the season. Clark Howard a local radio celebrity has a charity that is called Clark's Christmas kids, they set up at various walmarts around Atlanta and they encourage Atlanta citizens to sponsor a foster child's Christmas. The children do not receive any Christmas gifts without the help of outside support because there is no money in the organization to pay for it. Jarod and I chose 2 children this past year a young boy who was 2 and a 13 year old girl. We had the best time shopping for them and to know that Santa made sure they had gifts on Christmas morning!

We also bought gifts for the collection my Harry Norman office does for the Atlanta women's and children shelter, when I was younger I did a mission trip to this organization and have seen first hand the benefit of this organization. We were thrilled to be help support it and even more thrilled it's the chosen charity for my office.

But the highlight had to be when Jarod dressed up as Santa for our friend's neighborhood cookie exchange! There were over a dozen kids who all took turns on "Santa's" lap expressing what they wanted for Christmas, I went along as as Santa' helper, an elf and we the best time!

Then to start the year Jarod's Dad Cleo received a kidney from Jarod's Mom, Marcy here in Atlanta so we spent most of the month of January assisting as best we could with arrangements and being there to help. I'm glad to say that they both are doing great 1 month out and it's finally looking like the medical trauma is behind us!

Jarod will continue to have 8 week check ups for a long time, and it will always be part of our life, but it will not define our life or consume our life rather it helps us enjoy our life to the fullest because we were taken to the edge and made it back!

So we have continued our pattern of Child assistance, - we are sponsoring 2 kids we refer to as the Cheney Children! This mission/sponsorship program is through our Church PRUMC, they live in the country of Georgia, both children are deaf and their parent's can't afford the medical and nutritional supplies and they need. Their names are Lana Asanidze and Dimitri Sakhvadze. If you would like to check out the organization you can visit this website
http://georgiamissions.org

All in all, things are going well! So far the check ups are great, we are both working full time and really enjoying life! We are looking forward to many weddings coming up for friends, visiting with family, summer at the pool and several other volunteer events that are up coming such as our March Habitat build and save the date for the BOWL-A-THON benefiting make -a-wish on Jarod's 3oth birthday Thursday 11/3!

So thanks for all the support! We hope everyone is doing well and if anyone is ever in Atlanta give us a call! :)

XOXO
LC & JC