A weekend away

Summer and I went camping with some friends this weekend. We headed up to the Smokey Mountains Friday after lunch. It started with a major meltdown about 25 miles out of town. She I forgot the stethoscope that goes with her new snow leopard toy(although I was never told to bring it). She WAS NOT happy about that one bit. I remained pretty calm and tried to hold the laughter in because it was pretty funny how much she was flipping out. "Turn around." Didn't happen. "Are we there yet?" Did happen, about a million times. :) She fell asleep about 30 minutes before we got there. Thank God! We had a nice RV waiting on us. There was a playground which is where the girls immediately headed. I took duty with them and they swang and slid having the time of their lives. Oh to have that much energy again! We went to eat dinner then tried to have a campfire, but the wood would not burn. There was no warmth even remotely coming from the fire pit. Oh well. The next night we were better prepared and had a huge one. We took the girls into Gatlinburg and got them some candy from one of the candy stores. We also let them mine some rocks out of a $25 bucket of dirt. It was pretty neat, maybe more so for me and Will than the kids although they liked it too. Will and I just couldn't stop until we were sure there were no more "treasures" to be found. Big kids! On the way home, we went to the Knoxville Zoo which was nice. I just love the zebras and giraffes, but Summer's favorite was the meerkats. We didn't get a good look at the snow leopard because it was sleeping (as most cats must like to do in the middle of the day). But, it didn't even seem to phase Summer because by that time she was ready to go. Oh the attention span of a 3 year old.....

Today was scan #1 for her. Two more to go and no results until Monday unless something major pops up and the radiologist alerts Dr. Gratias. We don't go back to the clinic for counts until next Monday. Her ANC was only 1000 which is on the low side in my opinion, but not really "too low." Hemoglobin was 8.9, white counts were 1.9, and platelets were 37,000. Hopefully ,the platelets are recovering and Summer will not need another transfusion of them, but we are watching her for bruising.

We are also looking for signs of fatigue, but there are none of those so far. We went to the playground today after a family lunch at Olive Garden. We played tag and hide 'n' go seek. Clint and Summer usually teamed up against me. I must admit Clint is pretty fast. Lexie and Amanda came by the playground to play with us for a little while. Lexie loved the swing and slide. She teamed up with me on hide 'n' go seek. It was fun. Summer enjoyed it too telling me just a minute ago that it was the first time she had gotten to play with Lexie and Amanda at the playground.

We are going to put up her Christmas tree tonight. Summer already knows where she wants it to go....or so she keeps saying. I got her a purple tree for her room. She has already told me she wants to put all the decorations on it. We'll see how long that lasts. Here's looking forward to a night filled with new memories.