Mad at the Mountains

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I'm mad at the mountains. What usually fills me with wonder and praise now looks like something I'd love to see destroyed. Not really – they're still pretty beautiful. But anger and wonder can coexist. Suffering and delight. Grief and joy. So I can love looking at these mountains and still be mad at them.

Kind of like how a mother feels when her kid is bullied, and she wants to punch the bully in the face – that's kind of how I feel about the Rocky Mountains. We'll call it my “Rocky Rage.” They are beautiful, but they betrayed my kid, so I kind of want to drive up there with a front loader, and stone by stone tear…

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Fun in Fontan

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Another great check up in the books for Sunley Summit! This trip had 3 days of tests and check ups in Houston, and Sunley was such a trooper. We try to make the trip special. I like to say “We put the fun in Fontan,” and I'm still waiting for the Fontan Go Clinic to adopt this slogan because I think it's fantastic.

We left last Sunday and spent the night with the Blankenships. It's always good to…

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1 year post Fontan Check Up

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We try hard to make these trips to Houston fun for Sunley and for the siblings left at home. I left our three heart-healthy kiddos with a super fun babysitter and a freezer full of yummy (junk) food, and we booked a hotel in Houston that has a pool, which was Sunley’s only request. We got to the hospital around 10:30 am Tuesday morning, and we were hoping to run into our buddy, Oliver, who also had appointments that day, but unfortunately the timing never worked out with their down time between doctor visits. Sunley was very nervous about the “big stickers” that are applied during…

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God of Daniel

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I’ve lost track of the exact timing of everything, but for the past 2 weeks, our 3 youngest kiddos have been dealing with some kind of respiratory virus. Davis got over it pretty quickly, and mostly just had a runny nose. Sunley almost had to go to the hospital for low saturations and difficulty breathing, but she came through it without hospital support. Ruger has had a very hard time…

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Home At Last

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We have been home for nearly 2 weeks now! About 10 days or so before we left, I had a really out-of-the-blue opportunity to speak with Lauren Simonetti from Fox News on her podcast, “We’re Momming Today” about the nonprofit and about Sunley’s story (Link here, if you’d like to listen). Trying to condense my thoughts into 20 minutes was hard for me (if you know me then you know I can talk forever), but the whole experience was amazing. The fact that a New York reporter from Fox News would take the time to do that with me just absolutely blew my mind. I’m a stay at home, homeschooling mom of four — I do not have time to start a nonprofit, but I did it because I just knew I needed to lay some groundwork for God to do what He wants to do with this. And already, look what has happened! We have over 30 lemonade stands going up in 13 states now, we’ve sold hundreds of t-shirts and raised thousands of dollars to support a clinic that didn’t even exist 5 years ago. When will I stop forgetting to just let God take the lead? When amazing things like this happen, it makes me wonder how in the world I ever fall into old patterns of control and frustration. But we all do it. Thank goodness for fresh starts.

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