We've got some big news to share...

 These past few years have been a wild ride for our family.  We've experienced some incredibly high, highs, and some terribly low lows - but through it all God has been there, by our side, providing for us, comforting us, and guiding us.  And so, it is with great excitement that we take our a huge leap of faith in following Him around the next bend in the road.  God has blessed us with a wonderful job opportunity for John based out of Greensboro, North Carolina.

This July we'll pack up and move 2,600 miles across the country to a land filled with lush green trees, southern hospitality, sweet tea, and plenty of new experiences!  It's a bittersweet transition for our family, but one that we have no doubt God is calling us to. We are excited for John's new job as a commercial electrician, and we certainly look forward to being much, much closer to Sariah & Dylan!

Once everything is on the moving truck, we'll head out of town (early in July) on our adventurous drive across 10 states (Nevada, Utah, into Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee & into North Carolina).  It'll be an opportunity to grow as a family, and grow closer to God.  I'm not kidding.  I'm dead serious.  See, I loathe road trips.  I can barely make it through a 2 hour meeting, so 8 hours in the car will teach me to pray and to rely on God for patience, and self-control.  It will also do the same for John as he will need copious amounts of prayer to enact the "for better or for worse" vow he committed to at our wedding.  He'll be likely to put up with whining, constant bathroom breaks, bickering, singing, snoring, and babbling.  And that's just from me... imagine what the kids will do with all that time on their hands!  In fact, just to be safe, we'll be taking time out to recommit our lives to one another in marriage, and proclaim our determination to make it happen with Road Trip Wedding Vows prior to our departure!

Seriously though - we are excited and grateful for the adventure that God's got in store for us this summer, and we covet your prayers for a smooth move, that God would protect us, provide for our needs, and help us find the right home in North Carolina.  We also ask for prayer as we walk through the emotional roller coaster of this.  While we have some exciting things in store for us, it will be hard to leave Nevada.  We've had some wonderful opportunities and developed great friendships here.

Of course, if you live along the route we'll be travelling - let us know - maybe we'll have enough time to stop in and say hello!

Such an ordinary weekend with such extraordinary meaning

This weekend was absolutely amazing!  We went to visit my sister and brother-in-law and had the best time imaginable.  We did nothing remarkable, and that was the most amazing part.

The day the call came,
Mark with his wife and son

77 days ago, my brother-in-law, Mark McEvoy had a double lung transplant that nearly cost him his life.  I was there the day the call came, later that afternoon we sat there, in the hospital room, awaiting his surgery, wondering how things would turn out. My sister had finally fallen a sleep for a little bit, after weeks of hardly resting at all. Mark sat in his hospital bed, hooked up to oxygen and I did everything I could as I watched him trace his 5 month old son's hand.  I watched him trying to memorize every little part of his precious baby's body, the wrinkles along each knuckle, the shape of his eyes and the size of his feet.  I watched Mark inventorying every detail about his sleeping son, wondering if it would be the last time he saw him.
And it nearly was.

Holding his 5 month old son's hand.

24 hours later we sat in the ICU waiting room, digesting the news that they didn't think he'd survive.  They couldn't control the bleeding after his transplant and they had placed Mark on life support.  At this point, they'd lost count of how many units of blood, platelets and plasma he'd received and were only focused on trying to transfuse him at the same rate he was losing blood.  They'd opened his chest up bedside and manually pumped his heart for him.  They were sure he'd had a stroke and didn't think he'd have the neurological function to breathe on his own again. His pupils were unresponsive, he was bleeding uncontrollably and his heart was at it's limit.  At this point, it was only through prayer that we had any hope at all.

It was a long few days following his transplant.  The hours ticked by so slowly... the nights were spent sleeping on a waiting room floor.  Finally after a week, we'd begun to see enough neurological function that we could grasp on to hope that he would make it...

77 days is a long time.  Mark's fought hard to heal and God's provided him with immeasurable strength.  We've seen more answered prayers than we can count - and that's exactly what this weekend marked for our family.

This weekend - hanging out
at the farmers market (the mask is
to protect mark from germs from others)

We traveled 5 hours to visit my brother-in-law and sister in their temporary home just a few miles from Stanford University.  We had the most normal weekend we've had since last summer.  We hung out.  We laughed, we cracked jokes, Mark teased our kids, they teased him back.  We ate way too much food, and had way too much fun, doing the absolutely normal things that we never thought we'd get to do with Mark.  It was blissful, and it was a weekend I will forever treasure!

In a nutshell...

Growing up, we had the best backyard, filled with adventure (including a willow tree which made for some great swinging vines for this former tom boy), a wonderful garden and almond and walnut trees.  I loved getting to pick the almonds and walnuts - but I was happy to pass on eating them.  I would from time to time, have an almond or two, but the walnuts - no thanks!  I think it broke my mom's heart - she loves tree nuts... but I was so against them, I would turn down any food with walnuts (including brownies).  I mean really, who wants to eat something that makes your mouth tingle like that?!?  WHAT?  They don't make most people's mouths tingle?

See I didn't know that a tingling mouth was not a normal reaction to walnuts... I thought it was just one of those weird foods, like a not-so-ripe persimmon.  I never knew what it was like to eat walnuts without that feeling in my mouth so how could I know that was a problem?  I just learned to avoid them and pecans... I never could understand why people like pecan pie (I think that's a gift from God that I never, ever wanted to eat a pecan or pecan pie...).  Yeah - so, it turns out I'm allergic to tree nuts (ya think).  Now when I tell people about my tingly mouth sensation, I get one of two responses 1) *laughter* and the look that says "Are you kidding me?  Of course they don't make your mouth tingle!" OR 2) "What?  That's not normal?" which is usually followed by a barrage of questions such as "but they do kind of make your tongue feel bigger in your mouth, right?" to which I want to scream "NO! That's a very serious reaction - if your tongue can swell in your mouth, it can swell in your throat and cut off your air supply!!!"  But just like me, for most people the symptom doesn't seem odd because it's the way their body has always reacted to it.  Unfortunately though, tree nut allergies can turn on you in an instant... you can go from having symptoms that you hardly notice to anaphylactic shock in one exposure!

I have personally walked down an frustrating road with tree nuts... a few years ago, while camping, I was snacking on some trail mix and I noticed the almonds began to cause my throat to itch (something that I know is an allergic response because it happens to me when I eat melon, which I'm also allergic to)...so I ate the other bits but not the almonds.  Not long after, the cashews started to make my throat itch... and then, the raisins that had been in the same trail mix did... At this point, I finally admitted I probably had a nut allergy and should talk to my doctor about it.  Buuuttt... you see... I'm a little [understatement] stubborn so a few weeks later, when I knew the throat itchiness was long gone, while at home, where I knew it was "safe", I tried a pistachio to see if I was allergic - I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS METHOD FOR TESTING ALLERGIES... ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I KNOW NOW WHAT CAN HAPPEN.  Right after putting it in my mouth, I told my husband, just in case anything serious happened to me... needless to say, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost all respect for me in that moment, as he went into partial panic mode.  Yup.  I had a reaction, albeit mild...at this point I realized that I had too many tree nuts on my list of airway reactions to ever eat a tree nut again.

Fast forward a year... one day on my way to church, I stopped by a coffee shop and picked up my favorite scone.  I hurried out the door and headed down the road - without looking at what I'd ended up with, I took a bite and noticed it wasn't my normal scone... but then I bit into something crunchy... honestly, my thought was "Oh Crap! That had better not be a nut!".  Yup.  Turns out it was a pecan... which I now know is the one nut I am absolutely most allergic to.  I started carrying an epi-pen that week and became very aware of every food I put in my mouth.  Since then I've only had one other reaction, which I can only attribute to contamination (a food that touched the surface a nut product was on), and I can tell you first hand that an epi-pen is worth every penny (and they are expensive) as it saved me!  I now avoid any foods made on the shared equipment which means goodbye Godiva :(, granola bars, baked goods at Christmas and even many cereals.  I also avoid eating at any restaurant that can't tell me what's in their food (but that should be common sense to begin with... if they can't [or won't] tell you what's in it... you probably shouldn't put it in your body... regardless of any allergies). I carry my epi-pen with me everywhere, along with benadryl and 2 inhalers (yes 2), and I know that should I accidentally ingest a tree nut - I've done everything I can to make sure I get to see my kids the following morning.

So why do I write this?  Who really cares about me and my tree nut allergy?  Well this time, for once, it isn't about me.  As I write this, I'm picturing the faces of the people who have been surprised to hear what nut allergy symptoms are like.  I'm writing this with the hopes that my story can help someone else know that it's important to go to the doctor and talk about your reactions to foods and other common allergens (I've also had reactions to coconut, melon, and medicine) - it's not a sign of weakness... it's being proactive to save your own life.

If you have any type of reaction to common allergens (peanuts, peas, tree nuts, latex & stings or bites from bugs) - even if you believe it's not life threatening... please, please, please talk to your doctor.  If you're not sure how to describe what you're getting at, try taking the survey at http://www.myallergysurvey.com/.