Family Fun!

Pam starts chemo again tomorrow and will begin the cycle of not feeling well again. This has caused quite a bit of anxiety for her because she has been feeling so well all summer! Since we know what to expect and that it means she will be spending quite a bit of time in bed and resting before actually going into the hospital for the big procedure, we decided to do the proper thing and take our kids on a little family adventure!
We started Sunday quite normally with waffles, bacon and cartoons. Then the kids played with legos and playmobile for a while. We got them ready for Church and loaded the car. They wondered why we were taking the car to church since we always walk. We drove right by church and kept going out of town, they asked what we were doing. We said "we thought we would go on a little family adventure today and maybe not come back until tomorrow". They were all immediately concerned about missing school (obviously the children of 2 teachers). We kept driving.
As we headed out toward the lake, Griffin really did get a bit upset, so we decided to spill the beans. We told them we had secretly packed bags of clothing and that we were going to hotel for the night. They were pretty psyched about that. We then asked what they thought about a hotel with an indoor water park.....many screams and yells later they said that they were OK with missing school for a day.
So off we went to The Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Water Park in Lake George NY. It was a blast! I highly recommend it for cabin fever this winter, worth the $$!!! They have three 3 story water slides, a fun water play area, a lazy tubing river that circles the whole thing, and an indoor wave that you can body surf on! Needless to say this was a hit with the entire Paradee family. I think the boys climbed about 8,000 steps in 24 hours doing run after run on the water slides. We have some good footage of Sam, Tuck, Pam and I doing some body surfing (including Pam going backwards unintentionally).
We had to take a break after a while to get the water out of our ears so we drove to Lake George for dinner. They happened to be having a Blues Fest on the Waterfront so we grabbed some tacos and enjoyed the music and dinner outside on a beautiful fall evening at the lake. Then it was back to the water park until they closed it down at 9pm. We retired the room and all zonked on the beds and watched Shrek.
More water park in the morning until we finally dragged the boys out to head back to reality and Bristol. It was great fun and we had many laughs and hugs. This has a capped a week for Pam in which she also got her road bike out and went for a nice 45 min. ride with Dan. She was beaming when she got home from that, feeling like her old self.
That is why she is so anxious about tomorrow. Pam is really pretty scared about heading back into chemo and the transplant. It has really taken a toll on her body already, and the continued abuse is hard to fathom. The keeping up of the chin is getting harder and harder to do. She is truly the strongest person I know, and watching her out there today on the body board riding the "fake" wave really made me think about how unfair and cruel cancer is. A beautiful, young mother of three should not have to go through this.
Well regardless of what we want, this is what we get. Chemo starts tomorrow (Tues.) and we will take it one day at a time. Everyone just pray for the results!!!