December 22, 2014- The Good, Bad And Everything In Between -2014 WithThe Bode Family

The Good, Bad And Everything In Between -2014 With The Bode Family

January-

-Gwen's 1st year of Upward Cheerleading

-The 1st time Sam played in the snow

-Sam started having a full time nurse

February-

-Gwen's last single digit birthday

-Sam had her first seizure while in the car (on the side of highway 52 :( )

March-

-Sam had a her 4 hour seizure followed 5 days later by a 2 hour seizure :(

-We found out how much we are richly blessed by the prayers, support and love of so many during Sam's 20 day hospital stay. 

-Gwen started her first season of soccer

-Sam turned 3 :)

April-

-Sam's first day of Pre-K

May- 

-Gwen auditioned for her first play at the AGP

June-

-Another hospital stay due to over medication :(

-We found out Sam was getting a WISH :)

-VBS when Sam found her BFF Ben

July-

-Sam's Make A Wish trip to Disney

-The lake with Grandma and Grandpa

-Gwen's first sleep over camp

-Salem Summer Arts :)

-God finally showed us what to do about a service dog for Sam

-Money for Sam's seizure dog was raised within 1 week! Amazing isn't even the word for it! 

August-

-Gwen was asked to speak at SCS Convocation

-Gwen started 4th grade and Sam's 2nd year of Pre-K

-Gwen and Sam were blessed to be apart of Cory and Nicole's wedding

September-

-First no major seizure September in 3 years

October-

-Halloween fun with The Awkward Family Photo, the old ladies and more

-Meet Moose for the first time!! It is a match! 

November

-Special visit with Moose :) 

December-

-The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at the AGP

-Testing starts for Sam's surgical evaluation

There is so much more that makes up this year but what a year it has been. Some moments were extremely stressful and scary. Others were moments sent directly from God but every moment had a purpose. I praise God for every single one. If we never walked in the rain, we wouldn't take the time to appreciate the sunshine! Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and an extremely blessed New Year! 

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from 2014- So blessed! 

October 14, 2014 ~ A New Journey

So tonight my heart is so full. Full of happiness because I know God has sent us a huge blessing today. Full of peace because I am once again reminded that God answers prayers. Most of all I am full of love for our new addition that will be joining our family very soon. Many, many months ago someone mentioned a seizure dog to us. It was not something you can take lightly so it really required a lot of prayer and patience. After searching for the right company for a while, we were thrilled to finally find an amazing place so close to home. Autism Assistance Dogs which is part of Highland Canine has been such a blessing to our family! We knew very early on in our talks with them that they were the company for our family. It was amazing to find a place so close to home when we were looking at companies in many different states. We were also very HUMBLED by the fact that we were able to raise the money needed in just 7 days using the website GO FUND ME. I can't even begin to tell you what every single donation has meant to us! We have been waiting for a dog that they felt would be a good match for Sam. Tonight we had the extreme pleasure of meeting our new family member Moose Bode! Sam LOVES him so much! She played with him for about an hour and got pretty tired at the end of our time. She was a little grumpy but when we actually left and went to the car she kept saying, "Moose! Find him!" She didn't want to leave him behind. He is an amazing dog and I really feel like this is all such a blessing from God. I have not had a good night sleep in the longest time because of the fear of not waking up if Sam has a seizure. Knowing that in just a few months we will have a dog who will be trained to do many things, one of which is to alert us when Sam is seizing. Within 5 minutes of her seizing, Sam requires suction to clean out her mouth of very thick saliva. If we slept through that she would definitely be at risk for choking and other harmful issues that come with prolonged seizures. We have seen firsthand the setbacks that come from long seizures and we will do anything possible to minimize those effects for our Sam. Gwen has been extremely excited about our new edition. I actually found a card she made Highland thanking them for finding us a dog. We never leave Sam alone and it is a constant stress on Gwen to watch her sister while we are cooking or cleaning. She is so worried Sam will start seizing while she is with her and it upsets Gwen greatly. She wants the best for her sister. She geared up a little on the way home  because she knows what a blessing Moose will be for our family. Knowing that we will have a new member of our family that will go EVERYWHERE with us does give us a little bit of relief. Knowing that Moose will be specifically trained to help Sam in those emergent situations take a huge weight off of all of us! Travis who is not a huge dog person even loved Moose. He was so happy when we left today and I think Moose will make him a dog person. :) Tonight we were told that it will take about 6 months to train Moose. We are very excited at the prospect of having him join us in the Spring of 2015! Thanks for staying with us on our journey. Your love and support is nothing short of amazing! We will be visiting Moose once a month until he becomes officially ours. I hope to keep you updated with pictures though this next step of Samantha's Journey!

Sam's Make A Wish Trip ~ Day 7

We can't even begin to thank the Make A Wish Organization, Give Kids The World, Disney, Universal Studios, Sea World and the many other organizations who made this trip possible for Sam and our family! It was such a blessed week! I highly encourage anyone who wants to find a charity to support Make A Wish and Give Kids The World. Make A Wish has a walk at Tanglewood Park in November. You walk through the lights on the first night it is open. I did it several years ago with my sister Marianne and Gwen. It was a great night for a great cause. You can find out more info by clicking here. You can also support Give Kids The World in many different ways. The most fun way is by holding your own Ice Cream for Breakfast Fundraiser.

Since we were stopping in Savannah on the way home we decided to make reservations at Lady and Sons to have some great food. Definitely worth the stop! Thanks so much for taking the time to read about our adventures. We can't even begin to explain how blessed we were by this amazing journey. We had not been out of the state with Sam since her seizures started and had not have a family vacation in years. It was nice to have time to enjoy each other! God took care of things like He always does!

Sam's Make A Wish Trip ~ Day 6

Day 5- Sam's Make A Wish Trip

Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom

At GKTW, it was Nickelodeon character morning so we were able to see Blue from Blue's Clues.

Then we headed over to Hollywood Studios to see buzz and Woody and ride Toy Story Mania. For those of you who don't know, Sam LOVES Toy Story. We watch it several times daily. We had a great morning at Hollywood Studios and left early to rest up for a night at Magic Kingdom. 

Right when we got to Magic Kingdom it started pouring the rain so I don't have any pictures. Plus we wanted to ride rides so we were trying to make it from one ride to the other quickly. Sam loved any ride where she was moving. The shows were a little harder for her to sit still. She wanted to get down and crawl on the floor. One of her favorites was Pirates of the Caribbean. Again we didn't make it to half of the things we wanted to even though we had a special Fast Pass but it was ok. We knew we had to take it slow for Sam and the wonderful thing was we stayed SEIZURE-FREE all week Praise God! 

Sam's Make A Wish Trip ~ Day 5

Day 5- Sam's Make A Wish Trip

Universal Studios and Island of Adventures

We were able to see Goofy and Pluto at GKTW right after breakfast. On our way to the car we found Mary Poppins hanging out in the courtyard. 

Even though Universal and Island of Adventures is really a park for older kids, we still found several things that were great for Sam. We loved that you could easily walk or ride the Hogwarts Express between the two parks. Since the new part of the Harry Potter world was not suppose to open until the day we left, we were thrilled that they had it open early. We decided to start at Universal Studios and ride the train over to Island of Adventures. I am sure for quite a while the lines for this will be rather long. We did get to skip part of the line by using the elevators but they didn't really have an express line for this so we did some waiting. I couldn't believe the people dressed in capes in a 90 degree day! Harry Potter world in Island of Adventures was as bad as the Magic Kingdom on the 4th of July. We made it into the wand shop and Gwen was chosen for the wand demonstration. 

Then we went and ate at the Three Broomsticks for lunch. I had the fish and chips which was really good. 

We then decided it was a little too crazy for us so we headed over to Seuss Landing. The sad thing was even though it was meant for younger kids there were still many height restrictions. They had a great playground but it is hard for a child who only crawls. Since Sam fell asleep in the Three Broomsticks we let her eat while Gwen and I rode some rides. 

We decided to head back over to Universal Studios to catch some characters and the Barney show for Sam. We stopped in the I Love Lucy tribute for our buddy Kristi Calton then headed out to get pictures with Scooby Doo and Shaggy. They were about to leave so they had us meet them for a private meet and greet. On the way we met Marge and Homer.

We then made it to the toddler play area for Barney where Sam was able to get out and play some before the show. Since Travis is NOT a Barney fan, he took Gwen to ride some rides while we went to the show. They had us stay seated after the show and gave all the wish kids a special photo time with Barney.

We then stopped to see SpongeBob and caught them in the park again so she could see Squidward.

One more stop to see Sam's favorite Minions and then we called it a day.

We played in the pool at GKTW for a while that afternoon and met some other great families. Interestingly enough, several families we met were there because of a child with seizures. It was great for Gwen because she met a girl her age who had a brother who had the type of seizures Sam has. It helped her to see she was not alone. :) 

Sam's Make A Wish Trip ~ Day 4

Day 4-  Sam's Make A Wish Trip

Epcot

We actually got up early and got to Epcot when it opened. This allowed us to get a few more things in before Sam gave out. We went to see the characters while Travis and Gwen rode Soarin'. It was Gwen's first time since she was too small the last time we visited the parks. Once again we were blessed with amazing cast members. Mickey decided that all three characters at the character spot needed to get together to get a photo with Sam. She was so excited to see them. I think the excitement shows on her face! 

We also were able to get around to the different countries in the morning so we were able to eat lunch at the Japanese restaurant. Sam ended up sleeping through lunch but Gwen loved it. She was even taught how to make origami birds after dinner. 

It started raining in the afternoon but we stuck around since Sam was in a good mood. After we headed back to GKTW we decided that Sam needed to rest and it might be a good night for Travis and Gwen to go have some fun at Magic Kingdom. I was so happy that they had some father/daughter bonding time at the parks!