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I never knew a bed could feel so good!  What a great night of sleep with no beeping, doctors coming in at all times of the night and no being woke up when Kasi would have her vitals taken.  Unlike when she was a baby and we came home, I was not nervous at all about her vitals all night.  It was a great feeling!  Kasi slept great too.  I think all she needed to feel better was to come home.  She has not taken any meds yet today which is great! 
As I sit here and think about the best part of being home, I really don't know what tugs at my heart more?  The joy in the boys as we walked through the door, watching all of the kids being together last night, or just sitting watching them play, laugh, and be silly together.  I have missed this so much.  Even the craziness of it all. 
Today we will be putting the finishing touches on our Christmas tree and I am very excited about that.  All of you who know me well know that I always put Christmas music on, and when it is all done, we all sing O Christmas Tree!  Not the whole song, but just enough to all smile and laugh. 


Here is where we are at with Kasi.  We know that the doctors did not repair her whole aorta like they really wanted to.  The reason why is because of a few things.  The main reason is because when they shut down the blood supply to the lower extremities they have a time frame to get things done.  This time frame from start to finish is about 30 minutes, but with Kasi they shut her blood supply off for 60 minutes and they still were not into the lowest part of her aorta.  They knew that they were out of time and when looking at her lower aorta they felt like it was a better decision to stop then to try and continue and fix the last part.  This is because the aorta, by her renal vessels and below, looks to be elastic enough to grow with the proper blood pressure to it.  So, with exercise it should start flowing better, but we will not know exactly what will happen so we will have many follow ups in the months and years to come.  This is a normal for us though.  Her kidneys are getting good blood flow to them, but we will need to start seeing a kidney Dr. again.  Our previous kidney Dr. has moved on so this will be a harder transition.  Not because the new Dr. in the office isn't good, but we had the best.  We heard from the specialist at U of M that Dr. Cai is really good too, so we are happy with that. 
Kasi also will not be able to go back to school until Feb. 15 ish.  I think that is worse case scenario.  Looking at her you wouldn't think she would have to wait that long.  We were told 6-8 weeks from yesterday, so the count down begins!  She will then go to school 4 hours a day for about 2 weeks.  It takes a long time for her body to get strength back and we do have a walking plan we need to start as soon as she feels good enough to go out and do it.  I am thinking we will start today.  Outside and about an 1/8th of a mile.  This will take all her energy and she will most-likely need a nap after. 
As I start to look back over the last month and more I see all of God faithfulness to us.  I look at the fundraiser that so many of you were involved in and the amount that was raised I was shocked at first.  Now I see it as God knowing how much we really needed.  I was thinking on the way home yesterday how I really didn't have that added stress to our stay up there.  It was a blessing to be able to go to a hotel room and just be with Kasi for bit everyday.  We felt like we "escaped" and it was a place for family to stay when they would come and visit.  We didn't have to worry about how we were going to pay our bills with Ron being off and me being off too.  It is such a God thing and when He says "don't worry about tomorrow" He means, I have it all taken care of.  How precious we are to Him.  I will end today with these couple of verses.

Psalm 34:19
A righteous man my have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all.....

James 5: 16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed, the prayer of a righteous man is POWERFUL and effective. 

The body of Christ has come together in a powerful way and I stand in awe of all of you who were called to pray for us through this whole thing.  It wasn't a church group, school group, or one specific thing we are involved in.  It was the whole body of Christ working together without denominational boundaries, just being God's hand and feet to us.  That is who we are.  As a family we have always been "different" in the fact that we choose to try and not be bound by titles and we are not going to say one church is better than another. We live to honor God and bless those around us with the blessings God has given us.  Our cup is over flowing with blessing and that is because of all of you.  Young and old, students and elderly.  Thank you!