...Back to Reality...

What an amazing trip! We had so much fun! It was really hard to be away from Knox for 4 days, especially with our parents sending lots of pictures! 

We made 3 big stops in San Diego: SeaWorld, Farmers Insurance Open PGA Golf Tour, and the Zoo.

First Stop (SeaWorld): SeaWorld was a blast! We met the shuttle driver down in the lobby at 9:30 a.m. and his name was Jeff and he looked exactly like Kai’s Uncle Jeff (we had to take a double look at first, lol). He was very nice and informative about San Diego and how to get around. He dropped us off right before the gates opened and there was a ton of people waiting outside.

 

We got to experience the Killer Whales (Shamu), Sea Lions, and so much more… It was so much fun but we missed Knox so much because everywhere we looked there were families with all their kids! We can’t wait to take Knox when he will be able to remember the whole experience.

 

 

Second Stop (Farmers Insurance Open PGA Golf Tour):

Dustin saw this PGA tournament was going on while we were going to be in San Diego. Dustin had never been to a PGA event before and was so excited to have the opportunity to go. We decided to go and it was definitely worth the adventure to get there.

We got up at 6:00 a.m. (on vacation!!) and walked 10 minutes to the Trolley Station where we caught the Green Line Trolley down to Qualcomm Stadium. At Qualcomm Stadium the Farmers Insurance Open had 20 shuttles taking event goers to Torrey Pines Golf Course. We thought we had to pay to get on the shuttle at Qualcomm stadium but it ended up being free (you had to pay to park). It was so much fun finding our way down to Qualcomm Stadium and so rewarding when we arrived at Torrey Pines Golf Course.

Torrey Pines Golf Coarse was so beautiful. We don’t know if you got a chance to see it on T.V. but it was right on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It’s a huge golf coarse too, it has a North coarse and a South coarse. Needless to say buy the end of the day we could barely walk. We saw all the big wigs of golf. Dustin was in heaven!!! That was definitely the highlight of our trip for him =) 

Tiger Woods Group

Tiger Woods Group

Tiger Woods

Third Stop (San Diego Zoo): By the Third day our feet were hurting so bad that the Zoo was almost TOO Big. The Zoo by far was the largest place we had gone to! We walked the whole park and had so much fun!! Once again, we were missing Knox like crazy because the whole park is family oriented.

We had fun taking pictures of all the animals and of the beautiful zoo itself. Last year Art and Cindy went to Africa with Doug and Dorene Mykol and they had a total blast seeing and taking pictures all the wild animals on their safari. We had a blast seeing all the wild animals but we also enjoyed being safe unlike them last year. That was our big joke when we were walking around the zoo! We couldn’t be eaten! 

After the zoo the first thing we did was go straight to the hot tub to soak our feet and relax our bodies! We came to realize how out of shape we are!!

 

Fun Facts:  We met some really nice people on the trolley that happened to be staying at our same hotel. The next day was her birthday so we decided to find our way to downtown San Diego (called Gas Lamp). We had to take the Green Line Trolley and then switch to the Blue Line Trolley and once we got down there we all felt like locals (haha). Gas Lamp is the name of their downtown district; it was a road about a mile long and on each side it was full of restaurants and bars. It was Daisy’s birthday so she picked the restaurant! We had fun making new friends and memories to last a life time!!

There’s no place like Home: Sunday Morning we had breakfast with our new friends Daisy and Noe and then packed our bags to go home. We had never been away from Knox for so long and were eager to see his face!!

Once we landed and got back to Olympia we were able to pick up Knox. We were expecting him to be so excited to see us like we were him. But NO, he was mad at us! You could tell instantly that he was not happy we left him. We kissed and loved on him until he came around with a great big smile! We think the presents did the trick =)

 

We had a lot of fun on our long weekend getaway! Now it’s back to reality! Dustin went in today for his next round of Chemo. He got his blood drawn and had to wait for the results before starting his Chemo. The nurse came back and told Dustin that his white blood cell count was extremely low and they needed to administer a shot (Neupogen) to help revive his cell count. The nurse also said that Dustin’s white blood cell count was too low today and Dustin wouldn’t be getting any Chemo today and possibly the rest of the week. He goes in tomorrow to see if his white blood cell count increases with the shot they gave him today.

If the white blood cell count doesn’t increase they will continue to give him the shot (Neupogen) until he is able to go forward with Chemo. The white blood cells are what fight off infection and if they give him Chemo while his counts are so low Dustin will be very vulnerable to diseases and sickness.

Please continue to keep Dustin and our family in your prayers! We will be taking this week one day at a time! Thank you all so much for all the support, encouragement, and prayers! We will keep you all posted! The sooner he can start his second round of Chemo the sooner we will be to winning this battle! Love you all very much!!