Hello there!  I wanted to share some photos from the weekend - what a fabulous experience to meet Janae's daughter Emilie.  Janae is one of the "i.s." moms that came to my house for brunch about 2 months ago.  Janae lives in Woodinville and has a 5 year old named Emilie who I've never met - who had infantile spasms like Cody.  Now her seizures are "drop" seizures which means at any point in time, she collapses over and over, hitting the ground before you could ever grab her.  Her seizures are still often in clusters as well, which makes the drops happen one after another.  Janae had emailed me from this site over a year ago when we still lived in Vancouver.  We've been online friends since then and only just recently met in person.  But this weekend - Friday - was  my first time to meet Emilie!  Here she is:

Janae and I have SO much in common!  We live in the world of constant seizures.  We've had the same Dr's.  Our kids are on 2 of the same drugs.  Our futures are both scary as heck - we both wonder every day how we'll handle these little ones once they become "big ones."  But it was neat - we both are pretty smiley people in spite of it all.  Seeing Janae is like seeing a sister I never had.  The shorthand is amazing.  She's flown to see Dr. Chugani.  Emilie has the same speech pathologist.  She's just going to start ABA.  Emilie's had the muscle biopsy Cody is having in August.  Janae joined us Friday at our church's outreach at Newcastle Beach - with her 2 other children, Mackenzie and Abbey, and her nanny Jessica.  We ate barbeque - had the kids faces painted

(well, they painted Cody's knee....) - we put them on the swings - we blabbed and blabbed and blabbed. 

And the next day Janae joined us at Lakemont park in Belleve for another outing with her husband!  For the very first time, Don got to meet another dad who has walked our path.  Travis works at Microsoft so the guys talked work, life, sports, etc.  It was a wonderful two days - sad, happy, depressing, sobering, joyful - we all experienced about as many emotions as there are. 

They, thankfully, are awesome Christians who are very active in their faith.  Icing on the cake. 

Thank you, Lord, for this couple who walks our road.  There are more in this area too - Debbie, Michelle, Katie, even a few new people who have emailed me from this site.  What a blessing to know you all.

We had so much fun at the parks - here's a shot of our Pastor Merlyn and Don watching little Casey.  So nice to get out in the sun. 

with love,

Shawna