Panama Trip Update

Hi everyone, I have had a lot of emails about our upcoming trip to Panama for Patrick's stem cells. We fly out one week from this Saturday. We will be in Panama for one week, flying home the next Saturday. Patrick is very excited!!! He keeps handing me the Panama vacation guide book and telling me that "Patrick wants to go to Panama."

I had to include a pic from our recent trip to Holiday World. It took me three tries to get a pic where they were all looking, by the third try Bob had quit smiling at me. This was right before we headed down to the water park side section of the park to cool off so I also think they were getting fairly warm in the little train.

Patrick's Dr is sending me a kit to get some new labs done before we leave so we can have some comparisons that are current for when we get back from Panama. I am also completing an autism behavior assessment on line so we can re-do it about one month when we get back home. It will be interesting to compare the results! Thank you for your prayers for our safe trip and a successful procedure for Packy.

My favorite time of the year!

"Pageant" and "Racing" season is upon us. I think this is one of my favorite times of the year. June is a busy month for my family. My husband has a couple of races scheduled and he is twisting my arm to get behind the wheel of the #13 car! Which of course I am definitely up for!

Rosemary and I have been making some fun appearances together. She is Midwest NES Little Miss and she LOVES wearing her own crown and joining me. We had a ball at the Indiana Railway Museum. Our entire family got to take an old fashioned train ride with a couple hundred fourth graders! WOW. :) Despite the heat we had a ball at the Superman Festival last weekend. The boys wore their own super hero costumes until the heat was too much. Of course we got to meet Superman....again. This year they decided to be Bat Girl, baby Spiderman, Spider Boy, and Batman. Of course, dad and mom pulled out our Superman and Supergirl costumes for the occasion.

Our family had a great time promoting Autism Awareness at Holiday World. Above is a pic of Pat and I in our autism T's on the kiddy train. Luckily, I have started teaching Rose how to use the camera.....we have way too many pics of dad with the kids or mom with the kids. We decided it was time to get more of mom and dad having fun too!

We have our Panama trip coming up at the end of the month. This weekend will be a busy one too. I have Stephen Shore and the FEAT group on Saturday morning and then I get to be a judge at the McCracken County Fair pageant. This is one of my favorite pageants to judge. We always have so much fun here. I received so many positive comments about my appearance list that I keep on the All American blog that I decided to go ahead and post it on here as well. I have more planned for July and I will keep you posted.

Have a wonderful day!

Thursday Update

We are confirmed now into Panama City, Panama on June 25. Patrick has his stem cell treatment during the week and we fly home on Saturday, July 3. Keep Pack in your prayers!

Wet weather has postponed the majority of Pat's racing season this year. He has raced one time this year. He is gearing up for racing this weekend. I was thinking about getting the ole' #13 car out but I am helping Joni with wedding prep on Friday evening. Wes and Nidia are getting married at our house on Saturday. The hopeful couple is praying for sunshine! :)

I just finished updating and re-vamping my other blog, the one I use for pageants. I have posted the information for that blog to the left of my postings. I am working on adding some autism related reading lists and a business reading list as well.

Moving right along

Hi all.

Well I have finally got the room booked and got the airline tickets all planned out for our stem cell trip. We ended up booking into the sister clinic in Panama City, Panama. We had initially planned on going to the Costa Rica clinic but decided to go to Panama. They are ran by the same doctors. We are leaving here on June 25th and we will be back on July 3.

I spoke with Patrick's Florida Dr., Scott Smith, today and he said that he had the pleasure of meeting the clinic director and several of the doctors at the University of Miami last week. He has three other kids that are going down in June from his practice.

I have had a lot of messages from friends and family who got so worried over the 60 Minutes special on stem cells. I think that the national stem cell clearinghouse said it best, "Out of all the quality stem cell clinics that operate in the world, 60 Minutes would dig around to find the worst charlatan that they possibly could." I thought this was a very fair statement.

I just finished reading a really good book written by the dad of a boy that received stem cells from the same clinic Patrick will be going to. You can find this book on Amazon, it is Out of the Darkness by Daniel Faiella.

For more information on the Stem Cell Institute check out their website at repairstemcells.org.