I met Amy in High School and not just any High School mind you, good ol Lanier High School in central Austin. It was only about two steps up from the scariest schools in town. But we were Vikings and darn proud to be too!
Some would say Amy and I were destined to be good friends. After all, we were on the same yearbook page every year…except our senior year, but who’s counting??
The time we spent together was mostly surrounding yearbook. Oh, the memories. Lot’s of chatting and laughing and doing things that were probably not the best laid out plans.
One day, during that amazingly great and transforming year, Amy didn’t come back to school.
I asked around and a couple of our friends told me that she was in the hospital.
I was shocked. What on earth, she was just here the other day and looked totally fine.
Now, this is the part were I say to my kids who will one day ask “why didn’t you text or fb her mom??” “Back in my day there wasn’t any of this fancy mumbo jumbo!” “You either had a home phone or a pager from Pinky’s pagers!” Which could possibly indicate to your parent’s that your are a drug dealer…possibly.
So, basically, I just sat around like Phineas does with Ferb when he says “hey, were’s Perry?”
“Hey, were’s Amy?”
I had no idea the extent of what my friend was going through.
A long time later (felt like 8 weeks or more (insert actual time)) Amy came back to school for a visit. Except this time, Amy was in a wheelchair and very puffy.
Amy left school a healthy teenager and returned diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Amy is an amazing person and funny to boot.
She is a wife to Eric and a mother to two beautiful children.
She has been living life to it’s fullest, to the best of her ability.
However, as M.S. does, it creeps in and takes over.
Amy is ready to kick some M.S. booty!
Amy needs your help.
When have you ever seen a ninja by itself?? Never! Never I say!
A ninja is surrounded by other “bomb dot com” ninja’s just like it.
Here is a video about my sweet and incredibly brilliant friend.
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We got home Sunday. It took about 3 hours to unpack the RV and clean it out.
We started thinking about all the stats of our trip. Here are some numbers:
3107 miles
388 gallons of gas (we will let you do the math on $$)
282 hours not wearing socks
4 hours wearing socks (church)
9 states
3 nights in parking lots
3 nights in state parks
2 nights in RV park
4 nights at friends homes
4 pastors visited in 4 states
1900+ blog visitors
1 sermon preached
38 families at HoPE conference
7 loads of laundry
1 clogged toilet
1 set of keys lost
1 beach day
3 museums
1000s of priceless memories
We are so thankful to our church family for sending us and allowing us to be gone on this journey.
We are grateful to the Krauss family for watching our perro!
Naghma (our awesome neighbor) helped us keep our house together. Thanks, Naghma.
Mike Hollifield cut our grass while we were gone. Much thanks!
Thanks to Advanced RV Rentals for giving us such a deal on the RV. It has been so helpful to travel with Kennady this way.
Check in tomorrow. We will post a video tour of the RV sweetness.
Kennady meets a new friend. A 5yr old darling! She brought back so many memories of Kennady 5 years ago.
NASCAR driver Josh Timmerman reads a book to the kids (and adults). He has been a huge help to the HPE family.
Kennady gets a baby with HOPE!
The dads got together and shared thoughts on raising kids with HPE. We had a great time getting to know each other.
It was difficult to leave all our new friends at the Families for HoPE conference. Wow, it was an emotional and educational few days. We hit the road around 7:30pm and drove to Knoxville, TN. While on the road, we have about 30 minutes of AMAZING sunset and fog!
We spent the night at a Walmart parking lot. Erica and I argued over which spot was the best. I was voting for the outer edges of the lot. She wanted closer to the store. We compromised. I almost went into Walmart in my PJs to get some milk. That would have been sweet. We woke up around 8:30am and drove 3 hours to Spring Hill, TN (very close to Nashville)
We love hanging with the Lowerys! (Robin’s sister and family) Adults talking. Kids playing. We will be here for a couple nights and then move on.
She has been living life to it’s fullest, to the best of her ability.
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