Hello! And sorry again to be so long without posting. We have lots of good news .. but first off let me to get to the really important stuff and say : Havalah is doing great. Her lab numbers have been solid since November and she has been feeling well. Apparentally that biopsy back in oct/november really looked pretty bad - and looked worse than adenovirus normally would - so they debated doing a follow up biopsy just to see how it looked now that the adenovirus is gone - but decided not too, and instead we are just going to be cautious and if she has the slightest blip in her numbers they will biopsy her. Havalah is a strange case medically in that in the past she has had serious things going on with her - but her numbers and other test results never seem to give an accurate portrayal. She always seem to actually be in worse shape than tests results show.. Despite the fact that poor Havalah seems to have a lot of complications etc. She always continues to do really well despite all of her issues , so we still feel lucky- even though in many ways we haven't been.

So here's the biggest news : Havalah is making a wish! For those of you who may be freaked out by that fact ... Make a wish is for kids with life threatening conditions NOT just fatal conditions. So Havalah qualifies but we're still hoping she lives to be 100. Havalah's wish is to go to Walt Disney world in Florida.. and because she has no siblings she gets to bring a guest .. and that is going to be her cousin Haley who is 7. I think just spending a week straight with Haley would practically be enough of a wish for Havalah because she thinks Haley is the greatest thing ever. It hasn't been booked yet but we are either going the week starting June 18th or in late July/early August. We're all super excited about it. We've known other kids who have went to Disney as their wish and it sounds incredible. They put the familes up at a place called "Give kids the world" which is just for wish families and similar organizations. they spoil them like crazy ... and you get tickets to all of the theme parks and a character breakfast etc. PLUS as a wish kid you get to go to the head of the line for everything .. and everyone makes an extra fuss over them. It's like a dream disney trip that money can't buy.

Havalah is also going to start kindergarden in the fall! Here in Milwaukee all of the public schools have K4 ... which is just 4 year old kindergarden .. and you almost have to start then because otherwise it's much harder to get into a decent school. So all of January we've been researching like crazy .. and we visited some schools etc. We have school choice so she has a lot of options .. but most of the options are poor. Milwaukee has a lot of schools that are doing way under the national average. But we found three schools we were happy with and we signed her up int he first enrollment period so there's a 99% chance we will get at least one of our choices.

our first choice is Fratney .. which is only a block from our house. It would be all day from 9 til 3 ... and it is a bilingual school. Half the spots available go to kids who speak spanish as a first language and half go to english speakers and then all of the kids learn both languages. By the time they are in 5th grade all of the kids are fluent in both! The school also had a lot of construction done in the last 2 years so a lot of it is brand new, and we love that she would be so close by. But it's also not an easy school to get into. I think we get some preference though for living in the neighborhood.

Our second choice is Maryland Montessori school. It would just be from 7:50 in the morning til 10:50 for 4k and then a full day the next year. It's a couple of miles from our house so we would have to drive her and pick her up. We've never experienced the Montessori philisophy but it sounds interesting and I think Havalah would do just fine with it.

Our third chjoice is Elm which would be 7:50 til 2:30 .. it's a school with an emphasis on the arts. Every day they have some sort of arts class .. like dance, theatre, music etc. and the school has an amazing auditorium. It's a couple of miles a way so again we would have to drive her. We've heard great things about it, but when we made an appt to see it ... they weren't very welcoming to us so it kind of left a bad impression.

Really all three of theses schools are tough to get into, but we're hoping since we enrolled in the first period and put down three choices that we will get one of them. Havalah liked all three and is REALLY excited to start school.

My third piece of news is that I was accepted onto the children's hospital family advisory committee. It's pretty much a volunteer position but I had to apply to be on it, and be interviews as though it was a job. So I was excited to be picked! They meet once every 6 weeks and then once in between that for subcommittees and work to give feedback and improve things around the hospital - which is really important to me.

Even though it's still January I am starting to get really excited for summer. We have the make a wish trip- My cousin Kim's wedding, and I just got a save the date for my friend Julie Parker's wedding In Minneapolis and I am really excited about that. Julie is a great friend of mine who I haven't been able to spend much time with since i moved away from Minneapolis .. and I am excited to see her and excited that she is getting married! Also my extended family on my dad's side does a camping trip very year and I am bound and determined to go this year. We went two years ago and had a really good time. Now that i am no longer working at red lobster and my work schedule is much more flexible (I work at home on my ebay store) I am thinking I won't have to miss out on so many things!