Nothing stops this family from having FUN!!!! I wanted to give a recap of where my Dad is at in his Journey and what the Brown's have been up to the last few weeks. We had a trip planned to go to Disneyland for over a year. When my Dad was diagnosed with brain cancer we didn't know that we would be able to go on this fun family vacation anymore. It just so happened that my Dad's last day of treatments was the same day that we were going to fly to California. My dad wasn't going to let anything stop this vaca from happening!!
A recap on my Dad before we dive into a thousand pictures!! And probably more pics to come. These are only some of the pics from my camera so I want to add some more from other cameras. My dad finished his 7 weeks of radiation and chemo on October 12, 2012. He has been such a fighter through all of this. The last day of treatment was an emotional one for him. He was sad to say goodbye to all of the nice people at the hospital that have been with him through fighting this cancer. The doctor was impressed with how well my Dad handled the treatments. Yes it took a lot out of him and he was exhausted most of the time but he did a lot better than expected. He still gets confused with things and he has complained about losing some vision in his left eye. We are not sure if this will ever come back so for now he is taking it one day at a time. We are now in a waiting period until he has his MRI on November 8th and we won't know the results from that until November 12th. So we are still praying for the best and hoping that these treatments have killed some of the cancer cells. I will update the blog again once we find out those results and what the next step is.
Now on to the fun of our crazy, busy, fabulous, stressful, exhausting, fun, exciting trip!!!
Our trip started out with going to Balboa Island and having lunch and going to the beach. And of course we rode the Ferris wheel!
Going across the ferry.
One of my dad's grandsons, Jaden, playing in the waves! He was fearless!!
My family (I guess we are in the stages where we will never get a "perfect family picture" haha)
Maddox putting his toes in the sand for the first time!!
Of course there was seashell collecting going on! Bradli and Crew
My dad really looks awesome and he did so great on the trip. He was such a trooper!!
Love this pic!! We were posing for a picture and the water came up and we were not expecting it.
The Gang!! Minus David and his wife who we missed.
Grandpa laying poolside with Maddox
Shauna doing tricks with Hudson!!!
Me with Jaden and Crew
We went to the Montage and played at the beach. The kids loved running and playing in the water and sand!!!
Grandpa and Hudson!!!
We started our theme park week by going to Mickey's Halloween Party!! We all dressed up and the kids got to go trick-or-treating! This family loves Halloween so we were all in heaven!!! Doug and Shauna's family dressed up as Alice, cards, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. They looked so great no matter what Jaden says!!! My family was Batmans and Robin and Cat woman. We went to Disneyland for four days in a row followed up with one fun day at Sea World. So needless to say we were going going going from sun up to sun down. The kids did great considering how much we did in one week. We all survived!!! haha
My mom a witch and dad a wizard!!
The kids loved filling their bags with candy!!!
Jaden and Bradli had so much fun going on new rides for the first time!! They definitely were able to experience Disneyland in a new light!!!
We had so much fun getting Mickey ears/hats to wear throughout the week.
This little baby was soooo good every day. He was all smiles and slept quite a bit. He is a great little traveler!!
We had dinner at Goofy's Kitchen with all of the characters. The kids loved seeing all of the characters minus Hudson!! haha Poor kid was terrified! I definitely need to upload a pic of him. Max below was torturing poor Hudson
We had a very fun and HOTTTT day at California Adventure!! I don't think we were prepared for such hot weather. My mom bought this wheelchair for my dad so that he could rest when he needed to. He preferred not to have it but I think it was a good idea for him to be able to rest. He really did so much better than I expected. He is truly a fighter!!!
So much fun on the new Little Mermaid ride
Love Hudson's face!!!
Miss B performing as usual (above)
Going on new fun rides at Cars Land!!!
The kids were able to go on this ride all by themselves and they were cracking up!! They loved it!!
The new Cars ride. At least there was one perk with my dad having a wheelchair. This wait was an hour and forty five minutes!!! Crazy!!
This picture cracks me up! Crew doing some mad tricks on Goofy's slide.
The kids loved Toon Town. Little Maddox sitting in a garden hose.
Crazy Doug in the background!!!
The cutest Mickey and Minnie around!!!
SEA WORLD!!!!
The sea otter show
The Shamu show!!!
The kids loved playing with their cousins all week!
Crew, Jaden, and Maddox with pillow pets
To end our trip we went back to Balboa to go Kayaking. The picture of my dad didn't download for some reason so I will add that later too. He went in a Kayak all by himself and he did great. He got a little shaky but he loved being out on the water.
Our last day in California we went down to Newport Beach and walked along the water and had lunch before we headed to the airport.
Thank you Mom and Dad for such and amazing and memorable trip. Yes we crammed a lot in but had so much fun in all the craziness!! We all love you both so much and are here to love and support you every step of the way! Dad you are such an amazing man and you have gone through so much so now it is your time to rest and re-cooperate from your weeks of treatments and our busy vacation to California.
We will update the blog again as we know more about the results from the MRI in a couple of weeks. We continue to thank all of you for your prayers and service to our family. My mom and dad are continuing to be served on a daily basis! Everything from food to cleaning the yard and raking up leaves. I know my parents are in good hands!!! Thank you and we love you all!!!
