When Life Gives You Lemons; Make Grape Juice!: July to August

This is Maddie's Mom, I've decided it will be easier for me to blog this journey we are on than it is for her. We have had an eventful last 3 weeks. Maddie got a break for a couple of weeks from chemo and had a lot of fun things happen. First was her new niece Olivia was born on July 19th, actually the day before her last chemo, but we need to mention it. Olivia is beautiful!! We absolutely can!t get enough of her. We call Maddie the baby hog:) but that's ok if it puts a smile on her face.

The chemo she finished with was the one she always gets a fever with and because chemo was delayed a week we were afraid if she got the fever she wouldn't make to girls camp. There was a whole lot of praying going on at the Cook!s house. This whole journey has brought me to my knees more times than ever before but this time was different, I really wanted her to go to camp. She had her blood drawn on Monday and they were going to leave on Tuesday, her counts were not good enough to go, 200. I asked if they could come back on Wednesday and try again and they agreed, we prayed again. Wednesday they were at 6900 but her platelets were too low. We made a mad dash to Primary Children's for a transfusion and then it was off to Camp Woodland. She had a great time! She got to stay in a tent with her best friend Haley Murray and I'm sure there was very little sleeping going on.Thank you 2nd ward young women leaders

for taking such good care of her.

She got home on Friday just in time to get ready for her shopping spree, given to her by the Make a Wish Foundation. On Saturday afternoon this big Escalade Limo pulls up and the shopping began. She had already picked out most everything she wanted and much to our surprise, most of the stores were willing to hold her stuff until we came to pick it up. It was a blast watching her and seeing her smile. We were moved to tears at Guitar Center when the store manager decided to give her the electric guitar instead of letting us buy it. What a great bunch of
guys. One things for sure we are continually blessed to meet such loving and caring people on
this journey we are on. Maddie has a way of melting people's hearts that is amazing to watch.

When we arrived home we only had a few minutes to get ready for the Tim McGraw concert. A girl I work with had her dad get us tickets. We were once again touched by the generosity of others. We had lawn tickets and we were supposed to meet up with Casey to have him get us better seats, well to make a long story short they ended up giving us their tickets on the fourth row, a Tim McGraw hat and a signed Tim McGraw tee-shirt. I don't know how the day could have been any better!!! The pictures will tell it all. Happy Birthday Maddie!!!