Thanksgiving Week

It has been a while since the last post, but a lot has happened since then.  On the Friday afternoon before Thanksgiving, I received a call that my dad was being taken to the hospital by Ambulance.  As soon as I heard that, I began calling many folks for prayer and we began making plans to get to Tulsa as soon as possible.  We were scheduled to fly out on Monday anyway, so we decided to drive first thing Saturday morning and cancel our Monday flights.  I think it was probably for the best, because I am not sure how we would have gotten all of our stuff packed into two bags and two carry-ons.  Babies require a lot of stuff! It turns out my dad had a bleeding stomach ulcer, which was attached to a Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST).  After he was stabilized, they were able to perform surgery on Tuesday, which gave us even more time to contact as many people as possible for prayer.  Praise the Lord--my dad's surgery was extremely successful and they were able to remove the entire tumor with a portion of his stomach.  Not only that, but my dad is an extremely fast healer.  They told him the recovery time would be a minimum of 5 days but could be as much as a couple of weeks.  He was able to come home from the hospital the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Although he spent Thanksgiving in the hospital and had to drink a pumpkin drink instead of eat pumpkin pie, there is a lot for which he and the rest of the family is thankful.  We stayed through the weekend after Thanksgiving so we were able to spend some time with him at home.  Please continue to pray for my dad--the GIST was a rare cancer and we are praying that it is completely gone, never to return and we are believing firmly on that.  However, he will begin meeting with an Oncologist soon and find out more about the cancer.  Pray that he is connected with a physician who is knowledgeable about this type of cancer and recommends the appropriate treatment.

While we were there, we were able to visit with family and meet Traber (Jeremy and Brandy's son), our newest nephew.  Here is a picture of them together in matching outfits:

Here are the two newest dads showing off their sons.

Our niece, Lilly, loved Luke's musical gym--here you can see her watching Luke play.

Here is my brother, Jeremy, holding Luke--my other brother, Jason, is peeking over his shoulder.

 Here, my sister-in-law, Emily (Jason's wife), is making Luke smile.

Here is the other new mom, Brandy, holding Luke.  She just delivered Traber a few weeks ago--doesn't she look great!

While we were there, Luke visited Santa.  Here are his first Santa pictures:

And, of course, last but certainly not least, here is a picture of my dad with his two newest grandsons.  This is something he has been looking forward to for weeks...

I wish we would have taken more pictures, but it was a very crazy week.  It was so good to see family though and we are SO THANKFUL my dad is recovering so well!