MelissaStuff

  It's been awhile since I've shared, but when I saw this event, I knew I needed to let everyone else know about it too.  This December in Mckinney, there will be a special event - Christmas JoyPark.  In addition to activities like games, face paint, inflatables, a petting zoo, and story time with St. Nicholas, there will be a live Nativity that you can walk through with your family to remind them of the true meaning behind Christmas.  When all of those activities have wound down, you can enjoy the food trucks and the Christmas shopping featuring local artisans. The best thing about Christmas JoyPark is that its entire purpose is to raise funds to support underprivileged children and families around the world through faith education and the enjoyment of Christmas.  Use code CYBER25 before Cyber Monday to save 25% off the regular price of admission . Tickets start at just $10.  Maybe, we will see you there!

 It's coming . . . look at all the great ways to get cheaper tickets:

If you read my first post earlier this morning , you may have wondered what happened to us after that . . . well, let me tell you. {feel the jerking of the cars and the clacking as the mechanics of the coaster inch the cars up further and further towards the top of the first hill} We met with the doctor first which was fascinating. He is truly the expert in his field and the "Big Daddy" as he was referred to when we first arrived. I had no doubts we had landed in the right place. Not only is this his primary field of study and teaching, but he publishes the articles that set the standard for all of the doctors who see patients with thyroid cancer. He affirmed that because of my age my cancer is Stage 1 - which determines the likelihood of survival, so you can't get a better Stage unless you just plain don't have cancer at all. He also said he thought the treatment that I had undergone already was appropriate although there were a couple of things he might h...

Joey and I drove to Houston yesterday . . . after making sure our kids and animals were all taken care of, which is always a bigger deal than I anticipate it being. It's been a long time since Joey and I have had the chance to "get away" just the two of us, so even with the reason for the trip, it was nice to drive and chat and stop at Collin Street Bakery and Cooper Farms store and eat at Cracker Barrel as if we were on a vacation. If you've ever taken an anti-anxiety medication, you know the strange feeling of knowing academically that the facts should be upsetting to you, but feeling inexplicably calm in the face of those still upsetting facts. It isn't truly inexplicable, though, as you took a medication that is formulated to do that very thing. However, recently I have found myself experiencing this very same feeling without any medication, and I am confident that it is the definition of "peace that passes understanding." I will say waking...

Saying our family has had A LOT going on would be in the running for understatement of the year. So when we had the chance to go see the new remake of Disney’s classic, Dumbo , at the Alamo Drafthouse Cereal Party  we were all over it. If you are like us and have never heard of a Cereal Party before, it is a unique Alamo Drafthouse movie showing. The show new release movies extra early on Saturday morning - our movie started at 9:30 am. You are encouraged to wear your pjs, and they have an all-you-can-eat cereal bar set up in the front of the theater.  What better way to do Saturday morning cartoons?!? It's even better than my childhood memories of gathering around the television in our pajamas with our bowls of cereal. For our crew, it was our first time at Alamo DraftHouse. If you haven’t been there, it has a beautiful vintage look and feel. It's the perfect combination of old classic feel and every modern luxury you would expect from the nicest moder...

Trying to find answers on cancer treatment was actually much less simple than I anticipated. Clearly there are great things about each of the locations we were considering - Cancer Treatment Centers, Mayo Clinics, and MD Anderson. Many people have had good results at each of these places. The bottom line is that on Monday, April 8, we will be going down to MD Anderson's Cancer Research department to meet with the premiere thyroid cancer expert - Dr. Steve Sherman . He is going to re-examine all of the test results and scans, including the pathology of the cancer tissue originally removed. They have told us to hold our return date loosely. I'm personally feeling like there won't be any emergency treatment necessary, so we will be coming home and then possibly going back as needed for follow up. There are still a lot of unknowns - there could be drug trials . . . waiting and additional scans . . . even a stint at Cancer Treatment Center if there is sufficient cause...

Some of you have been tracking through every step, some of you are just wondering what weirdo asks for cancer treatment recommendations. So, in an effort to get us all in the same page, here’s a recap: I have been battling thyroid cancer now since December 2017. Thyroid cancer  is typically a pretty simple diagnosis and treatment leading to full remission. However, my situation has not been so simple. I have a B-RAF gene mutation that makes it more aggressive and less responsive to treatment. All original tests led doctors  to believe that I had a singular node that needed to be removed in December 2017. When they actually opened me up, they had to do a full thyroidectomy and remove the metastasis in five lymph nodes including one that had become it’s own tumor, growing outside the bounds of its original space. They stopped short of removing all cancerous tissue because some of   it was too close to my carotid artery. Following that, they did a round of I-13...

Joey and I haven't been able to sneak away for a movie together in quite awhile, so we jumped at the chance to go see Escape Room recently. I have personally done a couple of escape rooms and enjoyed them thoroughly - the challenge, the creativity, the camaraderie that it forges. However, I was honestly a little concerned that this would be more like the Saw-series than the fun, challenging rooms I have worked to solve in the past. But, we were more than pleasantly surprised. This movie is not only fairly family-friendly for older children, but also kept us guessing through the very last scene! That's hard to do in my world where I make a sport out of guessing the plot twists and turns of every book, movie and tv show we try to enjoy. Being able to surprise me is ALWAYS impressive - and this one did it in a big way. I would absolutely recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys  suspense or psychological thrillers. It isn't a horror movie, but it will keep you on the e...

I confess the details of some things have slipped by me as of late. So, literally up until the week of the screening, I thought Mary Poppins returns was a remake of the original Mary Poppins movie. My boys were quick to inform me that it was actually a sequel…and, boy, were they right! The movie starts with a grown-up Michael and Jane with their own set of grown-up problems and three little kids stuck in the middle. I also have to confess I wasn’t prepared for the beginning of the movie to center around the death of Michael’s wife and the children’s mother. There are several very poignant moments, and I found myself crying… Yes! Crying at Mary Poppins.  BUT the joy of the movie far outshines any solemn storylines. One of my favorite things was to look to each side of me throughout the movie and see my boys' faces beaming as they watched all of the silliness and shenanigans that we associate with Mary Poppins.  You will see many of the same things you remember from ...

My middle son, Colt, told me not too long ago that he wanted to wrestle. We are a sports family, but wrestling has never been one of those sports. AND this child is on the spectrum . . . now, all that really means for him is that he's not going to pick up on any social hints you drop, he's incredibly literal, and he's finicky about sensations. Yes, the child who is finicky about sensations told me he wanted to wrestle - where people are constantly touching you and holding you down and forcing your body into positions you don't want it to be in. But I have always determined that I would not hold my children back by forcing artificial boundaries on them that they don't have for themselves - so if the boy wanted to wrestle, we were going to let him try it out. A couple of weekends ago, we went to his first wrestling tournament. I was so naive. We were supposed to be there at 9 am, and, in all seriousness, I made plans for 11 am. I thought we would walk in, he wou...

Continuing our quest for unusual gift ideas this year, I came across this idea . . .  How fun would this be?!?!? It's like packaging up a color run and letting your kids have all the fun to themselves.  Just Add Color is now offering a Mega Pak that includes everything you need to add colorful powder games, color dances, color crafts, color photos and color experiences to any get together or fun outdoor time your kids are planning. Everything is more fun with color...birthday parties, Friday nights with friends, having the team over, slumber parties, graduation activities, even gender reveal parties or class celebrations (with parent permission, of course).  The Just Add Color Mega Pak provides you with the color, the tools and a how-to guide to make your next party TEN Times More Fun. Right now, you can get a one-time-only discount that includes Two FREE Color Blasters, Money Back Guarantee and FREE Shipping on your purchase -  a  $150 value f...

This year for Christmas, our crew is working hard to come up with some outside-of-the-box ideas. We already all have so much stuff, and this Momma is tired of picking up all of that stuff when it spills out over our house and car and yard. My boys are getting older by the minute and I want to take full advantage of it and enjoy every minute we can.  We've been looking for activities we can do together as a family, and I found a great deal on one that I think my boys will adore! Urban Quest Adventure lets you turn Dallas (or one of the other 98 locations across the US) into a giant game board with a fun scavenger hunt adventure. If you like the Amazing Race, you will love this three-hour city tour. Using your own smart phone, your team will make their way among well-known and overlooked gems of the city, solving clues and completing challenges while learning local history.  If your schedule is anything like hours, finding time to make a scheduled event is difficu...

We have entered a new era in life over here . . . with me feeling better and all medical news looking positive and our boys now being 8, 11 and 12, we have found our activities shifting significantly. One of our boys is fascinated by all things comic books, super heroes, science fiction, and he is asking about Comic-Con conferences. Having looked into them, several are really NOT family-friendly, so we were thrilled to find CowTown Geek Fair. My boys are looking forward to trying this event out . . . and we will let you know what we think.  Maybe some of you should join us!

I have to admit I was a little surprised by the wide range of response to my last post. I think there may have been some confusion . . . And maybe some didn’t read to the end. Here’s the summary of what I was actually attempting to communicate: Even though I’m on an amazing trip, we had an ugly encounter that caused us to miss a significant event.  As I thought about how angry I was over the way it was handled, it caused a whole host of angry emotions to flood through. Many of them that had been held back for quite some time.  Not the least of which is I have a callback visit scheduled in just a couple of days after I went and had a mammogram done at the beginning of March.  I don’t plan on taking back any part of what I said in that post. It was the truth - maybe a little raw, maybe jaded, maybe even somewhat self-centered - but it was exactly how I felt in that moment. However, it is not the whole truth about the trip we took, and I feel it is only fair to ...

Yesterday, I was pissed.  Yes, I’m on vacation in Italy. Yes, I’m here because my business has done very well this last year.  Yes, I felt well enough to make this trip and, a little over a month ago, I wasn’t even getting out of bed every day of the week. But, yesterday, it all came slamming down at the same time, and I was pissed. The kind of fury that has been held back so long that when it comes pouring out, you feel it coursing through not only your eyes and your mouth, but your ears, your heart, your skin, your scalp. It’s scathing, and you hope no one you love happens to intersect with you in those moments because the likelihood of them avoiding becoming the object of that blind fury is almost non-existent.   How I came about being pissed yesterday specifically won’t seem as traumatic to you as it felt to me . . . We booked a tour through an independent, highly-rated tour group. We were to take Fiats out into the Tuscan countryside and visit ...