Joseph is Miserable

It always seems that Joseph has more up and downs than most. The good news is that he is done taking the steroids and is going through his last round of withdrawals. By Thanksgiving he should not feel the effects of the steroids at all. The bad news is that Joseph has shingles. These are horrible and he is in so much pain. His shingles are on his leg from his knee to his lower back and it makes moving extremely painful so he is spending all his time lying on the couch or in bed. We are hoping and praying that he will feel better by Thanksgiving and that he will be able to enjoy the holiday and his birthday and most of all his favorite cousin who will be visiting from Ohio.
Other than helping Joseph to endure the pain I am busier than ever with projects. We had Young Women in Excellence and it was a wonderful evening. Next it is on to Thanksgiving, 3 birthdays, a baby shower and Christmas. I have been working on Christmas projects and am almost done with those and I even have some of the shopping done for Christmas. If only I knew what to do for Joseph and Heather for their birthdays. Hopefully I will get some inspiration soon.

Jamaica!!

Kent received his mission call yesterday and he is going to the Jamaica Kingston Mission. He will be speaking English and is quite relieved over this. He took 4 years of Spanish and didn't enjoy it at all. Kent will be going into the MTC on his birthday which is so cool! This is something he has planned and hoped for all along - to go on a mission as close to his 19th birthday as possible. It is amazing how just receiving the call has brought such a wonderful spirit into our home. I can hardly wait to see how that spirit grows while he is on a mission (not to mention how fun it will be to watch him grow as well.) I have been researching to find out more about his mission and I found out that it includes Jamaica, Nassau, Bahamas and Freeport, Grand Bahama, Grand Cayman, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and the Turks and Caicos Islands (at the lower end of the Bahama chain but a separate country). It is going to be an amazing experience for him.

Great News!

This has been a great week for our family. It started by Kent having his mission papers sent off to Salt Lake. Now we are just waiting for his call which should come either this week or next. Joseph had his biopsy on Tuesday and yesterday we got the results which were "perfect" (this is the exact word they used). He is having no rejection and the best part of all of this is that we are weaning him off of the steroids and in two weeks he will no longer be on those nasty things. In a month we will be able to evaluate his other medicine and take him off of several other things he has been on that have helped to combat the side effects of steroids. It is great to have everything looking so good for him. He will have one more biopsy in January and then he will have them annually. Hooray!!