8 Years in Wake Forest

The week of March 22-27 we celebrated 8 years of doing business at Chick-fil-A Wake Forest! It's hard to believe it's really been that long. We opened on March 28, 2002. We celebrated all week by doing something special for our customers each day. Every Tuesday night is Family Night, and this week our theme was "Action Hero Night." The kids could come in dressed as their favorite action hero and we had activities along those lines. This was one of the most fun days because all our team members dressed up as well. I'll share them for the next couple of days.

How is Brett doing?

Brett had a check-up at UNC this week, and the doctor was "ecstatic" about his progress. It seems that the steroids are doing their job on his broncheolitis of infancy in CF, and with minimal side effects thus far. He is not requiring oxygen while he's awake, and I turn on just a tiny amount while he's sleeping. He weighed 21 lbs and 9 ounces, and had the largest growth he's ever had from visit to visit. As of this week's visit, he gets 6 hours off his tube feeds! The steroid therapy will be extended for many weeks, maybe months, with checks along the way. We will repeat the infant PFTs probably around a month to 6 weeks. We are to try to get him 20 minutes of sunlight a day without sunscreen to help the vitamin D. With the beautiful weather we've been having in North Carolina lately, that has been easy to do! I hope there will not be much to report in the mean time, but he still has his central line, so there is always the possibility of that getting infected. Otherwise, he's on a really good track right now. Let's pray it continues!

More Pics from Family Visit

Uncle David with Mark

David with Gantt

David with Brett

Visit from Uncle David and Aunt Kim

This weekend we were so excited to have Uncle David (my brother) and Aunt Kim (my sister-in-law) visit! The last time they were able to come was when the twins were first born. In fact, I was still in the hospital. I will never forget how happy I was they brought me P.F. Changs after several days of hospital food, it was wonderful!

We had a very laid back weekend. No schedule, no agenda...just fun with the boys. Mark was especially happy to have his Uncle David to play with. David flies a C-17 in the US Air Force, so it was fitting that they made paper airplanes of varying degrees of complexity all weekend and tried to fly them in the yard. Mark has to write "Captain David R. Gantt" on many of his paper airplane creations. The weather was beautiful and we spent a lot of time playing outside.

Making paper airplanes...you can see how excited Mark is!

This C-17 looked really cool. But it didn't fly very well. Later they added a nose which helped a bit with its aerodynamics. It's still a really cool plane, though.

Here's a neat action shot of Mark jumping off the swings.

Sea Painting Close-Up

Here is a close-up of the painting Mark created at The Artful Mind camp. There were several comments about it, and one person asked if Mark really painted this picture. He did! And he drew all the sea animals on it! It really was cool that they took a photo of their creations and printed it out, then included it in this picture. I think we are going to have it framed.

I love your questions! And comments and/or requests. One lady from my mom's church said she wanted to see more about Mark, so I've been trying to do that lately. Please ask me if you have any questions about anything related to our family or related to cystic fibrosis or Brett's condition and treatments. Chances are, if you are wondering, lots of other people are too!

Spring Break Art Camp

This past week was Spring Break and Mark attended an art camp at The Artful Mind in Wake Forest. I was very impressed with the quality of the arts and the crafts that Susan at The Artful Mind offered, and I also thought the price was very reasonable for 20 hours of camp and supplies included. Isn't the picture above incredible?

Mark made a "submersible" for his stuffed Pluto. He made it into a hammerhead shark shape, which was very creative! The teeth and all those green spots up the top are all glow in the dark!
He also made scuba gear for his Webkinz stuffed animal. It was Mark's first experience with Webkinz, and he named his dinosaur "Rudy." He is enjoying playing with it on the Webkinz website.