Off to a city by the Bay

For the last month or so, Solon has been commuting back to his company headquarters in South San Francisco.

Sunday evening, we drop him off at Sky Harbor's Terminal 4, go about our business for the week, and are back at Terminal 4 the following Friday night. It's been hard having him gone during the week - I am exhausted by Thursday, and basically need an IV drip of coffee to get me to the Friday finish line, but I can't remember a time when I have seen my husband so excited about this work. Ever since getting hired by Genentech 2 years ago, he has loved it - it's a FABULOUS company that really takes care of their employees. He feels blessed to be surrounded by such smart and innovative people. Well now those smart and innovative people want Solon to be at HQ full-time, and they have offered him a marketing position that will relocate our family to the Bay Area.

WE ARE MOVING TO SAN FRANCISCO!

This is exciting, wonderful, and terrifying all at the same time for me, a girl who has been in AZ her WHOLE life. A girl who always dreamt about going away to college, but was too chicken to fill out the applications... Now it's my time for an adventure, and I get to experience it with Solon and the kids by my side.

This summer will be filled with research trips out to the Bay Area, to determine where we want to live, where the kids will go to school, to fill in as many of the blanks I can to make us feel at home as quickly as possible. But a lot of what makes it an adventure is filling in those blanks as we go, for as long as we are there.

It will be wonderful for me to experience the Bay Area as more than just a tourist. Each time I have gone to San Francisco, I have only been there 3-4 days at a time. I can't wait for us to discover more gems within the area that will make our adventure even better.

And just in case you have never been, and you need an excuse to come visit us in the Bay Area, let me share with you some of the best parts of San Fran and it's surrounding areas.

*Clam Chowder in a sourdough breadbowl!!

*Wine country (Sonoma, Napa) is 40 minutes north (you go over the Golden Gate Bridge to get there)

*Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory

*ART, MUSIC, CULTURE!

*China Town (featuring our favorite - The House of Nan King)

*Fisherman's Wharf & Cable Cars

*Alcatraz Island

*AMAZING Italian food & seafood

*the famous City Lights Bookstore (that will get my dad to visit)

*and coffee shops on almost every corner!

I am so proud of my husband, and am so grateful that Genentech is seeing him as such an asset to their company.

To all of our awesome Shadow Rock Preschool/Lookout Mountain/Moon Valley family - thank you for loving our kids so much, and for being a wonderful community to be a part of. We will miss you so much and I will be reaching out for mass play-dates when we visit during school breaks!

To our Coolwater Christian Church family - we will look forward to coming to visit you all when we are in town - we will definitely miss your fellowship every week. Thank you for caring for our family, and for your continuous prayers for this opportunity.

To our FAMILY and FRIENDS - our calendar is ready for your travel dates! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH and thank you for your support of our journey. Download the GLIDE app for your smartphones, and COME VISIT US!!

Livin' Life

Seven months...

That's how long it took me to write this.

The truth is, I re-read my post from October in January, and started to create this post. But then I stopped for some reason (got side-tracked probably), and the next thing I know we are 2 days away from Mother's Day. It's like sometimes I have too much to say but not enough time to say it, and then part of me thinks, "is this an online documentary for my children to look at 10 years from now, or is it a place for me to vent and release?" But then I remind myself that I share this with everyone, and I decide to reel it in a bit, as not to bore whoever reads this. (laughing)

Reading that October post and re-living those words took me on an emotional roller coaster, but the good news is, Paloma's December CT Scan came back crystal clear, and a huge weight was lifted off of our shoulders. She has already had one follow-up ultrasound (which came through CLEAR) with another at the end of May, and after that we should have 2-3 more over the next year and a half, and hopefully we will be DONE. I am grateful every day for the continued prayers for our daughter's health until this is all behind us.

Many of our "everyday" moments are on my Instagram (@candidabell)account, but here is a slideshow of the highlights that bring us to current, featuring Halloween, Sasa & Tony's visit for Thanksgiving, Christmas (with Alynsia!), the baptism of our god-daughter Gracyn, our trip to Disneyland, Papa Allen & Danita's visit, and a little New Orleans:



The kids are at a really cool age right now. Paloma is the most vibrant little creature on our planet. She is colorful and dynamic and fierce and independent and way wiser than her actual age. She questions things like life and death and says things like, "It's just so beautiful mommy; everything in life is just so beautiful..." - what 4-year-old says these things? But she does. She loves everybody and everything - she wanted Spring Break to end after 2 days because she missed her preschool friends so much. That's the kind of girl she is.

And Quincy is so smart and is just growing so fast it makes me catch my breath every day. He is taking piano lessons now, loves homework, loves pleasing his teacher, and his art skills have advanced purely on his own. If you compare dinosaur pictures from a year ago to where they are now (and then throw in his handwriting skills), it's just blows my mind on a daily basis.

Solon and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on March 19. I said to him that morning, "Ten years seems like a lifetime, and when I look back at our pictures and I think of all the things that we've done, it feels like we've done so much in such a short time. Yet our life together is really just beginning and that's pretty incredible to think about." We were able to celebrate our anniversary alone in New Orleans (thank you Sasa for taking care of the kids), a dream that we've always had (back when we could be a little more spontaneous). We were able to stuff our face with beignets and delicious Creole cooking, while we learned some history. We were able to reconnect and reflect on the last 10 years while we pondered what the future holds.

The Blur That Has Been Our Recent Life...

After my last post in the beginning of June, the following happened:

We spent the last weekend of June in Sonoma celebrating a family wedding (pictures in a minute) while we (FINALLY) got a brand new roof on our house (literally 2 WEEKS before our summer monsoons began - THANK GOD).

The week after we dropped a small fortune on a new roof, our water heater burst on the 4th of July (YAY! just kidding) leading to complete disarray of our home as we were finally given that kick in the you-know-what to actually embark on the home renovations/improvements that we have wanted to do since moving into our home 7 years ago, but then kids were born, and time got away from us, yada yada yada.

So finally (what day is it?), 3 months since the infamous water heater incident, our home is finally our home again, and we are back to our (somewhat) normal selves. Did I forget to mention that somewhere in the middle of all the home craziness, Quincy started Kindergarten, and Paloma had emergency abdominal surgery on Labor Day? Yeah, I left that out but I will get back to it.

First, let's start with some pretty pictures.

These were (of course) taken by the professional photographer, and I am so grateful to her for capturing some really beautiful moments that sometimes get overlooked. It meant so much to Solon and me to spend this time with my Dad's side of the family in such a beautiful setting. My Dad's cousin Lucy, and her husband Bob, really planned a magical weekend for their loved ones, and it meant everything to be included in such a fantastic party! We had a blast!!! And I LOVE seeing two families come together - especially two GREAT ones.

When we got back we were able to celebrate two of our favorite ladies

Gaga's Birthday

And Mama Mimi's Birthday

My Aunt Nancy came to visit and our cousin Tommy lives here now, so it added another fun dynamic to our usual Jacobs crew. And I love when my "foodie" aunt comes to visit, because it means I get to spend my visits with her trying new places around town. Win-Win-Win!

July consisted of swim lessons

Playdates with friends

Extra time with their great-great Grandma

August brought a surprise road-trip to Manhattan Beach

First Day of Kindergarten

Donovan's 2nd Birthday

First day back at Preschool

My 35th Birthday

And a surprise 70th Birthday party for Charissa's Dad (I made him this cake - so fun!)

Then this happened...

After complaining all day of being tired, and her stomach "not feeling too good", throwing up, and then sharp stomach pains, I looked up her symptoms in one of my parent resource books, and they all pointed to appendicitis. At this point, it was 11pm the night before Labor Day, so I took my pediatrician's advice and took her straight to Phoenix Children's Hospital.

After she threw up green bile, and the ultrasound tech took 55(!) pictures, Paloma had a CT scan at about 3am because they found something and it wasn't her appendix. I knew right then and there that our daughter would have surgery that day. The doctor who was there overnight wouldn't tell me really anything because she wanted the daytime staff to get there to explain it better to me. By 8am, I was sitting with my mom and a pediatric surgeon who was explaining what this giant growth was that covered her whole abdomen in the CT scan imaging. Solon was on his way to the hospital with Quincy and I tried to retain as much information as I could, but all I knew was by the time he got there, Solon would literally have 10 minutes with his daughter before we trusted a complete stranger with our daughter's life and well-being. The surgeon truly didn't know what he was going to find until he was in there - a scan can only say so much. The next FOUR hours were excruciating. They would tell us nothing until she was being closed up. The only thing we got at the half-way point was "she's doing great." I have never experienced anything like this in my life. I felt so weak, helpless, broken. At one point, I looked over at Solon and I saw his heart breaking with worry for the unknown. (Cancer? Long-term problems? Will her spark still be there when she comes out?) It made me wish for my strength back so I could pass it on to him. It was in that desperate moment that I took to social media, asking my friends from near and far to pray for our little girl. The amount of love and support we received from that point forward was another first for me. See, I have a hard time asking for things, like help. But it was overwhelming for us to realize just how much people were willing to give in our time of need. Something I will never forget. EVER.

That smile brought me to tears the next morning. My poor baby was STARVING after literally not eating anything for almost 48 hours. She was so happy to have popsicles for breakfast.

So, here's the gist of what happened to Paloma: She had a tiny piece of intestine that grew outside of itself at birth (like a conjoined twin of sorts) and had been slowly filling with fluid over the course of her life, turning into 2 cysts. They were malleable over that time, filling into whatever empty spaces they could as they grew. On Sunday, the cysts finally ran out of room and started pushing her intestines into her other organs, causing the abdominal pain. One cyst was filled with milky white liquid (made up of white blood cells, fat, etc), the other filled with green bile. The doctor drained them and then removed a 5cm piece of her intestines, then sewed the intestines back together.

Each day she got better and stronger

By Thursday, we were able to take her home (with benign pathology results!) and be a family again.

I am so thankful for our family (ALL OF YOU!!) and friends/community who were able to be there for us. My mom who was there for me every second until Solon could get there, and my mother-in-law who hopped on a plane from Seattle while Paloma was in the OR, so she could be in Phoenix that night. Each and every one of you gave us strength and filled our hearts with love.

I cannot say enough good things about Phoenix Children's Hospital. What a FABULOUS place filled with awesome doctors, nurses, volunteers and staff - they took such good care of our girl - it really is an amazing place. And thank you God, for hearing our prayers, and the prayers of all who love our family - they surrounded us with the strength we needed. We are forever grateful.

In the weeks that followed, Paloma returned to school, Quincy's routine got back to normal, and we slowly got our house back together.

Quincy is thriving in Kindergarten. He is always eager to please his teacher by making the right choices. He works hard to get his green star everyday. He is making friends, even with kids outside of his class, and he just loves it. I am already amazed at how much he has grown in just 9 weeks.

Paloma is sassier than ever.

She has had two follow-up appointments (one with her surgeon, one with the oncology department) which are protocol post-surgery, and the next steps before we can put her whole ordeal behind us is a CT scan in December to make sure 100% there is no debris leftover from the surgery in her abdominal cavity. After that, an ultrasound every 4 months to be safe until the oncology department is satisfied that there is no regrowth, and we can move on with our lives.

In the meantime, we are enjoying October and the beautiful weather that we live in AZ for. Looking forward to the upcoming holiday season and all that we have to be thankful for...