Picking Carrots for Special Visitors

One of the things I was looking forward to when my boys all arrived home was showing them what happened in our garden while they were gone. This is our first ever attempt at a garden and I'm a bit surprised anything has survived. One of the things I have been saving to harvest with the boys is the carrots. They helped to plant them and they love to eat them. William was excited to show his brothers the garden too. Tuesday morning, he slung his backpack containing his I.V. pumps and bags over his shoulder and headed outside to explore with his brothers. Notice the watermelon growing on a trellis between their two heads. (It's a bit like "I Spy...")So we picked a lot of carrots, some were very large and some probably could have used another week or so, but pulling a surprise out of the ground is so much fun! William isn't actually supposed to play in the dirt and we must all be diligent about washing hands after being in the garden. So we bent the sanitary restrictions for a few minutes and made some great memories.

Another great memory came walking up our driveway. Our friends, Jared and Tiffiany Ellison, notified their friend, Eric Baade, a local Folsom police officer, about my plight with my windshield and needing to get a signature to verify I replaced it. Eric was recently part of the crew that traveled with the Ellisons and their 12 year old son, Connor, who were all members of Team Donate Life and competed in the grueling 3,000+ mile bicycle race, Race Across America, to promote organ donation. Connor is the youngest person to ever complete the race and has congenital hepatic fibrosis, a liver disease. The Ellisons posted a picture of William on their bikes to remind them of his fight with cancer while they rode. William followed them on their blog while in the hospital and watch the live tracker to know were they were each day. Eric had seen William's picture and was familiar with his story. He asked if he could come and do something a little special for William too. I thought, "Maybe a bunch of police cars and sirens and stickers? Or maybe they will handcuff my boys and stick them in the back of the patrol car? (no, I don't want them to think there is fun in that!)" It was way better and a little less disruptive to the neighborhood!

HORSES!The boys were so excited and asked if they could feed them carrots!
That's not exactly what I had hoped would be the fate of our garden carrots,
but I let them feed them a few.And my "fix it" ticket is all taken care of!

Thank you, Officers!
Thank you, Ellisons!