The Durham Diary: Celebrate good times... Come on!

It was time to celebrate! We had beaten cancer and after our first great doctors appointmen...t we were going to party, and party we did! My dad planned the whole thing, no one knew where we were going. I love suprises! We were told that we had to be ready on Saturday at 5:45 and we were going to be picked up at our house. We were definatly suprised! We were just sitting in the living room, patiently waiting and the next thing I know I'm staring at a very large Hummer limo sitting in front of our house! It was awesome! Drew and I climbed in to find the my parents, Drews mom, Brad, Lindsey Austin and Kate. It was so much fun to all be able to ride together and have a wine toast to start the celebration and to give thanks to God for being the Great healer. We headed out to Grand Rapids for dinner. It was a suprise to all of us until we pulled up at this BEAUTIFUL old manison which has been converted into a resturant called Mangiamo's. We had a nice secluded room and had an amazing dinner.It was so good to be able to look back and reflect on the last 6 months and talk about what the struggles, high points and amazing people that we are surrounded with who walked with us during this journey. After the great dinner and conversation, he headed back into the limo and headed back to my parents house. We the got into "birthday" mode! We were also going celebrate Drews birthday coming up! We opened gifts, and also had strawberry shortcake!( a staple in our family since most of us dont like cake) It was a such a great night and a great way to celebrate the ending of one chapter in our lives and moving on to a new one! Thank you SO much dad for all the planning that you put into this AWESOME celebration! We are so blessed to have you as a dad! You are amazing!