Playing Catch Up Into 2012

My last post was August 5, 2011. That seems like a lifetime ago! So get comfy and let's play catch up!

In October, Sean and Nathan both took home the State Championship title in their respective categories of Cross Country Mountain Biking. What a thrill!

Those state championship victories were made all the sweeter because Farm Rich had awarded Nathan a trip to New York for winning the Fan Favorite category of the Kids Who Give contest, for his efforts at helping the Pablove Foundation fight childhood cancer with LOVE!  So in mid October, the Hickey's headed to New York!  All I can say is WOW!  Farm Rich and the Kids Who Give team gave us the FIVE STAR treatment!  We stayed in a beautiful hotel.  We went to see a fantastic play on Broadway and toured the Natural History Museum.  We saw the Statue of Liberty and were in complete AWE of Times Square in the wee hours of the morning.  We tried to take in as much of the sights, sounds, hustle and bustle of the streets in New York City as we could.  We were escorted around the city for a day by limo and we celebrated with the other Kids Who Give winners at Dylan’s Candy Store.  We wrapped it all up with a carriage ride through Central Park and a delicious awards dinner at Sarabeth’s.  It was AMAZING!

I honestly think that trip to New York was to sustain us for the road that was ahead of us. The day we came home from New York, I was so exhausted, I accidentally ran over our beloved 17 year old cat Smokey Bear. A wonderful trip cut short to be sure. Although, I did take comfort in the fact that we loved him well for 17 years. He was a legend in this neighborhood for always laying in the middle of the street and facing down any dog walking by. He had many, many friends that would come by to pet and visit with him. We're all gonna miss you, Smokey Bear!

On Wednesday, November 30th, the night the worst wind storm in So. California history occurred; Sean was hit by a car and suffered a shattered L3 vertebrate.  He laid in Arcadia Methodist Hospital for one whole entire day and night, before they could perform a 5 hour surgery on Friday morning.  Thursday was to be the first time in the hospital's history that it would declare an internal state of emergency.  They had no electricity and there were so many trees down around the hospital, doctors and emergency vehicles could not get in or out.  One of the blessings in this nightmare was my brother, Jim who works in the CCU at Methodist and was able to keep a watchful eye over Sean during his stay.

Up walking 1 day after surgery.

So many of our friends and family pitched in to help us through this rough time!  Meals were brought to our home.  Gift cards were sent and kids were taken care of by so many of you that love us!  A heartfelt THANK YOU to each and every one of you that extended your LOVE and KINDNESS!

It's mid March and there have been some bright spots sprinkled in the last couple of months.  While Sean is not really back on his bike and probably won't be this season.  He has been able to cheer on the high school racers that he coaches for the San Gabriel Valley composite team.

Nate Dog received a new carbon fiber bike from our friends Mark and Cole Avery!  Nathan is racing in CAT 2 14 and under this season and Cole is the kid Nathan is chasing.  Talk about lighting fast.  Cole is 13 and extremely hard for Nathan to catch!

It was Mark who took this amazing pic of Nathan holding up his new bike.

Tristan made Clifton's soccer team and his AYSO AllStar team got 2nd place overall this season.

Spring is in the air at our house.  Our hen, Pearl successfully hatched 8 baby chicks the first weekend of March, on Dr. Seuss’s birthday. So in his honor we welcomed the Hickey Chickies.

Love,

Lisa

Summer 2011

The girls:  Hazel, Iris, Gertrude, Pearl, Beatrice and Harriet are doing great! No eggs yet, but we are having a great time watching them scratch around, doing their chicken thing.

The boys have been having a great summer!  Lots of beach trips and hanging out with their buddies and cousins!

I can't believe that Tristan will be in 7th grade next year and Nathan is entering his last year of elementary school!  Time is flying way too fast! 

Both the boys have been racing their mountain bikes this season and doing very well.  We are very proud of them!

Sean has also joined in the fun and started racing his mountain bike this season with the boys.  He's doing pretty good at it too! 

Along with racing, Sean has been having a blast as a coach of the San Gabriel Valley Composite High School Mountain Bike Team. At the end of the season they were in first place in Southern California! Not bad for a first year team! Sean's goal is to be coaching a Monrovia High School Mountain Bike team by the time Tristan is there. 

And as if Sean weren't busy enough, he and his co-coaches have joined forces with our local Boys and Girls Club to start a mountain biking program for the kids that are enrolled at Boys and Girls Club.  They are currently starting their second session of the program and I think it has worked out beautifully as kind of a sister program with the high school mountain bike team, as the team members do their part and volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club twice a week to help teach kids how to ride bikes. 

It's a WIN-WIN!

For me, I'm busy trying to come to terms with not having my thyroid!  I'm not trying to sound overly dramatic.  But, I have to be honest and say that it has been difficult!  My energy level is WAY down and I've gained 13 pounds since April!  Coming to terms with being on meds for the rest of my life has been somewhat shattering to me.  I DO NOT like the thought of that in the LEAST!  So come to terms with it I must, but honestly, I'm not quit there yet!

I'm trying to be patient with myself and focus on other things that I am passionate about.  The biggest of which is supporting my husband and kids as they race their mountain bikes and help the Pablove Foundation fight childhood cancer with LOVE!  With the help of the Pablove Foundation, we are currently in the process of  growing our team, Mountain Biking for Pablove  and working on getting solid sponsorships. 

In early June, Nathan submitted this video and entered the Farm Rich Kids Who Give  contest. 

We found out just today that he is one of the finalists. This is the video we will submit so that they can make the final decision. Keep your fingers crossed.

They will be announcing the winner on August 15th. If Nathan wins, he could win, among other things, $2,500 to go to the Pablove Foundation and an all expenses paid trip to New York this fall to attend the Kids Who Give awards dinner!

Among our Mountain Biking for Pablove activities, Sean and the boys were featured as part of  The People's Fleet  contest that the Pablove Foundation entered this summer in the hopes of winning a $5,000 empowerment grant.

I continue to be inspired by my husband and my boys and hope that it lifts me and brings me to a point where I will participate in my own athletic endeavor.  I am very proud of our work with the Pablove Foundation!  They are doing such wonderful things for kids and families living with pediatric cancer!  I know that our efforts go towards something very positive and loving and it feels good to know that my boys can do somethinig they love and give back at the same time.   We are helping the Pablove Foundation fight childhood cancer with LOVE!  We've set a very big goal for our team this year of $5,000.  We have a ways to go to reach our goal by the end of October.  October 2nd the boys will participate in the California State MTB Championships and October 6th Pablove Across America  begins their over 1,400 mile ride from Milwaukee to New Orleans. We would love to have your support!

Please click on the link below to visit our team page.  You can donate to one of us, all of us, or the team.  Either way, you will be helping the Pablove Foundation fight childhood cancer with LOVE and that is AWESOME!

                         MOUNTAIN BIKING FOR PABLOVE

Love,

Lisa

2011 Full Speed Ahead

Our family is charging into 2011!

Both the boys will be racing mountain bikes for Team Pablove this season and their first race of 2011 is Sunday, February 27th in San Diego. We couldn't be more thrilled that both boys are going for it this season.  Here's the race schedule, in case you want to come cheer them on!

Nathan will be working hard at raising money for the Pablove Foundation again this season. With all of your help, Nathan raised close to $2,000 last season and had a thrilling time keeping up with the Pablove Across America peloton, for the last 20 miles of their 1,452 mile journey from Seattle to Silverlake. It has been a tradition for Nathan and Sean to ride the last 20 miles of Pablove Across America for the last two seasons. However, 2011 takes Pablove Across America from Milwaukee to New Orleans. Nathan's goal this year will be to raise $5,000 with his campaign Mountain Biking for Pablove, with the "HIGH" hopes that we can all make it to New Orleans next October, so that he and Sean can ride the last 20 miles with the peloton.

                         MOUNTAIN BIKING FOR PABLOVE

                                  CLICK HERE TO DONATE


Soccer is Tristan's first love and he had a rough 2010 season playing for an older club team. It was hard on all of us watching him struggle through the season. Thankfully, that is past us now and we are totally stoked that Tristan has made the Clifton Middle School Soccer Team. One of only 3 6th graders chosen! He really, really needed that boost of confidence and I'm looking totally forward to taking lots of pics and sharing them here! Sports aside, Tristan really shines academically! He as been a consistent 4.0, Honor Roll student all year! We are very, very proud of him!

Sean has been busy helping to form a high school mountain bike team and acting as one of the team's coaches. Our hope is that we can establish a mountain bike team at Monrovia High School by the time Tristan enters high school and then obviously grow it and have it going strong by the time Nathan gets there. That's the plan, anyway! Right now the team is the San Gabriel Valley Composite Team, with kids from all over the San Gabriel Valley. Mountain biking has been a passion of Sean's for close to 30 years now, so I'm thrilled that he is able to give back and help kids establish a love of the sport that he has loved for so many years.

As for me, I'm the person that tries to hold it all together on the homefront.  How well? I'm not really sure, at times! I love my boys and I would do anything in the world for them at any time. However, this year I will be doing a bit more concentrating on ME! We've been through some doozies since 2011 began, trust me! And all those "little" happenings, plus finding a lump on your neck kinda puts things in major prospective! I'm not panicking yet...well I did at first, but now I've had the biopsy and I'm feeling pretty sure it's a cyst on my thyroid (get biopsy results in mid March). Anyway, all that said, it's way past time for me to spend a bit more time making me HAPPY.  There's a big part of me that wants to be "on the farm!"  So, this Spring I'm plotting out a spot for my organic veggie garden and Nate Dog and I are building a chicken coop big enough for 5 or 6 laying hens.  I'm so excited!  I have all my hens named already:  Florence, Betty, Marge, Ida, Penny & Ruby.  How many animals will we have then?????  2 dogs, 4 cats, 19 fish in our pond, 6 hens? 

Exercise used to be a big priority for me before kids.  Believe it or not, I used to be Sean's favorite mountain biking partner!  That's what he says!  So now,  I'm making it a priority again!  Yoga is a must 3 times a week; and I'm enforcing my old rule of no "house work gets done today, until I've gotten outside for some exercise." This rule worked really well when the boys were little....so I'm enforcing it again.

I'm learning alot from my boys right now and one of the biggest lessons is: I need to have my own thang! So, one of my things this April is joining Team Pablove to help Children's Hospital of Los Angeles TURN ON THE LIGHTS of the new hospital building! This project was in full swing while I was working at CHLA and it is so gratifying to see the day finally approaching when the lights of that building will be turned on! My friends and past co-workers have worked tirelessly for this day to arrive! It will be a very emotional and exciting day! Nathan is an ongoing patient at the Genetics Dept. at CHLA, so I know how important this building is for children and families throughout California. If you can, PLEASE HELP ME TURN ON THE LIGHTS of this amazing facility!

                 CLICK HERE TO HELP ME TURN ON THE LIGHTS

Love,  Lisa

Summer 2010 and The California State Championship Mountain Bike Victory

We had a great summer!  We stuck around home, for the most part, but we still had a great time!  We hung out at the beach alot and the boys started learning how to surf.



We had a great time hanging at the beach with all the boys friends.

Every time we went, we saw our dolphin friends.



The highlight of our summer fun was Nathan's California State Championship Victory at Bonelli Park on September 12th.  He really took it to them this year and came home with the following titles under his belt:  2010 Kenda Cup West Series Class Champion in the jrs. category, the Specialized Invitational Finals Champion and the California State Champion.



As we look forward to next year and Nathan's racing season, we hope that Nathan continues to grow in his sport and follow his heart as he brings awareness to the fight against childhood cancer.  Nathan rides to show support and strength on behalf of kids who are in hospital rooms around the country, getting poked by needles, losing their hair, feeling sick to their tummies and fighting everyday, just to be a normal kid. Nathan races his mountain bike and raises money for the Pablove Foundation.  He will partner with Pablove Across America this October and ride the last 20 mile leg of the ride from Sylmar to Forest Lawn.  Nathan has riden his heart out this season and really given it his ALL.  Please visit his Pablove Across America fundraising page and help him reach his goal, as he helps to fight childhood cancer with love.

                            MOUNTAIN BIKING FOR PABLOVE



CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Now, it's ALL SOCCER and TRISTAN!!  GO STRIKERS!!



Love, Lisa