Quarantine and a New Quest...

Hello our sweet Army!  Kristi here- 

We pray you and your family are healthy and well during this crazy new "normal" that we are all trying to embrace.  Many have asked how our family is doing, considering we have two "vulnerable" or "at risk" kiddos in our home, so thank you for your prayers and concern for our family.  The truth is, we are most concerned about Grace getting covid 19 because she has been in the ICU and intubated due to a much less virulent virus before, so we are well aware of the huge risk covid 19 poses to her and her special heart.  We are of course also concerned about keeping Andrew well, since he has a compromised immune system.  With all that being said, not much has changed for us in terms of being ULTRA cautious about germs, since Grace was born, we have been programed to avoid germs in every way possible.  While our hearts ache for those afflicted by covid 19 and those on the front lines of this battle, we have found the slower pace and increased family time to be pretty amazing.  How often in life do we have a relatively empty plate to offer the Lord to fill in a way that He says is best?  Time outside playing lots of soccer, basketball, bike rides, eating meals together,  lots of barn time, family bible studies, and watching Grace's zest for learning (she joyfully does her school work everyday like it's a gift versus a chore...  we could all use a little of Grace's attitude in our lives) are just a few of the things that have been the source of sweet memories that we aren't taking for granted.  Don't get me wrong... it's not always rainbows, unicorns, and sprinkles over here, but we are trying hard not to miss the lessons and blessings God has offered us during this CRAZY and unprecedented time.  Andrew's next scans are scheduled for May, however, I'm not sure how covid 19 will impact that plan, so we will keep you posted.  In the meantime, we greatly appreciate your prayers that Andrew's cancer isn't progressing and for all cancer patients, since we know that cancer doesn't pause because covid 19 has appeared on the scene.  

David taking over now-

It's hard to believe that just nine months ago Andrew had just begun talking about wanting a horse for his Make-A-Wish gift (after his original Make-A-Wish choice, a cruise, had to be cancelled twice because he was in such a rough place physically).  We spoke with Make-A-Wish to see if that would even be possible and they sent us their guidelines for doing a horse wish.  One major issue...we weren't horse people and had no clue how to go about finding the right horse for Andrew.

While we were talking and praying about how to even begin figuring out a way to make Andrew's wish a reality, we happened to be going to Pine Cove for family camp that same week.  While we were at family camp, we remembered that Pine Cove leases out some of their horses to willing families during the non-Summer months.  This got Kristi thinking, rather than having Make-A-Wish buy a horse and then we would have to figure out stable, vet, farrier costs, etc, what if we leased a horse from Pine Cove and then Make-A-Wish could potentially cover the stable fees (this way we would not be committing to a long term situation of horse ownership, without even knowing whether this would be something Andrew would love forever).  Not only was Pine Cove fully on board with this idea, "Costa" (the Pine Cove Crier Creek head wrangler) had an amazing horse in mind for Andrew, Otto, as he was one of their best horses and was great with just about any rider that got on his back.  He is all the counselors favorite horse... now we understand why!

Once we got home from family camp, Kristi got the ball rolling with researching different stables in the area, while I began reaching out to Make-A-Wish to find out if they would be willing to change the way they do things and pay for 9 months of stable fees and vet bills, instead of paying for a horse.  Thankfully, Make-A-Wish was on board as well, but needed a lot of details on a few different stable options throughout the area.  Kristi had found some great stables (like the one he had been taking lessons at) and some questionable stables, and everything in between... but we still weren't sold on where we should board because we were looking for a stable that wasn't too far away, allowed Andrew to ride as often as he would like, etc.  We lucked out when we received a phone call from two different friends who had boarded or were boarding their horses at Carroll Stables (where Otto is boarded now).  They had glowing recommendations of the stable, but even above the stable, they couldn't say enough about how amazing the owner, Mrs. Jody, was and they highly advised us giving her a call to see if she would be willing to take on a unique situation such as ours.  We were overjoyed to hear her views of us boarding at her stables and even though she had never done anything like this before, having to coordinate with two different entities about payment and the horse, with neither of those entities being the person who would actually be the horse owner.  However, it all came together in a way that had God's finger prints all over it!

It is crazy to think that 7 months has already gone by since we first had Otto delivered to Carroll Stables.  Andrew was so surprised when he first met Otto and realized that Otto would be HIS horse for the next 9 months.  Otto has been the perfect horse for the whole family.  He knows who is riding him and how to adjust based on their riding level.  Otto has been great this whole time, but after having Otto for a couple months, you could tell that Otto began to change...  It's like he realized that this was more than just a job, he saw that we kept returning 3 to 4 times a week and before long we were his people, and he was another member of the family.  Prior to this change, I wouldn't have known how to tell if a horse likes their owners or not, but you could tell that he knew we all went together now.  

We always knew that we would only have Otto for 9 months and that he would have to go back to family camp in May; however, none of us really wanted to mention that reality or talk about what that would be like for Otto to leave us.  You see, we would've never thought that in just 7 months we would be a barn family, but we have loved every moment we spend out at the barn.  It has been a great experience for the entire family and such an answer to prayer.  For Andrew in particular, Otto has brought him so much joy and confidence, but it has also been the missing piece for us as we struggled to find ways to really get into Andrew's world, outside of time spent at Dr's appointments, hospital stays, etc.  

Fast forward to us now being in the month of March and family camp begins in just two months.  The reality of Otto leaving us, just for three months, is so saddening.  We love Otto just as though he were another member of the family.  We would often joke with Mrs. Jody that Otto can't go back to camp because he has picked up some bad habits since being with us, for instance, Andrew enjoys trying to act like he is a real cowboy and tries to jump on Otto while he is walking.  Now, Otto has formed the habit of starting to walk when we are about to get on him, thus making him no longer suitable for campers (or at least that is what we were trying to convince ourselves could help us to keep Otto ;-).  The amazing Mrs. Jody was fully aware of our dread in having to return Otto in two months and since she needed to speak with Pine Cove anyway, in order to begin discussing when Otto would need to be picked up to head back to camp, she was willing to ask Pine Cove on our behalf if they would be willing to sell Otto (which we thought was a looooong shot because we knew when we received Otto that he was their top horse out of roughly 60 horses).  

After Mrs. Jody spoke with Pine Cove, she called to tell us that "Costa", the head wrangler at Pine Cove, answered the phone and said right away, "I know why you're calling me."  To our delight and amazement, Pine Cove was on board with wanting to make selling Otto to us happen and Mrs. Jody stated that they gave a very fair price for us to purchase Otto....$2,500.  We have no clue about horse prices or value, but we trust that Mrs. Jody does, so while $2,500 sounds like a lot to us, I know that a horse as well trained as Otto could sell for much more than $2,500.  Plus, he's priceless to us!

We have mentioned in many Facebook posts how amazing Mrs. Jody is (for so many reasons), but here is another example of why only God could've know how important it was for us to board Otto at Carroll Stables.  Not only has Mrs. Jody been so amazing with everything at the barn, she also let us know right away that she knew $2,500 was a lot of money for our family (especially since we would also be taking over the fees for boarding Otto) and that she wanted to help in anyway she could to help us get Otto.  We found out about being able to get Otto just a week ago, and in just that amount of time, Mrs. Jody has built these amazing Texas flag boards and had the idea to sell raffle tickets for $10 a ticket.  She is awesome!  We couldn't have done this without her!  #butGod #OttoisaRoss 

Raffle tickets can be purchased via https://paypal.me/JodyCarrollStables?locale.x=en_US

For every $10 donated, Mrs. Jody will add a ticket to the raffle with your name and phone # on it. She will text you a photo of your ticket(s) if you’d like!

***Andrew would love to be able to sell raffle tickets in person, but obviously the quarantine makes that impossible, so that's why we are all virtual.  Thank you for your understanding and support!