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Boston's Brigade & Layla Strong, Fort Jennings, OH (2026)

06/06/2026

I feel like we've been so busy, and I just haven't updated lately. So here's a run down of the last few months and this summer:

Graysen just turned 17 this past week, and is gearing up for his senior year. I'm so not ready. He did a job shadowing day earlier in the year, and he went to my old work (turned somewhat current work since I've been helping out as needed, and signed on to do every tax season). He really liked it, and not only decided he wants to go into accounting, but also would like to work there after school. So at least his senior year will be low pressure because he knows what he wants to do and where he wants to go. He will be staying local and living at home, which is fine by me 😊.
Auburn tried out for JH cheer and made it! So her summer will be filled with conditioning days. She finished out her 9th year of dance, and is already looking forward to being back for the big 10th year. This also means that I just finished my 10th year teaching.. I don't know where the time has gone 🥺. She also starts soccer in August, and is excited her friends dad signed up to coach.. she's a big fan.
Layla has her first bi-monthly appointment coming up next week. She finished out her 7th year of dance. She also starts soccer in August. And she is doing summer gymnastics. She is so determined to get her backhandsping before dance starts. My parents got the kids a new trampoline for Christmas, and she is anxious to get it set up so I can work with her on them too.
Boston is just living it up since we won't have surgery this summer. We've been doing lots of golf cart rides, and he keeps asking the neighbor to help open his pool 😂. We also decided since we're not doing surgery this summer, it was time to potty train. He's done really well with it. And while I was doing him, I also did Ellie. She took a little bit longer, but she's getting the hang of it. I had to do lots of bribing to get them both to do it, and we spent about a week living in the kitchen. But we survived.
Monday and Tuesday we are planning a surprise trip for them. Stay tuned for pictures 😊

06/03/2026

Today Layla tried a new activity, roller skating. We used to go all the time before she got sick, but unfortunately this was just another thing on the long list of things she wasn't allowed to do. But today she decided to give it a go.
I took auburn and one of her friends, and asked Layla if she wanted to go along and try it out. I walked alongside her and held her hand to keep her steady, but she did a great job!

05/29/2026

I guess I really haven't updated the page on our big update.. we got the news the week of recital, and my mind is a little all over the place that week.
Boston is not having his surgery until next summer. Really doesn't mean a whole lot, other than we get another year of normalcy. But it does mean he is stable enough to wait, which hasn't always been the case with Boston. So we are thankful for that.
The decision to wait comes down mostly to timing. AJ has a big shut down at work. The name shut down is deceiving, because most people assume he's off work, which is the opposite. He works more. He actually got a job that requires him to work 100 days straight starting August 1. For this reason we were hoping to do surgery the first part of June. But we just couldn't get it in by then. The order Cincinnati does it is a cardiac Cath and MRI. It takes a week to get results, then 3-4 weeks later they have a care conference to make a surgical plan. Once that plan is complete you are considered to have a surgical consult and can schedule surgery. They couldn't get him in for a Cath until June 4. That meant it would be end of June/ beginning of July until his care conference was done and we could schedule surgery, and then who knows how quickly we could get in. And AJ has to be at work the 2 weeks prior to shut down starting.
When I first called his cardiologist I told her I didn't know what to do, I was panicking I would have to do this by myself (I know not by myself, I know people would show up for me. But I have this weird thing about keeping composed in front of everyone. The only one who's seen me full panic meltdown is AJ, and I want to keep it that way.) she right away said let's just wait until next year. He's not showing us he needs the next step yet. And clinically, a year is not a long time. Even if he starts showing signs, he's not going to just decompensate over night. It's a slow process. I felt comfortable with this decision, because when I talked to our previous surgeon boots, he also said if something comes up, Boston was safe to wait until next year
(He of course asked questions about how is doing clinically, and had me send him his echo report. He didn't just make an assumption before he decided that).
I of course was on board with this plan because I have been dreading doing this. I know he has to, but now I get another year to prepare myself. AJ also doesn't have shut down next year, so scheduling will be much easier. The only part I am sad about is I didn't sign up to teach summer camps at dance because I assumed surgery would be close to camp times. So I now just have a wide open summer 🤷. The little ones do want a vacation at Aunt April's
, so I'm sure we will have plenty of time for that now.

05/12/2026

Over the weekend we had dance recital.
This was Bostons first year. I wasn't sure if I was going to put him in the recital, I mainly just wanted him in class with other kids, following directions. But he insisted he loved dance and wanted to wear his costume. He in fact did not love dancing on the stage. He fake cried the whole time. At the end of one dance he yelled out I just want my mommy, and got a collective aww from the audience. Then got home and refused to take his recital shirt off because dance was so fun 🤦.
Laylas group was amazing! I missed their jazz dance, but their other 3 were the absolute best I have seen them all year. I popped in their dressing room on the way back to mine and let them know how awesome they were doing, and you could tell they already knew. They were so proud of themselves. I was proud of them too.
Auburns group always brings their A game, so of course they looked great too. Auburn also joined pointe this year. We had a whole group of first year pointe students. I let them help decide the theme of the dance, and it turned out so cute. We did princess vs villains, and they asked if they could kidnap Auburn ( a princess) and of course auburn was game because she could show off some acting. She spent a little time on the dark side before rejoining the princesses.
Auburns friends were also there. They helped me out in the dressing room, and they did an awesome job. They even got to catch most of auburns dances.
All in all, it was a great weekend. My feet haven't recovered from the 21,236 steps I put in yet, but still totally worth it!

05/11/2026

Over the weekend my mom was in Columbus and dropped off another set of bags at nationwide children's.
Now that Layla is one year post treatment, she moves to visits every other month, so we will just take them bags when we go.

04/30/2026

What a busy and fun weekend we had. Saturday we took Layla, Boston and Ellie to Auburn Indiana to the car museum to see some cars characters. Cars is Bostons all time favorite, so you can imagine his excitement. Since we were close to the lake, we just went and stayed the night there. The boats aren't in yet, but they still had a good time. Layla did some fishing, and the babies set up Grandma's new bounce house in the living room.
Graysen stayed home to work. And Auburn stayed home to go to cheer tryouts. It's her first year doing cheer, so she was so excited to make the team. She stayed the night at her friend Aria's house, which she always loves. Those 2 have been friends since preschool, so she always loves spending time with her.
We have this weekend off, and then next weekend is dance recital ❤️🩰

04/24/2026

We finally made it to cardiology this month! He unfortunately did come down with a cold last weekend, so we were not able to do sedation. But they said to bring him and we would try with nothing on board, and if we had to we could give something for anxiety. And we just get what we get. He did so good! We talked about it the day before and he told me very clearly he would not lay in a bed, but he would sit in a chair. So we "practiced" using the recliner. I asked the hospital to set his bed up like a chair for as much as the could, and they were able to do the whole thing that way. They got a portable DVD player out so they could make him look where they wanted. He sat there and gave us a play by play run down of the cars movie the whole time, not a single tear... Until they got to the arotic arch, which they look at in their neck. All kids hate it, so Boston wasn't alone. But he didn't freak out he just cried a little bit and told me he wanted to be done and go find Ellie.
Layla also had her one year post treatment appointment 🥳🎉. So Grandma, Layla and Ellie went to her appointment.
We got done with the echo and decided to do the EKG on that side as well. He lost it for that. He is weird about stickers, so I was not surprised. I've helped hook up an EKG on him a time or twenty, so they let me help.. so we had the nurse, the tech who came to do the EKG, and me, all hooking up as fast as we could. We got done and all 3 of us were unhooking just as fast. Then they bribed him with some snacks, a juice box and a hot wheel car.
We saw his cardiologist and everything looked great. She was so impressed how "normal" he seems. Usually by 4 kids are starting to show signs that they're ready for the next repair. Boston isn't yet. His o2 stats are staying strong, which also means his stent in his LPA also likely doesn't need intervention, which is also surprising. His coloring looks great. He has tons of energy, and can keep up with other kids. I thought for a brief second they were going to give us some more time before surgery, but no such luck. They still want to get him done before he starts showing signs he needs it. They usually do the surgery between the ages of 2-4. He will be 4 in June, so he's at the end of the range to begin with. She didn't want to push it farther.
The bad news is our surgeon left to go back to Dallas 😭😭. I literally wanted to cry. I truly believe we may have had a different outcome with Boston had we not had Dr. Lehenbaur in there. Our cardiologist knows how we feel about him and offered to help us transfer to Dallas for him to do the surgery. It's a big decision, and AJ wasn't even there. So I told her I would need to get back to her. We have his personal number, and are planning to call him today to see his recommendation.. is there someone at Cincinnati he recommends, or does he feel its best for him to perform it. If I can't have him, his opinion is the second best thing, and I truly will feel comfortable with whatever he recommends. So we don't have answers yet, we don't have a date yet. But hopefully soon.
Now that Layla has hit one year in remission, her appointments will space out to every other month.
And because it's the season of being on the run all the time, we also had dance pictures last night. Layla and I came in right from Cincinnati. Wednesday night we went to dance before heading to Cincinnati, so I brought her costumes and left them in the office at the studio. We came back and went right to the studio and got ready there. Auburn rode with another dance family who lives close to us and met us there.

04/19/2026

Another busy weekend being wrapped up. Friday we went to my sister's house for another early competition call time. The little ones showed up with lots of energy so April blew up the bounce house in the living room. She might just be the favorite aunt 😂.
Saturday morning Layla and I went to dance, came back to April's to breakfast and the bounce house back up. We got a few more jumps in before we loaded up the van to head home. Last night auburn performed at a dinner theater with the show choir. Auburn did fantastic. She really enjoys singing, and it definitely showed.
This morning was up bright and early again to head back to dance competition. Auburn danced this morning, and then later tonight both girls dance in production.
Since today is such a long day, mom and dad took the girls and I stayed home with the babies. I got up and got them ready, then managed to catch a little more sleep before the littles were up. Long days like that are just a lot for them, especially with as much running as we've been doing lately. We were able to live stream the dances and we sent auburn fun messages after every dance

Videos in the comments

04/15/2026

What a busy weekend we had.
Friday we went to the relay for life. I took no pictures or videos. We went late because of school, and between having Layla where she needed to be for the survivor dinner and her speech, chasing babies, and the rain.. it was a tad chaotic. We still had a great time.

We stayed the weekend at my sister April's house, since we had a 2 day dance competition also in Cincinnati.

Saturday both girls had to be out the door, in full hair, makeup and costume by 5:45 a.m 😨. Both girls did production, then auburn danced with her class after that. My mom tried her hand at dance mom-ing.. it's been a minute since she's done that lol. They were done and back to the house by 9:30. Auburn did some snuggling with April's dog, then we spent the day at the outlet mall.

Sunday Layla and I had to be dressed and out the door by 6 a.m. They were running ahead, so she was going on for her last number at 8. We finished up, got back to April's, had breakfast, loaded up the van and headed home.

On top of it I was unexpectedly asked to help finish out tax season at my previous job. So this whole week felt like a blur. It was either be on the run, or work. Thank God I have so many kids who could help out around the house 😂.

This weekend will be another busy one. Another 2 day dance competition, plus Saturday Auburn performs with the show choir at a dinner theater. So we will have to run home in between dance days

04/02/2026

Well still no luck on getting Bostons sedated echo done. Last night we went to Cincinnati and stayed at the Ronald McDonald house. This morning we got a call that his cardiologist called out sick and wanted to know if we still wanted to proceed with the day or reschedule. I told her we would still do it since it was just a half hour before his appointment for the echo, we would just see whoever was in clinic for the day. We get over to his echo and they're taking his height and weight, and he coughed. And a cough that was moving things around, not just clearing his throat. I went 😬, his nurse went 😬. We took him in and she said let's get his vitals and I'll talk to the doc. I told her that was literally the first one he's done. I've been listening since his one last month was cancelled because he was sick. She took his vitals and his oxygen was down below baseline. I was talking myself down from a full blown panic attack, I figured we were about to get admitted. The doc and anesthesiologist came in. They weren't super concerned with his stats being low, but just said it lead them more towards leaning to not doing the echo today. She said sometimes the risk is so low that they go ahead anyways but they weren't liking this whole set up, but said if I was adamant about getting it done today they would meet and come up with a plan. I told her I was not adamant. We would just come back, I didn't like playing that gamble. I would never forgive myself if he had complications and they could have been avoided by simply coming back another day. They redid his vitals and they were right where they normally are at home. They assumed since his nurse put the pulse ox on and then put his sock over it, she probably didn't actually have it on right anymore. If it was reading part of his toe and his sock it's obviously not accurate. They watched it for several minutes while we finished talking and it stayed strong so everyone was feeling much better. So we'll try again in a month and see how it goes 🤞

Boston's Brigade & Layla Strong

06/06/2026

06/03/2026

05/29/2026

05/12/2026

05/11/2026

04/30/2026

04/24/2026

04/19/2026

04/15/2026

04/02/2026

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