An offer on the table!

A quick update. We have an offer on our house. Praise the Lord! It is quite low so we have been praying about it and have put our counter offer in today. Could you please pray that they accept our counter as is. We would be so happy to have this house sold. Today's market is do difficult to sell a home. Home values have dropped so much that we are needing to get a loan to sell our home. I know this has affected so many of you out there and we are praying for many of you in tough economic times.
I attached a picture of the sun coming up over the lake through the woods behind our house to remind us that God's mercies are new every moring! Even when it is bitter cold and snowing. We are blessed!
I'll try to update more soon!
Lori and Eric

A huge thank you!

Eric and I wanted to extend a heartfelt thanks to his mom, Joan for staying with us last week from Monday thru Friday. She offered to come help out this week and ended up staying until Friday. She was my extra set of hands this week as she prepared breakfast every morning for Eric and fed him after sleeping on the couch with Maddie at night. She helped get Maddie off to school and cooked and cleaned every day for us. I woke up to coffee perked in the pot every morning. I was able to run errands this week with no worries. Eric and his mom had great conversations as did I about life with ALS and how it has affected our family and how hard it can be to see Eric having this disease. The kids loved having their grandma here too. I am not saying this to make anyone feel like they haven't done these things. Some of these things can only be done by one other person, his mom. We just wanted to share our appreciation and let her know publicly that these things don't go unnoticed by us nor by God. So, thank you!!
Last week was a very busy week for me since I decided to plan a surprise birthday for Eric about 10 days ago and had to be sneaky and do a little running around more than usual so the timing was great to have some help. I only invited some close friends (I apologize that I left some good friends out in hindsight) without kids and didn't include our family this time due to lack of space. We packed this house to the max and Eric was quite surprised and a little overwhelmed. Personally, I hate surprises, but I really wanted to take some time to show Eric how much we all love him, especially as his birthday is fastly approaching. We celebrate life daily and the gift that it is.
Eric (and I) wanted to let everyone that came know that he really appreciated them coming and making him feel so loved. It had been a rough week physicaly and emotionally for Eric and he was really growing weary and tired of this disease. The fellowship was great and so uplifting!!! The food was great! We had Pasta Carrabba (Eric's favorite)and other food and we stuffed ourselves and have meals tucked into the freezer for later.
He was reminded today at church in a Loui Giglio video about how tiny we are compared to our great BIG GOD yet He is so involved in every detail of our lives walking beside us and seeking a relationship with us! That's what life is about! First and foremost, a relationship with Christ and the relationships he wants us to have with eachother on this earth. He was moved by the worship music to stand to his feet and praise our God which inspired a friend who said she just didn't feel like worshipping today because of some bad circumstances she was going through. We all have those days where something is blocking us from receiving from God (sickness, finances, broken relationships, past hurts, etc.) but God desires our everything and we need to surrender to Him when he calls us to draw near. We watched a great movie that a man says "I've given up on God" and the priest replies, "that's OK, God hasn't given up on you". (Count of Monte Cristo). Sometimes we give up on God, but he ALWAYS pursues us.

My husband, the "Iron Horse"

It has been busy as usual around the Fox household. We went to an ALS research update last night downtown presented by the ALS Association and were honored when they surprised us by presenting the Iron Horse award to Eric. Iron Horse was Lou Gehrig's nickname and they gave this to Eric for all of his efforts in the ALS community including the ALS walks (thanks Fox Trotters), his speaking, his work towards grants for ALSA, help in the office and inspiring others with this disease and more, I can't even remember everything they said, just how proud I was of my husband. He has a huge heart and is full of passion in everything he does. I feel like the luckiest wife alive.
We started this new year in a quiet way with the Stelma's and the Barr's coming over with the kids to hang out which was great! Notice in the picture above that our dog Prince is sitting on Dave's lap with his Michigan State jersey to match Dave's hat! Our dog sees a lap and he gives no warning and he is there! Poor Dave comes in the door in his wheelchair and doesn't have a chance! Prince has been such a wonderful addition to our family! We have almost had him one full year! The kids made a huge snowman after all of the crazy snow we have been getting and the next day, the snow melted to the ground! Michigan is so unpredictible! It is just plain cold this week! temps below 0 with windchill. This is really hard for Eric because of his poor circulation and atrophied muscles. We are really looking forward to our trip to Orlando, FL at the end of February. It can't come soon enough!
Eric had 13 guys over for the College Football National Championship. He really had a great time hanging out with them. It really lifted his spirits being surrounded by his friends. Our new home as all of our other homes has an open door policy. Everyone is welcome here and we love to have people visit here. It has become harder to go out due to the cold and needing to load the wheelchair and plan accordingly when we do so visitors are always appreciated!
We love you all so much and don't know what we would do without you!!
Be sure to tell Zach Happy Birthday this weekend! Our firstborn turns 12 tomorrow!!!
Eric is also approaching his birthday this Wednesday, the 21st and will be 39! We don't dread birthdays at our age but rather celebrate life daily and thank the Lord for every day He has given us to live and to love! 33 Miles sings a song called one life to love which I love! Both of their albums speak to me in such a powerful way!
Have a blessed week and stay warm if you live in Michigan!
Lori and Eric

A New Year has begun!

Well, the past few weeks have been full of things well out of our control! God has been teaching us patience lately. We have been snowed in quite a bit before Christmas and then we all got the stomach flu on Christmas eve and Christmas day so we have been spending lots of time together at home. We have had some snags with finishing the basement too which I believe are all fixed now and we are moving forward with getting the kids rooms finished. Last Saturday night we had a very stong wind storm and our power was knocked out during the night which made it very hard to sleep in a silent house with howling winds all night. Thankfully, our power went back on by Sunday evening. We just had our last Christmas gathering today with Eric's mom and dad which was nice and we were able to celebrate Christmas with my family the day before Christmas eve and luckily no one else got sick on that side.
Despite all of our amall challenges, we have still been blessed every day to wake up and spend it together. This house has been a huge blessing to us and we are so grateful for it. We had a few showings last week on our Jenison house and have interested parties that have houses they need to sell so please keep praying for God to guide us concerning that home. I can't believe our Christmas break is almost over. We have really enjoyed not having a schedule and sleeping in when we were able to! Eric has a few doctor appointments next week and we are praying that he will get access to the IPLEX drug through one of those doctors. We are praying that 2009 will bring us a cure for ALS and pray blessings for all of our friends and family. I think of the song and verse Taste and see that the Lord is good! Speaking personally, I am really missing quiet times with the Lord. There is always something that has been taking the place of that time and I am really needing to get back into God's Word!!! A friend has offered to take Zach to school in the mornings for me which will help me out so much so I am hoping this will help us with our morning routine. We'll try to post again soon and update you after Eric's appointments next week. Continue to pray for Eric and a cure and his safety.
Love,
Lori and Eric