Heading back to Michigan

Our vacation has sadly come to an end. We are heading out tomorrow morning so if you could keep us in your prayers on Saturday and Sunday for safety while we travel, we would really appreciate that. We had an absolutely wonderful vacation! Great weather, great accomodations, great fun with family and our dear friends, just a great vacation. We just love Orlando! The time flew by, we had hoped to get meet some people we have met thru our blog and ALS and friends that have moved to FL while we were here, but time went by too quickly so maybe next year!
It's time for bed and we are TIRED!! We are looking forward to seeing our family and friends at home soon!
God bless!
Lori and Eric

minor setbacks on our trip

Matt and Steph's first excursion in Florida was to the ER!
Eric enjoyed a little too much sunshine!

Hanging out in the sunshine!

We made it to Florida on Saturday at 4:30 after 22 hours in a van packed with six people and luggage for more like 12 people :) We stepped outside to 76 degrees and had heard that Michigan was being pelted with lots of snow and cold temps. What better time to leave! Unfortunately, we spent our first night worrying about our friends Matt and Stephanie who went to the ER at 7pm for chest pains that Matt was having on the last leg of the drive that wouldn't go away. They called their Dr. and they said to call 9-1-1 and go to the hospital so while me and the kids were out getting a few groceries and picking up pizza while Kucinski's and Eric were napping, The ambulance and 6 people came in and hooked up Matt to all kinds of stuff and hauled him off to the hospital. We waited at the timeshare to get an update on all of the tests that were run to rule out any cardiac problems (EKG, Catscan and chest X-ray) Praise the Lord, they were released about 1am and they ruled out anything serious and said it may have been stress related (getting everything set to go on the trip with work, etc.) or maybe driving in the car for 22 hours with only a few hours of sleep) Needless to say, we will be splitting the trip up on the way home by stopping overnight somewhere. Even with three drivers, it was hard to get sleep on the off time in the car. The trip down went really well, traffic and weather wise though. The kids even did really well.
Now that we are all caught up on our sleep and rested, we have been really enjoying the sunshine! We hit the pool yesterday and Eric opted for no sunscreen on his arms and legs (as a mom and wife, I should have lathered him up anyway) As you can see from the photos, the sun is very hot here and Eric is a little lobster like right now. He will be enjoying time in the shade today. We will be going to Sea World tomorrow and can't wait. We've heard great things about and the kids have never been. We are so grateful for the time to take this vacation and so grateful for our wonderful friends who have been so helpful and fun to have along. We are blessed beyond measure! Feel free to drop us a note by commenting on the blog or email us direct at info@ericfox.us We'll try to update again soon!
Love,
The Foxes and the Kucinski's

We made it to Florida

Good news... bad news...

An older picture of Eric when he returned from his mission trip to Vietnam three years ago. He looks so handsome with his tan!


Many of you are wondering what happened with our house sale and the bad news is the
family was unable to secure their financing at this point so our deal fell apart. We are disappointed by this, but we know that God has it all in his hands and will bring along another buyer so keep sending those prayers up! We had two showings on Monday already so maybe we will get an even better offer which will be worth the wait. That's the bad news. The good news is that we got our final approval letter on the Specially Adapted Housing grant after over a year from applying. It is such a process and you have to be diligent in following through, but it finally paid off! We will be able to pay a portion of our home off as principal only when we receive that grant money in approx 3 weeks,so that is great news and it came in time to get the exemption on our property taxes for disabled veterans which is what we have been praying for. I need to share this because it is a huge answer to prayer!
On a sadder note, the disease is really taking it's toll on Eric lately both physically and emotionally and I won't lie, it has been so hard to watch him as this disease progresses and there is nothing we can do to stop it. I just read today that the President of ALSTDI (huge research institute in Boston) passed away at age 39 (Eric's age) from ALS. It brought me to tears as I thought about the prospect of losing my husband and father to my children! It makes me want to cling on to every day, yet life still goes on all around us, there are still appointments to keep, bills to pay and responsibilities to uphold. Yet the sun is shining today! God hasn't gone anywhere through it all. We are so grateful for his love! We are looking forward to a break from it all in Florida and we leave Feb 20th and return March 2nd. (JoAnn, we need your contact info if you still want to meet us in FL :)
Eric's mom is here again this week and is again a huge blessing and help. I am supposed to be working right now so I should keep this brief (like I can do that)
Thank you for your prayers and love!
Lori and Eric
P.S. please keep Kristi (my sister) in your prayers as she is still undergoing chemo treatments. I was able to go to her appointment with my mom yesterday and I just thought, why do we have to live in this world of disease! Jesus, come back soon! That's a whole other post, but share His salvation with your friends and family. We want to be ready when He comes back!!

Updates-lots going on...

We wanted to let you know that we sold our home in Jenison on Saturday after a few counter offers. We are disappointed in where the market has taken the value of our home, but very excited and relieved to have this home sold after 10 months on the market. Please pray that we can get an inspection and appraisal in the next few weeks to close before we leave for Florida and that the appraisal will come in where we need it to. Good things are happening with our VA grant and the elevator request so keep praying we will hear from the VA soon!
Other good news is that our basement is finished and the kids now have their own rooms which they love. I have an office for the first time ever and just in time for tax season. My dad and brother helped me to put together a huge desk from Costco (thank you!) so I hope to get my personal and tax stuff organized this week which will hopefully help me keep on top of things.
I have to say I am excited to see how God is taking care of every detail of our lives but in the same breath I am so worried about what the future will bring. Please pray for Eric as I worry about him every day. I have noticed changes in his breathing which scares me a lot. I have been dealing really well with the changes that ALS has brought to Eric's body, but I can't help him breathe. I feel very helpless and have been praying that God would restore his breathing and his speech. We sang a song in church last week by Frontline worship that really spoke to me called "Better in the End" the words are below:

If theres anything left I haven't given
Anything left disguised or hidden
I can fell you pulling me far away from what used to be
Tired of feeling the same old feeling
Want to move on to what im dreaming
I can feel you pulling me far away from what used to be

Anything that's left to do
Anything ive kept from you

I don't want to fear when you bring change
Make yourself at home in me again
You can see the picture of my life
so much better in the end
so much better in the end
so much better so begin

I know God doesn't want us to fear change and I know that change is part of ALS and our life right now so please pray for God to give us the strength and not to worry about the future. I am so lucky to have Eric as my husband and don't know what I would do without him in my life so we hold on to each day as a gift from God.
I have to put a plug in here for the movie "Fireproof" now out on DVD. We never got a chance to see it in the theatres so we bought the DVD and watched it last Friday. SO powerful with such a great message for marriage! We cried a lot and were reminded of our covenant to each other and the powerful change that can only come from God. We experienced it early in our marriage when Zach was just born and Eric gave his life to Christ. God saved our marriage! Eric became on fire for God and he gave me a desire to turn my life back over to Christ and to live for Him! Our marriage has been able to withstand any "fire" that has come our way and that is how God intended marriage to be.
Have a great week and if you are married, love your spouse! Do something special for them or watch the movie together.
Thanks for praying!
Lori and Eric