Tori's Wish!

Some wish kids just melt your heart.  Well that's not true, they all do.  But some just have these big smiles, and give such innocent hugs, and have amazing families, that truly become a part of your own lives.  And you just know you will be friends with them long after your "Make-A-Wish" duties are done.  The Svensons are one of those families.

Tori is a diva, there's no question about that.  She's got all the sass and hip-popping and eye-batting for the making of a true beauty queen.  In fact, she was, and is still, in all the beauty pageants across Georgia she can enter (sans the crazy pageant mom).  Actually, she was in a pageant raising money for her friend Maddie who had a brain tumor.....the very day her doctor called her parents and diagnosed her with medullablastoma, a very rare brain tumor she ironically had herself.  That was a year ago in April.  She's had surgery, radiation, and now 10 months of chemotherapy. 

All while still popping that hip, and giving her best smile.  :)

When I met Tori, she was positively sure what her wish was.  While watching her favorite Disney show, a new commercial had come on, describing this amazing Disney Resort called Aulani in Hawaii.  And she just had to go!  She wanted to see the lazy river, and the dolphins, and the palm trees, and maybe even catch a glimpse of Mickey!

So we scheduled a luau in her honor to send her off in style, and to announce to this sweet baby girl that her wish had been granted!

Jeff's house made the perfect location for a poolside luau, he's even got palm trees by the pool!  (We kind of disregarded the farmlife just over the fence :)  Actually, when Tori and her big brother Hunter discovered the Kubota, they took off in the field for an hour to torture the cows!  HA!

Jeff and Tori's dad Todd manned the grill, and our amazing Hawaiin-style feast (and hotdogs), while us girls enjoys our sun and margaritas.

Tori left the following weekend on her adventure, and I was so thankful for the pictures Tori's mom posted along their way!   Here's Tori on her way to the ATL airport!  Could she be any cuter??

Whoops!  After their first full day on the island....looks like the Hawaii sun got the best of them!  Penny promised it wasnt as bad as it looked....I dont know about that?!

And in true Disney wish-granting fashion, this sweet angel did get a dance with her Mickey Mouse, as well as some loving from other characters too!

When they returned home from their amazing trip, Tori and Penny had to hang back in Atlanta for the next week at Egleston for what was a very grueling LAST round of chemo ever.  When we they returned to Columbus, we wanted to make sure everyone in town knew it too!  Around the hospital, she had adopted the phrase "No Mo' Chemo, Tori!" and so friends and family made a couple of banners for her yard to welcome her..... Of course Jeff being in the contruction business (and not so much in the painting poster business) decided on this instead.  :)  I don't think they could miss it considering it's 20ft by 30ft...you should've seen it at night, NO ONE was sleeping with this thing light up!