Fred & George

Those are the names of Joseph's Lofstrand Crutches. They joined our family on June 5th, at the request of Joseph's Physical therapist who also happens to be our stake president.

Joseph working hard at his physical therapy appointment

1st Day with Fred & George

Practicing with Ken, Dr. Call... umm President Call?! 

They have been amazing, we just need to figure out how we want to paint or tape them so they double as white canes. It is important for people to know that he is visually impaired. We LOVE our stake president and the personal relationship we've been able to develop with him, he cycles with my dad and then spending much of our summer seeing him weekly in his office. 

Posts soon to come

Lots of things to write about. I have some posts all written and ready to be published. I just finished reading "Heaven is Here" by Stefanie Nielson., otherwise known as the blogger NieNie. Her story is incredible and so honest, I was really touched and she was so brave to share her story, bad parts included: things she faced, and some of her darkest days. Let's be honest some of the things  she talks about in her book don't cast the best light on herself, but she still shared them as an integral part of her story.

I can be brave like NieNie, and Joseph IS brave, we're going to share our story, and talk about our life. Not everything will be happy like rainbows and butterflies, but it will be honest and truly our story, and our story is happy, sad, silly, difficult and so many other adjectives. We're doing good but everyday is a new challenge and sometimes we struggle, we'll share our shortcomings and struggles as well as our triumphs.

Posts to look forward to:
•Joseph training for 5k, in his wheelchair
•Joseph's internship and future opportunities
•Shaylee curly hair tutorial
•Infertility posts
•Blindness posts
•Our summer plans, trips we want to take
•Our animals? Why we enjoy them.

What would you like to see us blog about?
Always feel free to ask questions, we'll answer them!

Oh how busy life can be...

in bullets

• I teach swimming lessons from 9-11:30 M-F (cardio oh yea!)
• I teach Piano lessons almost daily
• We have family in town
• Dustin is leaving for the MTC on Saturday.
• Dustin is being set apart (for his mission) tonight (Stake President is heading out of town)!
• Joseph has Braille classes every wednesday for 2 hours (only 1 more class left!! He's amazing!)
• Joseph usually has two computer classes a week with Brian from DSB, for an hour and a half
• We will go to our ward temple night on Friday
• My work party on Saturday

In itchy news, I have been sun rash/welt free for two whole days!! I have adjusted accordingly for my new allergy. We have determined that my allergy eruption (yes, they call it that) has something to do with the chemicals in the pool I use in conjunction with the sun. Thank goodness for the internet, I did lots of research on medical sites and after doing what was suggested, it couldn't be anything other than photosensitivity. And I didn't waste $100-ish for a doctor visit.

We are enjoying the things that are going on, but it will be nice next week when things slow down a tad...for a while at least.

nag nag nag...

You know when there is something that you just can't get off your mind,
and it nags,
and nags,
and nags until you do something??
Well I have some of those..
there are a lot of things I worry that Joseph is left out of
reading definitely (but he's never been much of a reader)
the biggest one lately is that he can't read his scriptures.
We listen to them on CD (thanks so much Joy)
but he has no real portable way to carry them,
or listen without help.
Until now...
that nagging in my head has (almost) gone away.
Joseph has an ipod.
a big one,
I am downloading all the scriptures in English from lds.org
and the Book of Mormon in Portuguese.
And the last general conference (or two or three.. whatever he wants)
and church magazines
and Jesus the Christ
all audio, mp3 files!!
We can add John Bytheway talks,
and other books we've acquired
and talks my mom downloaded for him a while ago.
And oh the music!!
(he has requested his brasilian pop for sure)
eek!

Now I can sleep!

*s*

A Quick little update...

* Thanks so much for the comments and well wishes I appreciate it so much, it's been tough, but it's nice to know how to get the help we need when we need it.

*Our cousin Luke is in the hospital, please send prayers his way too!

*Joe is doing much better, he is frustrated with his vision, it's better but not best... His turn around with the steroid treatment was pretty phenomenal to see. He is walking really well, and doing good all around with little to no side effects from the steroids, just sore from the infusions. He is on a wean down dose of steroids for the next 10 days. He has a follow up appointment with the eye doctor and we're still working on the Neurologist we want to see. I may just have to get really pushy!

*Suzy is gone. We traded her in while she was running and still worth something. We are now the proud owners of a 2005 Kia Rio his name is Julius. He is orange, a pretty red-orange.

*We both have talks on Sunday. No assigned topic, trying to think about what I need to speak on...but life is keeping me pretty darn busy.

*Thanks again for all the comments and visits to the blog, I will try to update more. :)

-S

A good news moment for Adoption

Some of the things we learned in our meeting with our caseworker was a change, a VERY recent change in LDS FS policy. There was a 6 month wait between placement and finalization of an adoption... blanket policy, it didn't matter what state you live in that WAS the rule. Now it is according to the state... umm Washington is awesome in that respect... now to make it fun (for me at least) I am making a poll... so vote I will post the correct answer shortly. Happy Voting- no cheating!!

-S

What else?!?! seriously!

Our car Suzy.. she's hurt. It happened almost a couple weeks ago. It was freaky, I was driving to the store with Joe to buy shoes he desperately needed. We were stuck and completely relied on others for help. SOoo many blessings connected to that...but still it's a really crappy situation Luckily:Joe was with me, I got scared with the first noise, signaled and started to pull over, then it got loud and sounded like it was scrapping then something dropped as I was slowing down. Thankfully my Mom had her phone with her, she wasn't biking right then, they were close to home, our lovely neighbors were home and had their flat bed trailer empty,the cop that pulled over was nice. Thankfully Suzy (our car) is in my parents driveway being pulled apart so we can figure out what we need to do to fix it. We've made good progress with it considering all that is going on. So far it looks like we will have to replace the front differential and both drive axles... ugh. It's been one of those weeks (a couple actually) when it's makes you feel completely beaten down.

In other news: My brother is graduating high school tomorrow. My cousin Dexter graduated today. My little sister Alisha is expecting :) and hopefully things go through so they can buy the little house they are trying to. I got a new brother. A pregnant cousin of mine is getting married tomorrow. My great-aunt and uncle both passed away last week (within two days of eachother) it's really sweet actually and I am happy they aren't sick and hurting anymore.

And the world keeps on changing

Last week we went to an adult stake meeting about the ward boundaries in our stake. Yup, we were reorganized! If you were to look on the map (sorry no visual, we gave our map to our neighbors who didn't make it to the meeting) we are in the middle of the stake and the smallest ward geographically. But from the attendance at church today we are by no means a small ward. We are in the same ward that we were attending but at a different time and a different church building.
We are still in primary for the time being. And primary now has at least doubled in size, we can barely fit into the primary room. Our class is really big and busy, I think we handled it pretty well but it is going to be a challenge week to week, they'll keep us on our toes.
But nothing else compares to a room filled with children singing their little hearts out. Those primary songs are so sweet and it is amazing to be in a primary that is so full of children singing loudly I am sure that the whole building could hear.
I love the changes and look forward to meeting and making new friends in our changing ward, and from the sounds of it, we will probably have a new bishopric soon too (they have been there for 6 yrs!) I am thankful we are in primary for some reason it seems a little less scary than relief society.. :)

-S