Random observations/notes...

• Although he wasn't here for her first day of school, John was very much present for Nora's moving up ceremony and last day of school (a half day and we took her to a new cheese shop/deli in town for lunch):

  

  Our new 1st grader!

• I never realized until after John's accident just how often the helicopter lands at Memorial Hospital (a Level II Trauma center, 3 blocks from our house). You can hear the chopper plain as day throughout my house and yard.
• Wednesday night, the tornado sirens went off just. after. we. left Nora's room... but the good news is, we got to do a drill and we had our first time getting everyone to the basement since John's accident. We made it in 3 minutes (I think -- I wasn't actually timing us), Nora did everything we had outlined for her when we discussed it a few weeks ago, we remembered everything, and the cats let me catch them (a minor miracle!). The great news: no tornado, so just some extra reading time.
• Nora is loving being home for the summer with Ma and Pa -- we're playing an extended game of Little House on the Prairie. And somehow, she still finds it exciting, 2 weeks in, when I take her to my office three times a week while John does his exercises at Rolfs.
• John and I are catching up on movies we've missed. Two we've enjoyed so far are Butter and Lincoln (very different stories with intriguing thematic overlaps).
• And with the blessing of John's doctor and PT, he's tried driving in a parking lot. He's able to maneuver from the brake to gas pedal (and more importantly, back again!) and he can control the wheel, so now he just has to adjust to new blind spots and get acclimated to driving in traffic.

Most importantly, Nora and I are planning to spoil him silly on Sunday...

June 1, 2013

The 10-month mark came and went without fanfare on Thursday (I was caught up in a work deadline which I actually made, with half a day to spare!), but today we joined another celebration: our neighbor's son (the one we passed the Lourdes water on to) has been home from the hospital for the past month or so, and today they had a welcome home party for him. It was great to see him outside of a hospital setting and even better for Nora to meet him since she's been asking God to help him heal for the past five months. M. even graciously posed for a photo with us (and his mom's ok'ed me posting it):

John continues to do his exercise routine at the campus gym three times a week. Nora and I take him for an after-dinner walk a couple of times a week, as well, and he's built up enough stamina to make it around our block (which is actually half a mile).

I'll close with an update from Nora: "Daddy is doing good. He's walking faster and a lot better."