Laura's 23rd Birthday

The past couple months have added new exciting elements to our life.  First, it was last week that we celebrated Laura's 23rd birthday.  We stretched this celebration over a few days to make it impressionable.  First, we went out as a family to Laura's choice of restaurants (Bahama Breeze, Towson, MD - Laura loves their macaroni and cheese with a Shirley Temple drink).  Laura's best friend since middle school was able to join us. Also, her grandparents (Darlene's side), her sister Emily,  brother Tim, with his girlfiend Sarah, joined us.  There were 9 of us.

A couple days later we shared a birthday dinner at our home. 

As you can see, Laura has finally recieved the specialized wheel chair that helps her maintain proper posture.  Between getting the approvals and updating the specifications with two changes/revisions, this process has taken 5 months from the day we started.  I know, it sounds like a long time, but in reality it wasn't - careful attention to detail and forecasting of Laura's future needs resulted in a wheelchair we hope will last a long time.

For the past couple of months, Laura has participated in the Aqua Therapy program at Kennedy Krieger.  This is set to expire at the end of December, so as a family we've joined the MAC athletic club in Timonium Maryland. They have salt water pools, therapy pools with wheel chair access, accesible private bathrooms and showers and towel service.  Darlene, Laura, Emily and I all look foward to this.  In fact, Darlene and Emily really enjoy the Zumba class they do together. Laura goes one or twice a week for swimming and use of the recumbent bike. I go there mainly for the lap swimming and the weight machine circuits. 

We have started converting the house to a Christmas theme and we're all looking foward to this joyful time of year.  Hopefully it won't be so long until my next posting, but rest assured that all is going well.  We are very grateful to friends and family who are offering encouragement, prayer, and practical forms of support  during what is really only the beginning of a lifelong change for all of us.