Family Summer Picnic

Thomas's work has a summer picnic each year for the families of the employees. We've missed it most years for one reason or another, but we got to go this year and it was at the Greenville Zoo! It was a couple of weekends ago (I'm once again behind in posting) on a Saturday evening. Apart from it being 10 million degrees outside, we had such a fantastic time. We got to meet kids and babies we hadn't met before, see old friends and acquaintances, eat shaved ice and Moe's catering, see animals, hear some fun live music, and hang out with some of our faves, the Mays family. What's not to love about that?

Watching the monkeys

William, Steph, me, Ava Lane, Stokes & Ryan

It was seriously really hot. The only saving grace of being completely sweaty is that everyone else was a hot, sweaty mess, too. We had Ryan's Frogg Togg towel to help keep him cool, but of course, could not pass up the opportunity to take him through the mister to cool off a little. The progression of Ryan going through the mister...

He LOVED it!

We went into an educational room that had a parrot, a snake and this big bug!

Stokes petting a hissing cockroach

William petting it, too

We  finally got to meet Lakely!
William loved touching her feet!

Face paint time! When Thomas and Clark got in line for food, Steph and I took all the kids to this picnic area to wait. The Upstate Children's Museum had some displays set up with games and some big building blocks, which was pretty fun. There were also a few face painters there and the kids could pick out what they wanted to get. William got a bat (like a Halloween bat - not baseball) and a football and Stokes got a cupcake and a football. Later on I got Ryan a tiger paw. :)

We got some dinner, played a lot, danced to some fun live Caribbean music with the awesome band that was playing and just had FUN. I appreciate Thomas's company doing things like this where we can go and have a good time, kids included!

Girls, Nanas and a DATE

A few weekends ago and a couple of days leading up to that weekend was fun due to some sweet, sweet visitors we had! The Nanas came and brought cousin Kaitlyn and cousin Whitney. The girls were so patient and sweet to the boys. The boys absolutely thought that K & W hung the moon. They got here on Wednesday night and then I kept the boys home from school on Thursday so that they could all hang out while I was in meetings (except for Ryan, who went to school so that he wouldn't miss his therapy, but I picked him up early that afternoon). The kids all had a fun time playing outside and hanging out with family.

Whitney, Kaitlyn and William

Ryan and Nana Wanda

Kaitlyn and Whitney slept on an air mattress in the bonus room/my office/total junk room (EEK) and the boys were crushed when we told them they couldn't sleep on the air mattress with their cousins! We said that when they woke up in the morning, they could go in there and wake the girls up or sleep in with them. The boys did not forget that overnight and the very first thing they did was go to the bonus room and get in bed with the girls. It was adorable!

William in bed with the girls - snuggling up!

Ryan and Nana

Kaitlyn and Whitney came to swim lessons on Thursday.
This was taken before the lesson started.

On Thursday evening, after swim lessons, we had Terry, Carole and MaSha join us for dinner and good old fashioned catching up. It was a fun night! 

Terry making Ryan laugh

The ladies!
Terry, Carole, me, Nana Wanda, MaSha, Nana

Kaitlyn with Ryan and Stokes

On Friday morning, the Nanas and the girls left to go down to Charleston to take Kaitlyn back home. Her dad had weekend plans and needed her home on Friday, and we were so sad to see her go. 

Friday morning picture before school/road trip

Hugs and...

Kisses!

The Nanas and Whitney came back late that afternoon after driving back and forth so that they could break up their trip and not have to drive all the way back to Chattanooga from Charleston, which is a really long drive! It was great to have them here, and Thomas and I took full advantage, because we got to have a date night! We had worked it out in advance and asked the Nanas if they'd be willing to watch the kids and let us go out. The Tams were here for a free concert in Mauldin. We LOVE beach music and shagging. So I was thrilled to get to go. I saw my old cheerleading coaches from high school and several friends and acquaintances. Despite the heat, it was a great night out and we had a blast...until the sky opened up and it rained like crazy. We could see the storm was coming but kept hoping that it would change directions or miss us altogether, but once that thunder started cracking, everyone grabbed their tailgate chairs and rushed back to their cars. Even the Tams were singing and carrying their mics but heading back into the building to get out of the storm. When we got to Thomas's truck, it absolutely unloaded. We could hardly see to drive back home! So our date night got cut a bit shorter than we had hoped, but we had a really great time, nonetheless. 

My honey and me on a DATE NIGHT!

Opening act

The Tams performing and people shagging.
See the guy in the red beret out in the crowd?!?!
He's the lead singer!

Meanwhile back at the house...

William, Whitney and Stokes

riding bikes

With Nana

Ryan was inside with Nana Wanda!

Saturday morning...

Nana Wanda and Stokes

Nana and the boys

With sweetie RyRy

Everyone had to leave on Saturday morning to go back home and it always makes me so sad when they have to leave. There's too much time between visits. We know we'll see them at Thanksgiving, but hopefully we can plan something before then, too. 

Swim lessons

We signed Stokes and William up for swim lessons with the lifeguards at our pool. It was a 2 week class with 30 minute evening sessions Mon. - Thurs. of each week. It's really incredible to see the progress made at each class. They had a blast and got so excited at the end of the school day because they knew they were going to the POOL!

They took the class with their little buddy and backyard neighbor, Ben, which was cool because I got to talk to his parents during the class and we all were pretty much the same with when we needed to step in and try to discipline or when we needed to hang back. I say the discipline comment because these little fish just wanted to go underwater the whole time and had their heads under and couldn't hear what their swim teacher wanted them to do! Rascals!

Anyway, it was mostly a safety based class and they learned how to kick, "scoop ice cream" aka do arm strokes, bob in the water, jump in from the side and touch the bottom, use the wall to move around the pool and float. I'm not going to exaggerate at all and say that we have "swimmers" or even that they can go 100% without puddle jumpers, but they did make GREAT progress. Not only that, but we now have the tools we need to work with them on the weekends to continue to teach them what to do.

Both of these videos were from the first week of swim lessons. My videos from the second week, when they were doing more on their own, haven't uploaded yet. Let's all sing together: I love technology!

New gear

Ryan is getting heavier and heavier. He can walk when we are holding his hands, but he goes somewhat slow and it's definitely a hands-on job, not something you can do when you have a long way to walk or need to use your hands to, say, push a shopping cart or something during errands. He's getting stronger and better at walking, but it's not always realistic to be able to walk with him everywhere and he's getting harder and harder to carry for long distances.

We've been hesitant to get him a wheelchair for a few reasons. 1) a wheelchair? For my baby? It seems so "real", and each new reality we we come to hits me in the face. You'd think I'd be prepared for it, but I'm not. Having a wheelchair means he has a real disability (duh). It's still a hard concept to totally accept. I'm not sure why, because I know it's true. 2) Insurance only pays for one type of equipment like a wheelchair every 5 years. Ryan is still making lots of progress and there is hope that he may not need a chair or that he can get to the point when he needs a self propelled chair. Right now he would not be able to propel himself in a chair, but if we got a stroller wheelchair, it would prohibit him from moving himself around if he were to get to the point that he could self propel within the next 5 years. That right there is a tough call. Whatever we decided to get, we would be stuck with for FIVE whole years. That's a long time when you're dealing with small kids. They can make huge leaps and bounds in short periods of time. Essentially we were in a holding pattern, not knowing which type of wheelchair to go with, so not going with any of them.

That's when I came across another mom who works at the boys's school and has a son with special needs that is older. He had a stroller wheelchair that was sitting in storage and she was willing to give it to us. What luck! We can use this one, test it out, see how Ryan does with it without starting our 5 year equipment freeze with insurance. I'm so thankful for this sweet lady and her generosity. We'll find a way to tell her "thank you" at some point!

I took it to school this morning and got his PT to make adjustments as needed to fit Ryan. He LOVES it. As soon as we put him in it, he starts kicking his legs and smiling!





Can you tell he likes it?!?!?!

In addition to that, his school is loaning me a stander to keep at home to help him do more weight bearing and standing to get him stronger and more used to the position. He doesn't like this one as much as the wheelchair, but he's going to have to get used to it. Knowing Ryan, he will end up liking it because he likes just about everything.





So far, not a huge fan of the stander. :(

I'm also working on getting a handicapped placard for my car. Of course there are some hoops I have to jump through and some confusion on my end about what all is needed for the application, but once I get that, it will be easier to get him around town and in and out. That, of course, is going to make it REAL again. Do I sound like I'm in denial? Well, I guess I am.

It's making me sad, but I also am trying to think about the positives: front row parking (!!!!), no lines at amusement parks (should we ever get crazy enough to try to go to Disney), maybe we can get a handicapped spot at Clemson this fall for football games!

I love my precious angel and would go to the ends of the earth for him. He is such a light. And us finally accepting and coming to terms with the "handicapped" label, while it makes me sad, is a minor blip in in the grand scheme of things, especially compared to how much joy he brings us each and every day.  

The Lord's Prayer

Because I never, ever, ever want to forget this.

William and Stokes had been practicing saying the Lord's Prayer at bed time for about a week or two when I got this video back in early June. As of today, William pretty much has it down; Stokes is still working on it. He knows it about 80%, but will need a little reminder or two at the beginning of a line and then he can jump back in.

I'm proud of my sweet boys!

#andtheLionKingcomes
#notsureaboutthatbutwhatever

Blueberry Festival

Last weekend, Thomas went back up to Virginia to spend the weekend with two of his best friends, Joey and Clark. That meant that I was on my own with the little guys for the weekend, except not really because MaSha was in town and wanted to hang out with us, too. I ran my plan for Saturday by her and she was on board!

First off, we went to the Roper Mountain Blueberry Festival. We haven't been to many events at Roper Mountain, so I was going into it a little blind. I thought we might spend an hour or two there, so I had lunch packed in my car for us to have after we left the festival. I was pleasantly surprised at all of the activities and fun things to look at and participate in there. Needless to say, we stayed well longer than an hour and our packed lunch in the cooler stayed there. We ended up getting lunch from the on-site food truck. Tasty! I'm not really sure why it was called the Blueberry Festival, because other than have some vendors there that sold blueberries and blueberry pies, nothing else was really blueberry focused. LOL

When we went in, the first display was the butterfly adventure. After waiting in line for about 10 minutes, we realized that the line was going to take a long time and one of the employees there told us it would be easier (with a shorter line) to come back later, so we did. But first we took butterfly pics of the boys!

Butterfly Stokie

Butterfly William

As we continued walking, we came up to a old time farm. There was a barn with some animals and other pens with more live animals. We walked by a blacksmith cabin, a woodworking area, some gardens, an old home replica, a schoolhouse and other building or things that would have been part of everyday life in the distant past. It was so neat and most of the areas had ways that the kids could participate in some sort of activity. The boys loved it and wanted to stop in each area.

Petting a baby goat

checking out a baby lamb

Enjoying the farm

MaSha with Stokes and William at the pig pen.
The pig's name was Wilbur :)

Pumping water into these buckets

Grapes in the garden

So excited to be there!

Sitting in the classroom with their little chalkboards

Hanging out with Honest Abe! ;)

After all these adventures, we sat down for a minute in the shade (it was a million degrees!!!) and had our food truck lunch (thanks, MaSha, for treating us!). We all needed some time to chill out for a minute, but when that was over, we went into this area that had mini dinosaur skeletons, crafts (which we promptly skipped after I realized at VBS that crafts with these guys are too hard haha), and a very cool marine biology area! The boys got to touch hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs and stingrays. They got to feel coral, shells and other ocean finds. They got to listen to the inside of a conch shell and play an interactive game about the movement trends of schools of fish. It was all very entertaining and very informative. I loved it. Did I mention it was in the A/C? :)

When we left that exhibit, we realized there was a whole other area to explore, but we were short on time....at this point we had been there already for like 3 hours...and we really wanted to check out the butterfly exhibit. It totally did not disappoint! We still had to wait in line, but it was much shorter. When we got in, we got a little tutorial about how to be around the butterflies, how to get them on our nectar sticks, how to NOT hurt them and all sort of other tips. Then it was time to enter. It was so amazing and beautiful! This little area was filled with flowers and butterflies. You could lure them onto your nectar stick and possibly onto you! Each of the boys had a butterfly encounter and they were beyond thrilled! We did have to get onto Stokes for being a bit aggressive with his nectar stick, but I think he was just so excited and wanted to play with allllllll the butterflies! It was a very, very cool experience. I wish we could have spent all day in there. We probably only had 5 or so minutes, but I got out the phone and MaSha and I snapped a few pics for the memories.

showing Ryan the butterfly on my nectar stick

Stokes trying to woo a butterfly

One landed on Ryan's t-shirt!...

...and on Stokes's nectar stick!!...

...and on the back of William's head!!!!

MaSha and William

They were so pretty!

When we left the Blueberry Festival, it was probably around 2, and everyone was dragging a little, but we were all so darn hot and sweaty and the boys wanted to go to the pool, so even though a nap may have been a better idea, I went with the pool suggestion. I had already packed all their swim stuff and snacks for the pool (since I thought we would bail on the festival and have lunch and a little swim break mid-day), so we went over to MaSha's pool for a change of scenery. The boys swam, jumped, played and snacked. Ryan was worn out and fell asleep for a good 30+ minutes right there in his float. He was so peaceful!

pina colada flavored popsicle!

MaSha came back to our house and spent the night so that she could help me with dinner and bedtime, and then to help in the morning before church, too. 

Let's just say that everyone went to bed pretty early that night! It was a long, but super fun day!