We're Home!!

It is good to be home although sometimes I want to go back to San Antonio because it is colder here.  It hasn't been really cold but walking in 40 degree weather requires a sweat shirt and gloves for me.  Larry has not pulled out his coat though.

We had a good lesson in church on the importance of the prophet.  I think that is one of the things that makes our church unique that we believe in continuing revelation.  That makes it possible for us to know what is important to us today in following the doctrine of Christ.  Many people criticize us for things that past .prophets have said that appear to be contradictory but that is the beauty of our system.  What the current prophets say is the most important and they will always preach the doctrine of Christ.

The first snow fall on the mountains

Today was the primary program.  It is always one of my favorite programs.  There were a lot of people at church today because of that and a set of twins that was recently born in our ward were also blessed so they brought in family also.

I wore my hair in a pony tail today and wore my jacket that makes me look skinny over my new dress and so several people finally noticed that I am losing weight.  Brother Peterson said he voted for the pony tail when I told him I was trying to decide whether to keep it or to cut my hair in layers so that it would curl better.  He said it made me look 15 years younger so it was great to have a compliment day from him and several others.

Some of the family are fasting and praying for Kyle because the scout master has lost his record of what he has passed off and Kyle does not have a record so he may not be able to get his Eagle.  We are praying that the record can be found.  But if the Lord says no then we will have to accept that.  Kyle thought he had passed off up to his First Class but they have no record of him doing anything.

Ethan being presented his Eagle

Our grandson Ethan got his Eagle a couple of weeks ago.  He really did a good job.  His parents, Daniel and Michelle, really went all out for the court of honor and it was a nice affair.  Hopefully I can post some pictures that we took of his court of honor.

Ethan pinning his parents

Yesterday we worked at the Family Search Center.  I was able to help a couple of people with problems they had with the way the pedigree was showing that was incorrect.  I also found a census with Larry's grandfather that they called Daddy Jack living with an Uncle and Aunt in Montana in 1910.  Larry was not aware of that.  I looked up some things on the Uncle, James Ferris, and found on one census that a George Ferris was living with his family in the 1870 census.  He was much older than the other children so I am curious if that was his dad's brother but I have no information on the parents of the Father so I was not able to find anything yesterday.

In the afternoon we went down to help Mom.  Keith was there with Caleb and we were able to show them and Mom the pictures of Nathan that we just took last week.  Annette came while we were there and we were able to have a good conversation before we left, after we worked at vacuuming and dusting etc.  Annette was in for the blessing of Weston and Deanna's new daughter today.

Friday was our first day back from San Antonio.  We had our LDS Employment mission.  I was able to make 4 placements so I felt good about that but I was able to help a sister that I have been working with for sometime get a good lead on a job.  That felt good and I hope that she gets it.  The Spirit was really there helping Friday.  I think it was because I was more sincere in my prayers that day.  Sister Mckinistry was not there as they were going out of town so Sister Alvey came in for the afternoon.  She is really a spitfire at 86 and she is so much fun.  She was excited because she had had twin great grandbabies born the day before.  She was also sad because one of them had stopped breathing for a few minutes so she was in the NICU.  We talked about that and everyone was excited to hear about how Nathan was doing now we were back.

Friday evening we walked and watched TV and worked on the budget.  We spent too much in San Antonio and I had made two mistakes that totaled $328.00 so it was not a good night.  But we will be okay.  We still have things to sell.

Thursday was a bittersweet day.  We were excited to come home but the week with Sara and Nathan and the kids had just flown by so fast.  We went to the Polytrauma Center in the morning after packing.  Nathan was in Occupational Therapy.  He was working on taking off and putting on his socks and shoes.  He was able to do it but it took several tries.  I just count my blessings every time I see him having to work so hard to do a simple task.  He has learned to put his own shirt on again but he is still learning to put on the shoes and socks and his pants.  By the time he was finished with that we had to say goodbye.  He cried and said it had been too short for him also.

Some of our fall leaves.  I thought this was interesting because the leaves on the inside were yellow and the leaves on the outside were red

After we had left the hospital we had to hurry and get something to eat and get to the airport.  Larry wanted to try one of the Mexican stands by the side of the road.  We tried one and they only sold their tacos etc. by the dozen and half dozen so we went to another.  We had to wait fifteen minutes for the food and it wasn't that good.  We got home so Sara could take us to the airport about the time we had wanted to be at the airport.  Sammy and Isaac had early out that day so Sara had left the Polytrauma Center to get them and then we were going to leave.  Maggie of course did not have preschool on Thursday, so we were able to say goodbye to them at that time.  We said goodbye to David in the morning because he is in middle school now so he is in a different school.

We made it to the airport fine and were able to get checked in once they realized that they had canceled our reservations when they transferred us to Delta the week before.  But it didn't take long so we made it on the flight but were late for our priority boarding.  Oh well!  When we got to Houston we thought that we would have to go a long distance to our next flight but it was in the next section over right there where we deplaned from the first.  That was easy.

Erick and Heather and Ryker picked us up from the airport.  It was fun to see them but it was noticeably colder than San Antonio.  We had a good ride home talking about what had happened with both of us.

Wednesday we went to the Polytrauma Center after getting ready in the morning.  Nathan was just finishing up Recreational Therapy in the courtyard playing bocci ball.  Larry knew what it was but I had never heard of this game.  I played one round with him and won but it was beginners luck.  Then we went to what we thought was going to be occupational therapy but it was a double with physical therapy.  We had scheduled a hangout on Google plus with BJ for 11:00 am and so they were very accommodating and scheduled his occupational therapy for the afternoon and worked on his physical therapy then because the physical therapist was leaving later.  They had him up on all fours for a while working with his arms and legs and shoulders.  His knees got tired after a half hour of this so they had him lay on his belly.  They had him bend his legs up backwards towards his bottom and it was surprising.  He is usually stronger on the left side but he had to really work to get his left leg to lift up and his right side was just coming up with ease.  They worked on that for about a half hour or more.  Then they had him slide along the edge of the exercise mat sitting up and stand up by the walker.  Sliding is going well but it still takes him quite a bit of time to accomplish, maybe 5 minutes to slide 10 feet.  Then they had him walk with the walker over to his wheelchair.  Right now he has to be held with the belt because sometimes he cannot get his bottom to stay up.  He is just learning to coordinate the movement of his arms and legs and body and it is a lot to focus on when you are having to open up new synapses in the brain.   Again it makes me so grateful for the things that my body can do that I take for granted.  He walked 27 ft. mostly by himself with a wheelchair behind him just in case but he did not need the net and his therapist said she was doing minimal helping.

I tried to get some exercise each day by walking in circles around the exercise mats and walking in circles in Sara's kitchen/family room area.  But Larry said I was driving everyone crazy on that day and Judy was frustrated with it also so I finally quit.

We actually got Google hangout to work on Google + and Nathan was able to see and talk to BJ.  I was surprised to see that he did not talk more on the visits that he had with his brothers and sisters.  But we were able to get it to work on my computer.  He and BJ talked for about 45 minutes and had a good talk.

John and Judy had to leave at noon that day because the prescriptions they had ordered were in and they didn't want to take a chance that something would happen to them.

Larry and I left for lunch and went to Larry's favorite, when we are in a place where they have it, Jack in the Box.  Driving down Larry noticed that the car was heating up.  We ate at the restaurant and then we began to think about what we could do because we did not want to burn up the engine.  I called our insurance and they said that the insurance follows the car so if we were in someone else's car we were not covered.  Larry tried to lift the hood but couldn't so we were trying to figure out if we should call Sara.  Then Larry suddenly gets out and lifts the hood.  He told me later he prayed about it.  Anyway we determined that it was the radiator was dry and the van was low on oil.  We took our cups and carried water from the rest room and filled up the radiator and we stopped and bought some oil and the problem was solved we thought but when Sara took us to the airport it was leaking so we told her that she better get it checked.

We missed Nathan occupational therapy with the work on the van but she told us the next day they worked on putting on shoes and socks.  She recommended that he get some half socks to make it easier.

We decided to walk down to the courtyard with Nathan.  It was so fun to have him all by ourselves and just talk.  We talked about all kinds of things.  It is so good to be able to talk to him and not have to struggle to understand what he is saying.  He is pretty proud of his kids and liked talking about them.  He also explained how hard it is to have so much to still do to get his body working better.  He also mentioned that it is so good to be able to eat again after not eating for 4 months.

Sara and the kids came in about 3:30 pm and she stayed so the kids could get some exercise for a few minutes.  She was excited because she had been to parent teacher conferences and Sammy had done his writing that day.  She said that he usually refuses to write even though he can write.  The handwriting she showed us was very nice.  I was impressed because she told us several things that this teacher was doing to help Sammy like she lets him lead when they wake somewhere and they are supposed to do what Sammy does, so if he sticks his arms out they did the same things.

While we were sitting there Nathan called his sister Maren and was able to talk to to her and Brinlie and Landon.  It was good to hear them talk but the connection wasn't very good so I think it was hard for them to understand Nathan.

That night we took the kids to McDonald's for dinner and home and got them to bed so Sara and Nathan could have some one on one time.

I typed up what had happened on Monday and Tuesday but I lost it on Sunday.  I am trying to reconstruct it now more than two weeks later so I am having a hard time.  That is why this was not posted on Sunday.  Sometimes computers are so frustrating.  I lost 2 hours of work when I tried to post the pictures and this is the first time I have had time to work on it again.

Nathan walking with the walker

Tuesday Nathan was able to walk 15 ft with a walker and the therapist holding him with a belt.  It was exciting.  I was able to follow him with a wheelchair just in case he needed to sit down but he made it the whole way with no sitting down and the therapist said that she gave minimal help.  He worked really hard before that working on other parts of the body.

Tuesday Mike Trolinger came up to see Nathan and to see his parents also.  We went to lunch at Golden Corral and were able to have a good visit with him while Nathan started speech therapy.  Apparently the speech therapist is heavily involved in helping him learn to eat again.  She was showing him how to move his head back and wanted to know if he could cut his meat.  He had mainly been eating the meat by picking up the whole piece and biting off pieces so they got him a rocking knife to cut his meat with.

Judy Trolinger, John Trolinger, June Presser, Larry Presser, Mike Trolinger, Front: Maggie Christiansen, Sara Christiansen, Nathan Christiansen

We went back to the Trauma Center after lunch and were able to spend some time talking to Nathan.  He called Kirsten and talked to her for a while.  She was excited to talk to him but just before we talked to her BJ had texted us and ask us if he could contact Nathan the next day on Hangouts and so while he talked to Kirsten he was trying to sign up for Google+.  This is typical Nathan behavior.  He used to do  things before when he was talking to you on the phone so I guess that is confirmation that he still has the same personality.

We took left about 5 pm and went home so Sara could go to the hospital and be with Nathan one on one.  She made some yummy tacos and we did things with the kids and put them to bed.

Monday Nathan worked on some exercises and walked on the bars with the physical therapist.  The occupational therapist often works with the physical therapist and they go for two hours.

Sara got home on Sunday night late so we let her sleep in and took Maggie with us to the hospital.  We went for lunch to Joe's Crabshack with Judy and John.  Maggie was hesitant about the big shark they had hanging from the ceiling but when I told her that it was just pretend then she relaxed.  It was fun to go there and have some time to relax.

We went back up to the hospital for the afternoon.  Sara came up after the kids got home from school.  They decided to stay with Nathan for a while.  The kids were watching the Crood's again that Kirsten had sent and they wanted to have Family Home Evening.  We wanted to spend some time with Judy and John so we left them at the hospital and went with Judy and John.

We went to a place called Logan's Steak House.  We had a good time talking about Family History and eating.  John and Judy said that we eat to fast, that we need to enjoy our food.  We were not aware that we were eating fast.  It was a fun night and we had a good time.  When we got home Sara and the kids were already in bed.