Jan 6 and before

Maggie and June at Nathan room.

Today was the first day of school for the kids here.  Sara and the kids got home yesterday in the evening.  Sara had lots of errands to do so we volunteered to take Maggie.  Maggie is so much fun.  She has an exuberance that is exciting.  She talks a lot and has a lot to say about my little ponies but it is sometime hard to understand what she is saying because she does not enunciate all things correctly yet.

Nathan standing by himself from his wheelchair

When Sara left at 7:15 a.m. I thought I might get to go back to bed for a while but I had only laid down for 10 minutes when I heard Maggie whimpering.  So I got up and tried to help her with the things that she needed.  We got some breakfast and she wanted to watch a movie called My Little Pony:  Equestria Girls.  While she watched the movie Larry and I got dressed and had breakfast.

We were ready by 9:00 a.m. so we went to the gym first.  Maggie was able to go to the nursery there.  We did not stay long, only an hour, because we needed to go to a weight watcher's meeting at 10:30 a.m. in Schertz.  So we only walked for the time that we were there.  Maggie liked the Barbies and the Barbie doll house that they had in the nursery.

Nathan standing by himself from his wheelchair

I might mention here that it was bitter cold today.  Maggie did not want to wear her big coat when we left so I let her walk out to the car with just a sweatshirt on like she wanted but took the coat.  When we got to the gym she did not fight me about putting it on for the rest of the day.  It was 25 with a wind blowing that Larry said made it feel like 13 degrees.  It was 70 on Saturday and beautiful.  Then it dropped to 44 Sunday with a wind so it was pretty cold that day but today was almost as cold as Utah.

Maggie, Sara, and Nathan enjoying dessert

At weight watchers Larry had lost 8 lbs on the new program Simple Start and I had lost 4.  I was surprised because it seemed to me that we had eaten a lot.  Simple Start restricts you to certain foods though so it is a little frustrating for me.  You do not have to count points but you do have to stay to certain foods.  Sometimes I would like to be restricted to the points and be able to eat from a wide range of foods.  But I liked the fact that I could eat more bread on the Simple Start.  Actually Simple Start is just a marketing plan to emphasize the Simply Filling technique that Weight Watchers has had for some time.

The weight watchers ladies were so good to Maggie.  They let her have a book and a pen so she could write on it and they were passing out samples of the weight watcher's brownies and when she wined for another brownie the gave her two.  They also got her a clipboard with paper to draw on when she got tired of the book.  She thought she was pretty special and I was impressed.

Isaac, David and Sammy waiting for their food

After that we went to see Nathan.  He was excited to see Maggie after a week.  He was also excited to show us that he could stand up from his wheelchair and stand there for several minutes all by himself.  We talked for the hour and then went back to the house when he had to eat lunch so we could eat.

Before we went to the house though we had to go shopping.  We had eaten all the food that we had purchased last week and some of Sara's so we needed to get some.  It was fun shopping with Maggie.  When we started going into WalMart she started to say she wanted another My little Pony.  Then as we went through the isles of the store she wanted something on all the isles.  We made it out with only buying her cocoa, Strawberry Milk, and an apple.

June and Larry waiting for dinner

After we had eaten we went back to see Nathan.  We had decided to take the family out to dinner for our present to Nathan so he could get out again.  As the 7th is Nathan's birthday and Sara has a party planned at the Care Center for him we opted to take them out for Family Home Evening on Monday.  We spent some time at the Care Center looking at the menu for Chili's online as that is where we had decided to go.  That way Larry and I knew what we wanted before we got there.

Maggie and Sammy

Sara and the boys met us at the Care Center and we had a good discussion for a while and Nathan showed them that he could stand on his own by the wheelchair.  Then Sara and David and Maggie left to get some reward coupons that Sara had for Chili's and to get some cash for the taxi.  We stayed at the care center with Sam and Isaac until it was time to go to Chili's about 5:30 p.m.

/We had a good dinner at the restaurant.  We even shared dessert and had the servers bring Nathan a treat and sing to him. Larry and I took the kids home and put them to bed after that.  We watched a couple of episodes of Bones and then we went to bed.  Sara followed the taxi home and spent some time with Nathan before she came home.

Maggie coming out of her castle she got for Christmas

Going back in the week for the days that I did not post these are some of the highlights. 

Isaac enjoying a smoothie

Sunday was special because Nathan bore his testimony at church.  He went to the front and they had a microphone that they could bring to him.  He said that he knew that God loves us and that the church is true.  He said that he knew that Joseph Smith was a Prophet and many more things.  I think that he really affected many at the ward.  Several bore their testimonies after that and mentioned how Nathan had helped them in various ways.  One lady in Relief Society told me that he has been a unifying force for the ward.

Sara and the kids came home in the afternoon.  I didn't understand why they didn't go to see Nathan when they got back but maybe I don't know how it feels to live with the problem everyday.  After we went back to visit, Sara went up in the evening to see Nathan.

David, Sammy, and Isaac playing after returning home.

Nathan has been trying to learn to write again.  This is one page from therapy

Friday and Saturday I cannot remember anything that was special except that when I went to WalMart on Thursday night I must have dropped my Visa Card.  I got a notification on Saturday morning that my bank account wanted to know if some charges are valid.  When I first looked I thought that they were things we had purchased but then we realized that there was a $200. purchase on Saturday at WalMart and we had not been near WalMart.  I still thought I had my card so I went to look for it to call customer service and realized that I did not have it.  Anyway there was about $500.00 in purchases that had been made since Thursday night on my card.  So I had to cancel it and call the police that evening.  It was the third time that week that we did not make it back to the care center to see Nathan because of some problem.  I told him that I was not making this up.