As I mentioned in my last email, this has been a busy travelling summer. Which has been great. It's been good for me to get out of town with my frisbee team and have some time without the kids (thanks Keith!). It's also been good for the kids. It seems that when we take the kids travelling, Sophie comes back and shows a jump in her development. This summer was no exception.
In June we went to visit my brother and his family in San Diego. I can't remember a specific "jump" that Sophie made, but overall it helped with her speech, physical therapy and eating. Her GI doc has been slowly weaning her off the G-tube; she currently gets about half her liquids from the G-tube and half by mouth. It's a slow process, but she is showing improvement.
In July I took the kids to New York to see Keith's side of the family. Keith didn't go, but my mother-in-law Peggy travelled with us, which was a big help. Owen actually showed some development on this trip. One afternoon we were at Peggy's cousin's house when it was raining. Owen was of course shy at first, but Steve convinced him to go feed the fish in the pond; and then count the fish. Owen had a ball going back and forth from the patio to the pond counting different kind of "fish" in the pond - sharks, sea horses, octopus, etc. All of this while getting wet in the rain! Before the trip Owen hated getting wet ("except in the pool or in the bath"). Then, after years of refusing ice cream and popsicles because they were too cold, he tried, and ate, frozen yogurt.
In August we went up to Flagstaff with my parents to stay in a time share resort. It was a very relaxing week for me. It rained every day, but we didn't really care; we did our outdoorsy stuff in the morning and then came back to the condo (which was beautiful!) in the afternoon for naps and movies. The biggest thing to come out of this trip was that Sophie started standing on her own! At first she just let go and didn't realize she was doing it; now she does it on purpose and gets a big kick out of it. The longest I've seen her stand is for about 6 seconds; she still has her feet kind of wide, so she still has a ways to go, but I like that she is motivated to try it herself.
Our family trips are over for the summer, but it's starting to finally cool off here, so we can get out and about around town, which is good for everyone!
Here are some pics from the trips. A lot more are
on my Picasa page.
