Apple Juice

When I was a child my grandparents house was a magical place. It was a nice large home with lots of rooms. As kids it was a maze of hiding places and lots of things to discover. One thing that we always looked forward to was the refrigerator in my grandpa's workshop. In that fridge there was always IBC root beer and little glass bottles of Martinelli's apple juice. Nothing in the world tasted sweeter than that apple juice. Grandpa and Grandma knew how much us kids loved it and made sure to always have some when we came over.

It brought me almost to tears when Andrew and I were at my grandpas house and he pulled out a bottle for Andrew. Sadly the bottles are plastic now - but the sentiment is the same. I love seeing my grandparents interact with Andrew and see their relationship grow.

Happenings of May.

 In early May my cousin Michelle and her son Liam came out for a visit. Nora and Liam are about a month apart in age. It was fun to see them play around. It was so much fun catching up with Michelle!

A trip to the mall would not be complete (for Andrew) without a ride on the train.

 One of the many perks of living with my parents is the backyard! Lots of playing and swinging....

We went strawberry picking with my sister and her kids. Once Nora realized that you could eat the strawberries... she became a lean mean strawberry eating machine. 

Dan and Kim came for a visit from New Orleans. They brought lots of goodies from Mardi Gras. Nora LOVED the necklaces.

Lots of swimming with Aunt Lollie...

As well as a few attempts with the cousins.

The month of May was a good one. Nothing like summer time!

Day Out with Thomas

In May my parents took Andrew to go see Thomas the Train. We all went up to Chattanooga and fulfilled a childhood dream of Andrew's. It was such a great day. Andrew was in train heaven!

It was held at a train museum, which was neat. We were able to see lot of different types of trains and see some of them in action.

 Andrew and Thomas!

Riding on Thomas was fun. The train chugged through some beautiful parts of Tennessee. (God bless the South!)

(Aren't my parents too cute together?!)

Nora and Andrew loved riding on the train.

After the train ride Andrew met Sir Topham Hat.

It was such a great event. It was perfectly timed as well. We really struck the iron while it was hot. Andrew still loves Thomas the train, but when this happened - he was pretty much obsessed. (We've now branched out to many forms of transportation). If you ever have the chance to take a train loving little boy to meet Thomas - DO IT. You won't regret it!

Moving on.

At the end of April we moved from Athens. We LOVED living there! We had a close knit church family (with 10 of those families living in our complex!) most of them were also in the graduate student family phase of life. It was sad saying goodbye and leaving our home of 4 years. 

Nora looved all the empty (and unlocked!) cabinets.

Nora squealing while running around our bone empty apartment. 

We are now living in my parents basement (thanks mom and dad!) while Morgan completes his internship (last step of his PhD program). It's a good bit smaller, but we are settled and doing well. The kids have separate rooms... thank goodness because they did not sleep well in the same room.

Thankful.

One thing that we were very sad about leaving was Andrew's speech and occupational therapies. We had WONDERFUL therapists at ARMC, especially Andrew's speech therapist. She became a member of our family. Andrew had been seeing her since November of 2010 once or twice a week. When we first started Andrew could not talk, had poor eye contact and had other communication issues. We saw lots of highs and lows. First diagnosed with Apraxia then came the Autism diagnosis (definitely tears during that appointment) then TONS of highs after that. Andrew is a trooper - and Marcie knew how to help him achieve so much. We later added Occupation therapy - he was also able to make a lot of gains with that. Some weeks you'd find us there up to three times a week (thank goodness they validated parking!) We loved all the staff there.

Fast forward two and a half years. He is a completely different child in every aspect than he was when we started. He talks (all the time) and his communication is so much better. We were so sad to leave Marcie. I'm so grateful for what I've learned to be able to help Andrew. He's definitely on the path to success!