This and That

First, Claire and Paul are back from St. Louis, safe and sound! They got in on Monday night. Claire loves to fly, no kidding! She sees an airplane and says "go on airplane". She wants to sit in her seat, buckle herself up and she wants her orange juice with ice....and she will tell the attendant herself, thank you very much! This trip was a follow up visit to be certain that everything was progressing the way they would expect after getting casts off and wear the brace. Because Dr. Dobbs specializes in club foot and because he works at two different hospitals, he sees more vertical talus patients than other doctors would normally see. He sees so many that he was able to perfect that casting method of correcting vertical talus where most other doctors would recommend surgery. So, once every year Dr. Dobbs invites doctors from around the country to come to St. Louis and see his vertical talus patients. He is able to show them pictures and x-rays before the correction and then they look at the child to see the finished results. Claire was examined by 6 physicians on this trip and they were all in awe of the correction Dr. Dobbs was able to do in just 3 castings and a tenotomy!! Everything looks great and we don't have to go back for 3 (if there seems to be any problems) to 6 months!

Claire is holding my arms....she's not too sure about all that fire on those candles!

Second, we had a lovely birthday dinner for our beautiful birthday girl on Tuesday night! Lizzie came over and I made her favorite, shrimp and grits. It's actually her recipe but I wouldn't let her touch it......'cause it's her birthday dinner, that's why! And everybody knows you are not supposed to cook your own birthday dinner! I also made Lizzie's favorite cake, a chocolate chip, sour cream cake that I got the recipe for years ago from a friend. Well, I went to make the thing and HORRORS, I could not find the recipe. I have a notebook and each of my prized recipes is color coded (purple for desserts) and stored in a protective sleeve. IT IS MISSING and I have no memory of where I put it. Claire didn't take nearly as long as usual to warm up to her so that was pretty exciting! I guess she comes around enough now that Claire actually remembers her from one time to the next!



In other news....

• Claire had her first eye doctor appointment and although she was not impressed with having to have eye drops put in her eyes, not once but three times, everything went well and she doesn't have to see that doctor for 2 years!
  
• Her AFOs are supposed to be here int he morning and so is her physical therapist. I can not wait to see how that goes!


• We have 7 days until we leave for the first camping trip we have taken in 2 years! We will leave next Wednesday and return Sunday. We were gifted with a pop-up tent camper a few years ago and we have only used it once. I'm hoping that this is the beginning of a new trend in the Gour household! I love to have the kids outside, running around, like the wild young-ins that they are! We're going up to a state park in upper South Carolina and somehow I doubt they have wireless service, so I may be offline for a few days! YIKES! If I can't get on the computer I will try to use Paul's cell to send a few short posts and pictures via email....if they even have cell reception.................

Well, I'm heading over to the prayer meetin' at Significant Source. If you're new to this, my friend there holds a weekly prayer meeting where you can leave prayer requests in her comments box...or just pray with her for anyone that did. You can get there by clicking on the prayer meetin' link above.