End of Summer Wrap-Up

It's been a great summer! However, I am definitely looking forward to a little bit of down time! Ian started school this morning. He wasn't ready to get up by any means, but by the time the bus came at 7:25 he was ready to roll! Olivia slept through the whole thing, which made it easier too.

We finished up the summer by going to Gulf Shores with my parents, brother and family, and my grandmother. We all had a great time, and it was a wonderful opportunity for us to spend time together! Since our family lives in Oklahoma, we don't see them for extended periods. Also, my parents were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, so it was a great celebration of their years together.

Olivia is doing great! She will be starting a mother's day out program in a couple of weeks. I don't foresee any problems. She stays with the sitter fine and now goes to Bible class and children's worship by herself. It took awhile for her to stay in Bible class, but one day after we dropped Ian off at his class and asked her if she was ready to go by herself, she said yes and hasn't looked back since! Her speech is coming along- slowly- but in the right direction. She is a big talker, but the majority of what she says we can't understand! I think it must be Thai babble. She does say several English words though and is starting to put two words together with prompting. Another interesting thing she does is when she writes her letters, they still look like the Thai alphabet. I don't think they're really letters of their alphabet, but her scribble letters look distinctly Thai.

The day we left for Gulf Shores Ian had an appointment at Shriners Hospital, which luckily is located about 15 minutes from our house. That morning of the appointment we scheduled him for surgery October 7th. He will be having grafts (with bone being taken from his hip) on the outside of both of his ankles, and they will also fuse ligaments (I think it is ligaments.) on the inside of both ankles. He will be in the hospital the 6th-9th and will come home with casts for 6 weeks. We have known this surgery was coming and were not too surprised to be told we could do it now. We've been waiting for his bones to mature. Of course we hate to have to have the surgery ,but it will be wonderful having this problem fixed. He is such a precious boy and having to watch him go through this will be difficult, no doubt. Hopefully, they will make him as comfortable as possible. I'm sure we will step up the posts as the procedure gets closer.

It looks like someone is getting hungry for breakfast. She has been very patient as I write, which isn't always the case! Have a great day, and I hope the first days of school go well for all our kids. It's an exciting time for them (and us!).

Leah