Olympus High School Class of 2000 Alumni Website

We are happily hanging around in Houston now. We drove ALL the way from Boston to Dallas, and of course we couldn’t get to our destination without some excitement happening along the way.

Our second day of driving began with me losing our little case full of DVDs and the power cord to the DVD player. Sigh. It must of fallen out of our stuffed-to-the-max car at one of our stops. So we needed to go buy a whole new DVD player, and I wanted it to be one that has a strap to connect to the back of the driver’s headrest. I have only seen those at Costco – so we decided to stop at a Costco sometime that day.

Later that day, somewhere at a truck stop in Pennsylvania, Darren and Paul were in the convenience store and I was feeding Mia baby food in the back seat. I left her in her car seat to minimize the messiness. When I was done I got out of the car to throw the empty jar away. I went to get back in and the doors were all locked somehow! Then I realized that the car keys, my cell phone, purse, and Paul’s phone were all inside the car. Aigh!

So I had to go inside the store and borrow the phone. I called AAA and told them I locked my baby in the car. Luckily it was not a hot day! We decided to give them 30 mins to get there before calling the cops. I was a frazzled mess waiting – but I could see Mia through the window and she seemed ok for most of the time. The last few minutes she was crying. Right when I thought about calling the police the AAA guy showed up to the rescue! He opened up the door and Mia was saved.

Later the same day: we finally track down a Costco in Virginia. It is hard to find and we get there right before closing. Paul runs in to get a DVD player and a DVD for Darren to watch (Darren has been struggling all day without his movies). Paul comes back, we hook up the DVD player. Success! I put in the movie he bought – Wall-E. But the movie won’t play… I look at the case and see that Paul accidentally bougt a Blue-Ray! So we can’t watch it. And the store had just closed.

That was our loveliest day of driving. With all of these stops we only went 400 miles in an entire day if you can believe it! luckily the rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. Whew!

In Houston we are renting a house, and the kids LOVE it. So much space, and a backyard!!

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We made it!

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Love is celebrating birthdays.

Riley got his power chair on wednesday. I’m calling it his new car because it cost more than my car did when I bought it. I was a little worried that he would have troubles with it as far as holding the joystick but he did great for his first time. He can’t hold his head up so they gave us this cool collar for him to wear. When we first put him in it his reaction was “wow!” and he kept going around in circles. Check out the video for a closer look.
 
 
 
 

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Riley's New Car

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First Bike

Yesterday we got a call from our insurance case manager telling us that our insurance has approved riley’s wheelchair. the exciting part is that they approved both the stroller and the power chair. it should take another few weeks to get them here. i hope it’s sooner than later. i have included a couple of pictures of what his chairs look like. his power chair will be blue.

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Wheelchair

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Scootching

As many of you may know we have been trying to get Riley a wheelchair for the past three months and it’s been quite the ordeal to put it lightly. I have not been happy at all with the experience. Yesterday a friend of mine, Tara, who also has an SMA kiddo, gave me the name and number of a case manager through our insurance. It only took one call from her to the wheelchair people and all the stuff was being sent in. she said that she would call me the next day to tell me the status of the paper work. Hopefully the ball can really start rolling now. Thanks Tara for the info! Tara is also lending us the stroller that she recently got because they aren’t using it right now. Once again…Tara you’re awesome! The one last bump in the road is that they are telling us that they will only pay for either the power chair or the stroller but not both. I think it’s ridiculous because all the other kids with the same insurance got both! Dumb they better give us both! It will be really nice for Riley to have this equipment. It will give him much more freedom and the ability to participate in more things. Now just hurray up already!

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Wheelchair Update