Well, last week was a whirlwind and every time I thought I would have time to post an update something else came up! We were trying really hard last week to keep all the kids on top of schoolwork since the week before we had a lot of frustration and kids getting behind because of traveling and getting settled in. 

This meant a lot of our time was split between either hovering over kids and schoolwork, helping with Aila at therapy, or doing some exploring we had hoped to get in before we go home!

We’ve also been watching all the hurricanes closely as we have friends and family members who were potentially in the path of these storms. We are so grateful that everyone we know is ok overall-it’s been so sad to hear of many who have lost so much though, and our thoughts and hearts have been with them. Between our minds being on all of that last week, and everything kid related I just mentioned, it didn’t leave much spare time to reflect and update others on our time here.  

Over the weekend, we did get to see some friends who were in from Illinois for the weekend which was so fun! It was great to see some familiar faces from back home and spend a day with them. We did some hiking both Saturday and Sunday and have been able to squeeze in some movie nights with the kids. 

Aila had a good week at therapy last week-she was getting to the point that she was less crabby about therapy and while she did still protest a decent amount, it overall wasn’t as angry of a protest 😆. 

We can see where her head control and stamina is continuing to improve, and the therapists have really been focusing on trying different methods for encouraging her to put weight through her feet and hands. They have also been working on the movements involved in crawling and standing/walking! All of this has been great to see. One of her therapists has been using e-stim which she seems to be responding to-especially when they use it on her abdominal muscles. This is extra exciting because it is one of the pieces of equipment Project Fire Buddies helped us to get, so we can’t wait to see how she continues to respond to this at home.

This week has started off a bit rough. Monday Aila was just not herself and was much more angry in therapy again and not wanting to participate. She’s had a bit of a runny nose and cough so we decided to take yesterday off and stay at the airbnb to rest. It seems that a day of taking it easy was good for her. She took a very long nap and seems in good spirits today. Hoping this will have been a good reset and she can be back at it and ready to finish out the week. So far, today she has been in a better mood about her therapies. 

We are definitely in the bittersweet ending stages of our trip. The kids keep talking about how much they miss their friends, and animals (we might not miss the animals as much as much as the kids-less lives to take care of has been helpful for the stress levels). It will be good to be home and in our more permanent place, but also hard to leave. The mountains, and the sunshine have been lovely. We have had to deal with a lot of the same responsibilities even being away from home (insurance issues, formula delivery issues, schoolwork, all of Aila’s other needs) but haven’t had any doctors appointments, or various other appointments, or Kyle away from home working. The fact that we have still to some degree felt the same stress and tension while 
here, and have still been so tired has been something Kyle and I have been discussing towards the end of our time here. 

It certainly has provided us a somewhat different pace, and a change of scenery which has been good. The hope we felt about this giving our family a chance to reset, and reconnect has been somewhat fulfilled as it has been fun to explore and do some fun activities with the kids. At the same time, I think it will take more time and more changes for us at home in our every day life to really get to what we were hoping to achieve. This may be a topic of a future updates/further tangible support requests when I can find the time to organize my thoughts! 

We are hopeful for a last few exciting days at NAPA, we’ve met some great therapists, and great families while here. If you have made it to the end of this..well, we appreciate your time and dedication 🙃. We love and appreciate you all!