Progress... mostly

Things are moving along.

Yesterday was a good day. Gwen had a follow-up appointment with an orthopedist in the morning, where he removed her brace and declared her to be healing beautifully. He said she shouldn't do any climbing, but other than that if she feels good enough to engage in an activity, she can. So basically we can follow her lead and see how she does. After the doctor removed the brace, right away she said,"I can go under at the pool?" Today she was still favoring her right side slightly, and winced a little when I dressed her, but she threw caution to the wind at the pool and splashed and dove and had a great time. I am soooo glad. The pool was the hardest to deal with last week, when everyone else was swimming and I had to keep telling Gwen be careful to keep her brace dry... a tall order for anyone in the humid heat here!

After we got home from the doctor, Madelyn left to go to an art class in another building with a new friend she had met the day before. They drew an underwater scene that Madelyn labeled "Sea Skwert." After the class, Madelyn and Alexa went to the club with Alexa'a mom to play badminton for an hour, and after that Madelyn was invited to Alexa's apartment to play Polly Pockets. I was so happy for her to have a whole afternoon with a friend!

While Madelyn was with Alexa and Gwen was napping, the boys and I were receiving the air shipment. I am sorry to say that our apartment, especially the boys' room, is no longer looking neat and clean. There are clothes, baseball cards, books, miscellaneous magic tricks, parts of Tech Deck ramps, lots of socks, and various other items all over the boys' room. Their method of unpacking their air shipment boxes was to empty every box onto the floor. I am thrilled, however, to have all my cooking implements at my disposal again. The movers even unpacked all the kitchen boxes for me and stacked everything on the counters. So nice to cook today... I actually had the things I needed to be effective! It's also felt good today to unpack framed photos and put them around the house, to have music to play other than the one cd we had with us, and to get bedding on our bed... I had only brought sheets in our luggage.

We also finally have our personal laptop here! There was a mix-up that resulted in it being sent to our old house instead of here, so by the time we realized and had the situation rectified, we'd lost a week. But now the desk is in place in the office, the laptop is on it, the internet is functioning, and I am actually using the computer right now! However, to my great sorrow, it appears that I won't be able to view any blogs from here, even on our personal computer. We had thought they were blocked because of fire walls on Scott's work computer, but no such luck. I was so hopeful, because we had been able to see blogs from a hotel on one of our trips here in the spring. I am hoping that maybe it's not a constant issue... maybe there are times that blogs can be viewed? Maybe some of you would paste your blog posts into an email for me... I would so love to still read your thoughts.

I've been struggling emotionally the last few days. Can't even put my finger on a specific reason. I think the lack of blog connection with friends and not having our Skype and Vonage up and running to be able to communicate with family is a big part of it. I know those things are temporary. This morning I just retreated to our bedroom for a while, feeling emotionally drained even though I had only been awake for a couple of hours. The Bible verse for today in my devotion book was Isaiah 30:15, which says, "In returning to Me and resting in Me you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength." Ahhh. It was just what I needed. The emotions bubbled to the surface several more times today... just remind me to take time alone to reset myself and receive peace from the One who can give it, will you? Thanks, friends!