A Quiet and Silly Sunday

We had a quiet day today, aside from Amanda being her typical silly self. We went out to the suburbs of Baltimore to get groceries and get out of the hotel room for a while. We also hit the hotel pool briefly and played Uno Attack tonight as a family, a game the Meek family got us hooked on.

Amanda has been totally full of beans today. She has been soooooo happy! It has been wonderful. I think she is really enjoying having so much family around to play with and get attention from. I captured some of her silliness on video today so once I get the video processed (it is one of those disposable ones), I will post some of her antics to the blog. Her new throwing skill continues to progress. She can now throw up to 7 or 8 feet when she really gets the release right. She is quite humored by the sound of whatever she is throwing bouncing off tables, walls, etc.

It hit home a bit today that we really missed the service dog graduation. I wish we could have gone but Amanda's health comes first and no one wanted to risk driving up in the dark after the events of the last few weeks. From all accounts, graduation was quite an amazing event. We got to see great pictures from Kim Meek, Grace's mom, and also got to hear play by play accounts of all the wonderful events from Aunt Is, Carol Sullivan (who was also nice enough to drive over to Baltimore to see us yesterday) and Candace. We even got a very nice posting from the Coffindaffer family, the family that first fostered ELLIE and whose daughter was ELLIE's first trainer when she was in the service dog class at WVU. We hope to meet them in the future.

Anyway, we are so excited for Grace and COLT! You can see the pure joy on Grace's face in all the graduation pictures. Way to go Grace!

We are also eagerly looking forward to the day when ELLIE will come to live with us and be Amanda's best friend and helper. We are so grateful to the paws4people organization for all of their love, support, kindness, and friendship. Everyone from paws4people is totally amazing! They really have become like family and the gift they are giving Amanda will make such a tremendous difference in her life.

Tomorrow, we have the pre-op appointment at Johns Hopkins. At this appointment, we will get to talk with the anethesiology department and do any other testing needed prior to Amanda's Wednesday procedure. That appointment is at 12:15 and should last a couple of hours. Then on Tuesday, we meet with the pediatric vascular neurologist. I will post again after each of the appointments with an update.

Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes. We know Amanda is in good hands hear and we are optimistic that we will continue to get good news. Have a great day! God Bless!

Susan