Thursday, February 28, 2008

Our Trip

Day 1:

Although short lived, our trip started out with a big adventure that cost us a lot of time in getting there. We started out on our drive and about 45 minutes into it, at the first small city, we were hit with a long detour. There was a large grass fire ahead on our regular highway, and we were being diverted to another via another small 2-lane highway. UGH! This detour added a good 2 hours to our drive and made a 7 hour drive turn into a 9 hour drive. It was awful. We had left late enough as it was, but we had to keep driving. We got to the city I was determined to eat at a lot later than planned, but we ate there anyway. We then filled up with gas and drove on. My plan was to drive to a city right outside Fort Worth and I succeeded. We made it there and realized we had driven almost 200 miles and my gas gauge hadn't moved!?! Yes, my gas gauge was stuck. It was stuck for the entire time we visited Dallas. Oh well. So there was our grass fire, detour, and stuck gas gauge. This was all just trying to get there. We finally made it in at 12:30am. Can I say we slept as soon as we got in. Unloaded the car and piled into beds and on the couch.

Day Two:

Sunday, we went to church and basically hung out. We never really did anything exciting but ooh and aah over my sister's beautiful baby. She definitely is a cute one. Anna and her Uncle Marc played soccer outside and then sang music and played guitar inside for a while. Anna really liked that and thoroughly enjoyed the one-on-one time she got. Not that she doesn't get one-on-one time, this was just different stuff. We don't have guitars and neat equipment at our place. We finished off the day with a few movies. It was fun and relaxing at the same time.

Day Three:

On Monday, we got up and headed to Grapevine Mills Mall. It is about 40 minutes from where my sister lived, but it is a fun mall. We first bought a few things for our girls, then we had lunch. YUM! Gotta love those real Philly Cheesesteaks! I can't seem to find a good place down here where we're at, so we always get them in the Dallas area. Then, came the exciting part....I took Anna ice skating for her very first round! YEAH!! It was a whole lotta fun. Anna got the skates on and was thrilled with the idea of ice skating, until we got to the ice. Then, she decided she was scared and didn't want to get on. I got her on, but she kept saying "No. I don't want to do this. I'm terrified." I reassured her and told her she would be okay and got her to get on and we started our first time around. She decided about half way around (this took a while as she wouldn't let go of the wall) that it was okay and she actually liked it and had fun. We made it around, took a break, and went back for a second round. She got really brave then and only held the wall with one hand or held onto my arm with both hands and started trying to actually move her feet right. She never really got it, and only fell a handful of times, but when we got off for good (about 45 minutes later) she said she wanted to go back again next time we go to Dallas, so I would say that it was a successful trip.

Day Four:

On Tuesday, we didn't really stick around long. My mom had a doctor's appointment with her neurologist and she wanted to visit her old work before we went, so we went over to Fort Worth and then waited for an hour and a half AFTER her scheduled appointment time to get in. Her MS is worsening as we already knew and I got to watch all the tests they run. The doctor she sees there is really nice and is supposed to be the best in Fort Worth, so I was happy to finally meet him. She did the little gripper thing where they need to see how much grip strength she has and the needle did not even move. She has next to no feeling in most of her extremities (he poked her with a pin and she barely felt it. never even flinched a little bit- OUCH!), she does not react at all when someone runs something up the bottom of her foot and could not remember but one of three item he wanted her to remember during the visit. I knew it was going downhill, but this is definitely the worst it has been ever. He will fill out the paperwork for our lawyer for SSI and we will pray that it will work out. He still says she is fully disabled and can not work, now it is just a matter of getting the judge at her hearing (the date still yet to be determined) to see that she is truly disabled and needs this help.

We left after the doctor visit and had a great drive home. My gas gauge started working about two hours in, when we stopped for supper I filled up and noticed it wasn't sitting at the over full mark and it was working. It has worked ever since, praise God. My brother, the mechanic, had told me that they would have to disassemble the gas tank to fix it, and since it is working now I am thanks God for that miracle.

Anyhow, now I will leave you with a few pictures of our trip. Hope you enjoyed our recap! God bless you and thanks for reading.


Anna Loves on Graciela


Anna Plays Soccer

Anna Plays Guitar

Anna and I right after she first stepped on the ice:

Anna close to the end of ice skating (much more confident):

Anna with the Rainforest Cafe elephant (She was amused by it so I took her picture.):

Graciela on the car ride home from shopping (Love that smile):

1 comment:

Julie said...

Awww- cute pics- looks like you had a good time in spite of the reason you had to come- love the pics!