An exciting time at the Lake so far

Grandchild Mateo, born 7 days ago on June 23rd. They can celebrate together from now on! They share the same second name of Joseph. Lovely. That was also Gord's father's name.

Gord the driver......I am SO proud.

What a great day at the lake...and looks who's driving.

Well, we now know he can drive a golf cart....again, I am SO proud of him.

The pictures will tell it all. Gord is just surpassing all the goals that have been set....thanks to a great friend, Kevin who just keeps thinking up things that Gord needs to try. Witness the golf cart he drove around the course while Kevin hit the ball and Gord kept score! Later that day, Kevin arrived at our dock to take us all on a cruise and invited Gord to drive. Awesome!

Our friends Mike and Linda joined us after a long day of chores with Sheila. They spent a week with us and it was fantastic. So much got accomplished. Gord would even take Mike or Linda aside and try to get them to do things he knew I wanted left alone! He usually won - except for the little trees on the hill!

Oh and we also played some tennis. Gord hit some great balls.

I spoke to a wonderful Dr. who is going to assess Gord and we can see how he is doing in his rehabilitation. We see him July 20th. The other good news is that there is a speech pathologist that will come to a small town very close to us once a week to work with Gord. We are very excited about that!

Now I just need to arrange for some physio and we are good.

Take care everyone, have a great summer.

Love

Sheila

Happy Birthday Gord

The infamous hot tub....note the pole for getting in and out. Works well.

Isabella reading - lucky girl - looking over my new construction ( black arbor) at the top of the stairs to the lower deck.

Kevin and Gord at the end of a quad ride!!!! Yes Gord actually rode on the quad. He was thrilled.

Yes, today is Gord's birthday and I just sat down before making coffee to check emails etc. and thought I would just quickly jot off a note to let all our blog followers know that today is extra special. We always thought we would not count birthdays after we turned 50 but now with Gord's recovery we are actually happy to celebrate these special days. Today will always be very extra special because Gord's daughter Stacy is about to give birth to a little boy. Grandson and Granpa will be able to celebrate their day together in the future. How fun is that!

We have friends here from the Seattle area who have come to visit and to help me get some things done around here. Mike and Linda are angels straight from heaven....thank you both for showing up just when I need you!!

Things are getting pretty around here now with all the sunshine and little rain we have had. I will add a few "pretty pictures".

Love to all...

Sheila

June 9th update

It's not sand, but it will do -Grandson 2.5yr old Declan and Sheila on the driveway of B-2

Gord with his brothers, Richard in front, Gary to the right and nephew Tyler to left

Boys putting a secure railing on guest house so Gord can visit the kids when they come.

Gord and Fiona (Andrea's wee one born March 9) - so peaceful...sleep baby sleep

Well we are into the rainy season so it is indoor things today - hence a blog update! Everywhere I go and in everything I do, I am always thinking about what I am going to write on the blog. I am getting such positive feedback on it, that I feel I need to continue - at least for a while longer. We are making such progress I suppose it is helpful to post it so that other people who may be going through what we did will have some hope.

Since our last blog, we have fulfulled a couple of Gord's dreams. He really processes his thoughts now and follows through until I manage to get it completed. One of the biggies was extending the front deck so he called his brothers Gary and Richard and nephew Tyler and they all arrived with their deck building gear and in 1.5 days they had the job done! Gord sat on the deck and supervised....our neighbour Donalda said he looked like a king sitting on his throne.....and all in all the boys had a good time and it was SO good for Gord. Family are EVERYTHING!!!! There is such a depth of emotion when I see these guys get together. Beautiful.

The other project was getting Gord into the hot tub. He loves the water and as I said before it has been the place we have connected over the past 25 years. We get decisions made, dream up projects etc. In the process of trying to fulfill this dream I did a lot of research into lifts and slings and new hot tubs but in the end I kept thinking - "There HAS to be something around this place we can use to get Gord in and out of the tub"....and lo and behold, at first I used the patio table plus myself for getting in and out. It was not the safest thing but we managed and the smile on Gord's face when he finally got to sit in his hot tub after and year and a half was awesome. Of course getting the 25 year old tub back into working order was not an easy task for me. I think I cried a little over this frustrating experience but after getting help from Peter the electrician (introduced to us by our other neighbour Glen)- we got it running. I cleaned out the little hole that I have to crawl into to start everything up, shooed out the mice etc., sprayed some smelly stuff to make it a little pleasant and Voila! we have a functioning tub and a place to stretch the arm and leg. Our neighbour Ralph came last night and installed a sturdy bar for Gord to pull himself out of the tub with, and it also allows him something to hold onto to get into the tub. I will always be there to catch him if he tips over, but all in all I think this will work.

Now for the speech. I am just about to try and find help here in Red Deer or closer I hope. I'll report on that later. My sense is that if I can find nice flash cards with words on one side and pictures on the other I could work with him to help identify objects and things and then get the name of it ingrained in his brain. He is a little more interested in the computer now but only to look at his emails. It's a start. As for doing lessons out of his binders - forget it. He really feels it is juvenile and not necessary. I know it is necessary but he can be stubborn! I will just have to keep presenting things until something works for him.

You know, this is such an amazing project for me to be assigned. I really feel "useful" in my life now. As long as Gord remains such a good sport, we will continue this adventure - mainly because we have no other choice. AND the real bonus is, I am motivated to get rid of years of accumulated "junk" around here. You should see the loads going out of here...and I have more...my arms are so sore from hauling.....but we will feel so much lighter when it is all gone. Thank goodness for junk haulers! They deserve a medal.

Love to you all

Sheila & Gord