Anyone out there?

Hello there strangers!  Anyone out there?  Anyone still reading?

I can't believe that I haven't blogged in a year and a half.  18 whole months.  I'm not sure what happened.  I got busy I guess.  I still read my favourite blogs and I *think* about blogging.  But I just never do it.

I'm not even sure where to begin.  Ben and Daniel are both doing fantastically.  They are now over half through Grade 1.  School has been amazing for them both.  They are both excelling academically, have lots of friends and love their teachers.

Ben's progress has been slow but steady.  I will have to dedicate a full post to that soon.  Actually, I have a ton of blog post ideas swirling around in my head right now.  So hopefully I can commit to blogging once or twice a week and get to all those blog posts.

We recently went on our first cruise.  It was a family cruise over March Break and we enjoyed 5 lovely and magical days on the Disney Wonder.  Here are a few pics of us:

First, Ben and Daniel loved to wrestle in the Mickey Pool.  We kept to an early-to-bed-early-to-rise schedule and often got to enjoy the pool all on our own for at least a half hour.  And even then, it wouldn't get actually busy for an hour or two.

 

                                         

And here's a family pic from our balcony.  I just love this pic so much.  We hardly ever manage to get one of all four of us (let's face it, I'm hardly ever in any pictures) and this one turned out so great. 

Back to Ben for a quick moment before I officially hit "publish".  When I left you 18 months ago, Ben was doing well - learning to walk with crutches and doing well with his walker.  He now walks tremendously with his crutches and uses them inside school.  He still uses his walker but that is limited to outdoors and gym class only.  He can now take independent steps but we are working on that being a functional way for him to get around.  I am confident we'll get there.

I just posted this video to Facebook this afternoon of him walking around our kitchen:












This is a huge deal!  My "dream" for Ben since he had SDR over 2 years ago was to get him to the point where he could walk independently indoors and used crutches for outdoors and uneven ground.  And we are close.  Oh so close.  Realistically, it could be 2 years before we're REALLY there.  But I KNOW we'll get there. 

Well.  There.  I did it.  Wrote an actual blog post.  Sorry it took so long!

(Please, please, please leave me a comment so I know that someone is still out there wanting to know how we're doing.  Oh...and if there is anything you'd particularly like to know about, then leave that in the comments too!)