Sept 21,2023

I am hoping that by putting the date down it will keep me accountable. 😁 We shall see.

So, over Labor Day weekend we were invited by one of Matt’s friends to camp at a private campground. It had been years since I have been camping and not glamping. So, I wasn’t sure how it would go. Not to mention I had been able to help set up, and we were still in a tent, the last time we went to a traditional campsite. We still had water and electricy, but the site was grass.

Matt got the jack on the camper fixed, but something made us run late…it’s always something. I don’t even remember what it was but we got to our campsite at 10 pm and it was dark. The site was smaller than our other trips. We have a toy hauler camper, so, we can take our golfcart and grill in the “garage”.

Saturday Oct 14

Nope. Dating the post didn’t help get it out faster. Sorry.😁

So, we showed up to our site after dark. Matt has to back into a site that is pretty narrow. Which, if you are a normal family and don’t have to pack a special stair set with you…I think I shared this before in one of our other trips, but do you have a husband who built steps for you? It is something that often catches me off guard, my husband loves me so much he built me stairs…wow! I still am blown away by that.

Matt’s friend came and helped set us up again. Thanks N!! It really has been a blessing to know this “new” group of friends. The plan was that we would make dinner Friday night, but it was so late we just ate whatever we could find that was easy.

It bums me out that I can’t comfortablely sleep in the bed. And Matt put an adjustible frame in there…💕💕💕 He really loves me..so I crashed on the recliner. It is comfortable for a few nights, then I just miss sleeping in a bed. Which is kinda funny because I haven’t laid flat on my back in 6 years, so, do I really miss the bed?

Sat morning was great though. I felt refreashed and ready to see the camp ground.

Matt had bought 3 pounds of bacon that he was sure would last for a few meals and some snacks. We planned BLTs for lunch, but Matt woke up craving bacon. I don’t deprive him of bacon so it was kinda funny that he woke up thinking about it.

We hadn’t thought throught about toasting the bread. Kiersten, our oldest daughter, was asking about how to toast the bread. She and I landed on trying one piece of bread toasted with the bacon grease. Matt tried it and decided that was they way we were having those sandwhiches. They were really good but we all decied it was a thing we wouldn’t do often, just maybe once a year.

That night was the campsite’s season wrap up and Halloween trick or treating. Our kids are really too old but they each found something to wear, and we went. It was the first time I had my new chair outside and not confinded in our house.

Getting use to the chair’s speed and turning has taken a lot of practice. I had been keeping the speed lower inside the house so I wouldn’t run into walls. Yes, that is a real problem. It doesn’t help me that my brain doesn’t function as smoothly now either. I find I struggle with acuretly knowing the room I take up or don’t. I’m still working on that.

It was wonderful to be moving myself up and down the road following my kids. It was a great feeling to just be in this place. Kids were dressed, smiling, joking arund, and even getting “yelled” at by parents who’s children won’t listen because they are too excited about what they are doing to listen. I didn’t realize how much I missed this.

My eyes met and held for just a moment a young girl dressed up as a whitch. Her smile grew as our eyes met and she said “Happy trick or treating”. And then she was behind me. But that breif moment really made my heart fill with happiness. It happened so quickly in real life but in my minds eye remembering her simle it seemed to last for a long time. Something so normal and natural. (Writting that sentence makes me feel weird. Like I’m making so much more about feelings of normal. It’s in these moments in real refection I realize how much I feel withdrawn from life. I’m determinided to change that.)

After that smile and woman came up behind me and said “I don’t have adult treats, but would you like one of these?” She held out her hand that had 3 pieces of candy. I took one and said thank you.

While the power chair is wonderful, it doesn’t have a cruse option. Weird thought yes, but when you only have one working hand you have to stop everytime you need to do something else. Anythng else. So taking the candy required a hand, so I stopped moving. Thankfully our group wasn’t moving super fast, but I did have to catch up.

We brought along the dogs. We weren’t the only ones either. It was so great to see how our dogs interacted with other dogs and children and really just craziness. They were awesome! Mocha found another puppy who was about her size but younger in age. She growled and dropped in to the puppy play pose. It was funny to watch the other dog back up confused by the growl and then the pose. Our 7 year old black lab is “mouthy” when he plays. He talks the whole time you play with him. He has his whole life. She picked up on that, probaly because I would laugh at this little nothing barking at this huge dog. We have often refered to Bowen as our gentle giant.

After being out for an hour we decided to head back to the camper. Bouncing around was not something I was use to, so my neck was beginning to hurt. There was a big event happening that night, and I really wanted to go. That is a sucky thing having to decide to shut down then or have my brain drained for days, so I missed the friend who had invited us DJ-ing. I missed seeing my kids dancing and having fun. Forcing my husband to dance a slow song with me to kinda gross out my kids.

Writting that makes me want to cry. I hate the brain injury. Being stuck in a wheelchair is nothing compired to missing life because you can’t…I hate this injury.

Sorry, taking a minute to not fall into pity mode while facing my feelings.

Sunday we took the golf cart and did some looking. We hung out with our friends. Then went to the site our friend’s site. M, our friend, made some amazing food! Seriously, best burgar I’ve ever had! He even made the sides!

We were at his mom’s site for dinner. You know when you just get invited and wecolmed unconditinally? That’s how it felt. Very relaxed. No pressure. I tend to get very self-conscious eating, drinking, and talking around people I don’t know. This friend of Matt’s and his family and I had never met before. These are the moments were I appriciate my kids more now than ever before. They talk. They aren’t shy but they are also mostly polite. They are funny and laid back. I often feel like they fill in the pieces of me that are missing in being slow to verbalize things quickly.

Because I am not fast…at anything.

M also made a root beer float for the adults. 😉 It was so good and my first shot or real liquor in 6 years. I would have had another but I had to walk up the stairs, that my husband built for me, and not fall on Matt.

We did have smores there and then I went to bed. Again trying to make the right choices for the weekend.

Before we left we took another ride in the golf cart. Heading down some paths that led to the lake. Mocha and Bowen went swimming in a lake for the first time ever. Mocha is a water dog, we knew she would love it. But we weren’t sure about Bowen. He is a lab, but we didn’t take him his first year and shortly after he turned 2 we had the accident. He had not liked the pool the few times he got in, but the lake was diffrent. I’m sure being able to touch his feet to the ground helped. It was great to see them playing. Mocha was jumping over Bowen and swimming to get Arianne. Mocha is fast in the water.

Nov. 4,2023

Yep still bad at being consistant. Sorry. It’s been a stressful few weeks for us, and I am just feeling like I came up for air.

Unfortanitly, because of life junk it will be hard to totally get back to Septmeber.

As we were wrapping up that trip, we talked about trying to make that camp ground number one on our list for next year. There were so many fun things to do within the community of this camp ground. Multiple golf courses (I went real golfing one time when I was in high school with a boy friend. I hated it! I did not find it relaxing at all. I’ve never been since, but Matt really likes to golf.) and vollyball courts, which Kiersten was bummed we didn’t have time to see. There also was a pool or two…I mean…it really was such a great time!!

THANK YOU M for the invite!!! Please invite us back! I would love to just get to know you a lttle better.

We ended up leaving the site a little later than we had planned on but because we were having such a wonderful time!

Looking back over this summer I would have to say there was so many new things that happened with my healing. It just coninues to suprise me when I can do something that I couldn’t do yesterday.

Who knew that these could be useful Speech therapy tools? This was my challenge this summer. To spin the pinwheel and be able to make noise on the noise maker. I am trying to up load a sound bite, but I’m not having much sucess. But my Velopharyngeal flap is weak it is the muscle that closes when you make those mouth words. This was one of the many ways we have worked on that flap. To tell you it felt good to make that noise would be an understaetment. The first time I tried without pinching my nose closed. I was very suprised, so of course I recorded it…now if I can figure out how to share it with you.