Atlanta

Obviously I haven’t blogged in a long time, but I thought maybe I would take it up again to keep everyone up to date on Jim’s progress. I started to send out a group text last night with an update, but it was just too hard to decide who to include. There are just too many people who are dear to us.

We got to Atlanta later than expected, but the flight went well. I kept looking at Jim and thinking he was doing so well with all of the movement, but after we arrived he told me it was really terrible, so I guess he just faked it really well.  Excepting one incident that still makes me want to punch somebody in the face when I think about it, we’ve been pleased with Shepard so far. Today he got a new trach without a cuff and a new speaking valve and has been using it all day without any trouble breathing. Breathing has been a huge issue for the past two weeks, so that has been a big improvement. He hasn’t really had much therapy today, just a lot of assessments, but we’re hoping for a busy day tomorrow.

I’ll try hard to make frequent updates with pictures and everything, but this is really not one of my strengths. This post is from my phone so please excuse any typos. It’s kind of hard to read the tiny print.

 Love you all!

Jennie

Heavenly Lanterns

A while back we took a scenic train ride up to this little town in the mountains where they do these lanterns.  They are just like the lanterns in Tangled except bigger.  We did some hiking, and then when it got dark we bought a lantern.  They give you a can of black paint and some brushes so that you can write on it and then they help you light it and release it.  It was fun to watch all of the lanterns floating up.  The kids loved it.  After our lantern flew away, Caleb said "Didn't that make you feel happy inside?"  It did.

There it goes!

The train ride home was very crowded.  It was a long hour, but the guy in the right hand corner of the picture bullied some people out of their seats and made our kids sit down.

National Palace Museum - Taipei, Taiwan

van Eyck

The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in the 1430s, has been called the most influential painting in history. It's also been called the most sought after painting since it has been stolen 7 or 8 times.   It's here in Ghent in St. Bavo's cathedral.  We went to see it on Wednesday.  The detail in it is amazing.

Bruges

On Saturday we visited the Medieval city of Bruges.   I think the kids got tired of looking at old churches, but they were excited to visit the candy shop.  They had gummies of every shape and size and we tried them all.