Monday, July 20

Today was Mr. Bichler's last out patient therapy session. I wish I could say that he had been discharged because he had reached all of his goals but unfortunately that isn't the case. He has been at the Martha Morehouse Outpatient Therapy facility since the end of March and although he has made some significant progress his therapists seem to think it is time to take a break away from therapy. Hopefully our upcoming trip to Hawaii will revitalize his recovery efforts. It has been 6 1/2 months of hospitals, surgeries, doctors appointments and intense inpatient and outpatient therapy. Maybe it is time to kick back and relax and enjoy how far we have come to this point. So with that said we are headed off to Hawaii, land of rainbows, beaches and waterfalls. Maybe we will get lucky and find a pot of gold but we will settle for some quality time with Sara and Matt.

Saturday, July 18

Yesterday I took on the task of cleaning the fish ponds in front of the house. This means mucking out about 2 months worth of decaying leaves and other unrecognizable debris from the bottoms of the ponds. One pleasant surprise was finding five 4" Koi in the lower pond. In April several of our larger Koi somehow slid down the runway to the lower pond and must have laid eggs there. Can't believe we didn't see them until now. I also netted about 8 microscopic hatchlings and put them in a fountain. Guess I will see how big they get before winter. As I was preparing to clean the ponds I found a Monarch butterfly that had just hatched. This threw my time schedule all out of whack as I had to take pictures and finally moved the drying butterfly so I wouldn't disturb him as he dried his wings out. My resident red-tail hawk chick has fully fledged and has been hanging out along the creek in front of the house. I think his parents are attempting to teach him to hunt in the meadow across the creek but I swear he makes so much noise I can't imagine a sane mouse venturing out while he is there. He flew over several times and is quite a beauty! (of course I could never reach my camera in time for a picture) Last night for entertainment, we went to see the London Arts Council's presentation of "Pippin". Several of the chorus members were from West Jeff and we had been especially invited by one of Mr. B's students and basketball players, Abby Arnold. Wendy Webb, one of my former students had the lead and did a fantastic job. She is just as cute as can be and played a lovable, laughable widow who was looking for a man to sit at the head of her table and help with her large estate. Her voice is amazing and I'm convinced she should try out for Idol or America's Got Talent!! Hope everyone has a nice week end. I'm taking it easy this morning trying to rest up from the pond cleaning ordeal that took 4 1/2 hours, not counting taking pictures of the butterfly. I only fell once and luckily my head didn't go under. Yuk!

Tuesday, July 14

Up early today to work at the zoo. Lots of visitors, some from pretty far away too. We had people from Colorado, New Hampshire and even a family from Australia. If you go to the zoo this summer the new Animal Safari Show is a must. The show was an idea of the late Jeff Swanagan and he worked very hard to get it off the ground. The zoo went to shelters in Columbus and adopted over 100 dogs and cats that were then trained for the animal show. Along with the shelter animals there were also pot-bellied pigs, a miniature horse, ducks, a porcupine, pea hen, parrot, a llama, lynx and red kangaroo. The fast moving show lasts just 20 minutes, is free and very entertaining for old and young alike. While I stayed to watch the show, Mr. Bichler was having lunch with Miss Fox (oops!), I mean Mrs. Nichols at their favorite buffet, the Dutch Kitchen.

Sunday, July 12

I apologize to those of you who faithfully read this blog. As you probably have guessed, things have slowed down a bit and it seems there isn't much of interest to write. Not that anything previously has been extremely interesting either. Therapy is continuing to show positive results and Mr. B is feeling great. Some of you have seen him and know that he is doing really good. Friday we went down to school to start clearing out his room. Mr. Bichler will be officially retired as of July 31. We found out that you can't pack up 35 years in just one day. Luckily, he threw out a lot when he made the move from the old middle school or it would take even longer. I know he is going to miss everyone at school so I hope you keep in touch. Soon we will be heading out to Hawaii to visit with our youngest daughter. She hasn't seen her dad since late January so she is really excited to see his progress first hand. I will try to send pictures and update the blog while we are gone. We are really looking forward to our first trip to Hawaii. I love Alaska so it will be interesting to compare our experiences in both states. Keep us in your prayers as we travel. I guess we will see how much endurance and stamina we both have on this trip! Hope everyone has a great week.

*Photo is of my sister, Judy, with Luke. This was the first time she had seen Luke!

Monday, July 6

After a really great week end it was back to therapy. Mondays are much more tolerable since Mr. B's discharge from physical therapy. He doesn't have therapy until noon unless he has to meet with his psychologist. So it is only 2 hours of speech and occupational therapy. Today Mrs. Kuhl picked him up after therapy so that my sister and I could have the day for ourselves. We went to the zoo and then to City BBQ and Graeter's Ice Cream. So, all the calories we burned when we walked the entire zoo we gained back in about 30 minutes! We got to see the baby languar, it was born just this morning. The adult languar monkeys are grayish black in color but the babies are born a bright orange and stay that color for about 3 months.

Friday, July 3

We had our 4th of July picnic today. Just family and it was really fun to have all the kids here to play together. It was almost too cold to swim, at least for very long. We did lots of bubble blowing, corn hole and of course lots of eating. Lots of fun but I am ready to rest, we had 5 little ones and the oldest was 3 and the youngest 4 months.

Wednesday, July 1

Today was a rather slow day, comparatively speaking. A doctors appointment but it was in London so we were home before noon. Spent a little time moving things into the new garage and we took time for a Popsicle. My sister came in from Atlanta to spend the 4th of July so I'm looking forward to visiting with her. Hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather.