A Very Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas here at Craig. It was hard being away from family and friends, but like always we made the best of it and had a wonderful day. We spent pretty much the whole morning opening gifts and then the afternoon we had the whole therapy gym to ourselves so Jess was able to work out in peace and quiet. It was such a nice relaxing day.

I couldn't believe how many presents everyone sent us. We had decided not to buy any gifts for the holidays, but in the end its a good thing Briley doesn't know how to count yet, because there is no way she will ever have as many gifts as she did this year. THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone that sent gifts. We felt so blessed. Thanks!!! And boy did she enjoy opening her gifts. We let her open 3 on Christmas Eve, just so she could get the hang of it. Christmas morning we slept in until about 830 and then played with Briley on our bed for a while. One of her new favorite games is to stand up on the bed and then fall on Daddy. She thinks it hilarious :) Once we were ready to get up I put Briley down on the floor while I was going to help Jess get out of bed. We told Briley to go open her gifts and she went right over and started tearing into one. It took us over 2 hours to open all the gifts, mainly because Briley like to open each gift by tearing off little tiny pieces of wrapping paper Then once she finally got it open she would either have to play with the toy, look at every page of the book, or wrap all the clothes around her and then sigh. Jess would then distract her and take the gift away while I tried to get her to start opening another. It's amazing how having kids changes the joys of Christmas. We had SO much fun.

Jess got to try a hand cycle bike the day after Christmas. He really enjoyed it, but doesn't really think it would be something that he could get into. Today in wheelchair class we went on an endurance trip down to Safeway. It was by far the farthest that Jess has pushed himself and he did great. They also worked on going up and down curbs. It's amazing the things that they teach them to do in a wheelchair.

Well, Jess and I couldn't be more excited to come home and see everyone. Wednesday December 31st is both our 4th anniversary and the day that we will be flying home. It's crazy to think that this part of our journey is about over. It's been a long 2 months. Going through the accident, surgery, moving, and rehab, none of which has been easy. But here we are at the end of this part of our journey, we don't know what the future may hold for us but we are ready to jump in and go for it.