Opening Day at Fenway - Red Sox defeat Yankees!

Sam made a great assumption at Christmas 2009 - he assumed attending a Red Sox game on opening day would be on my "bucket list".  He was correct!!!  He gave Dan and me tickets to opening night, April 4, at Fenway Park in Boston.  He also made sure he had to accompany us to the game. 

It was a wonderful evening, warm weather (57 degrees), a come-from-behind victory for the Red Sox, and the first pitch thrown out by a former Red Sox player, Pedro Martinez, who the  whole stadium still loved!
It was a magical night and one I will always remember!

Super Bowl and a Super Weekend !!!!!

Despite all the difficult challenges of ALS, sometimes there are days of pure happiness and gratitude.  This happened last weekend when Tim, Sam, Joe and his girlfriend, Melissa came home for Super Bowl weekend - flying in for two short days from Texas and LA.  We had quiet time together and also fun - ate at Helmand, a delicious Afghanistan restaurant in Cambridge, then went to  hear very uplifting music from Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  On Sunday we all prayed together at our church with great music, saw the Orlando Magic beat the Boston Celtics in the last quarter, and went home to the Super Bowl.  Melissa, who went to Tulane, knew the "Who Dat" cheer and dance, which she taught us all to do, as we cheered on the Saints to victory. 

Now everyone is gone, I miss them, but we did make some wonderful  memories of family and good times that will be in my heart each day until I see our sons again, hopefully in March!

Swimming makes us cry!

Yesterday my brother Mike and his wife Cindy, and their three kids - Christopher, Katherine, and Caroline, plus my dearest Dan, decided we would go swimming in Dennis pond on Cape Cod. So we drove two hours to their summer house with the donated beach wheelchair and secret hopes that I would be able to get near the water. The beach wheelchair is enormous and took up the entire space of our wheelchair van!

We arrived to big smiles and eager hands which helped with the transfer to the beach wheelchair ( I was already in my bathing suit from the start of the day!). We had a wonderful picnic on the beach, making strategies for the big attempt into the water. Needless to say, everyone helped me into the water, off of the chair, and then I was swimming and floating and walking and laughing and then we just all had a tear in our eye! To get me back onto the chair, even some strangers and the lifeguard helped stabilize the water throne which tried to float away! Then down the road to a great barbeque at my Mom's house and her famous potato salad and a 9 p..m. viewing of the space shuttle!

What a great day!!! No matter that last summer I swam far out to the boulders in the pond and this year I swam ten feet with a life jacket on. My dear husband and family made it possible for me to yell, "This summer I went swimming! This summer I might have drowned, but I kicked my legs and I moved my arms, yeah! I moved my arms around!"