RAGBRAI

I'm writing this on Monday morning, the day after the Race 4 Grace team did RAGBRAI for the second year. It was another great time. Many of the team members camped in Missouri Valley on Saturday night, while the rest came to town early Sunday morning. We left Missouri Valley about 8:30 am, and it was on. The toughest stretch of the day may have been the first ten miles, which was a hilly stretch leading into the first stop (a tiny town called Beebetown). At that point we wondered if we'd make it the rest of the day. But the team was tough, sucked it up, and cruised into Harlan between 3:30 and 5:00. I think we'll end up having a good number of people who sponsored the riders this year, meaning we'll be able to give a good amount of money to FSMA. We had a huge banner on our support vehicle this year, but our goal for next year is to look into acquiring some sort of bus for the journey. And, there are some team members thinking about doing the whole week next year, including Grace's Grandpa. More on the day and ride later in the week...

Iowa City Trip

We've been gone quite a bit the last few weeks, trying to enjoy the quickly moving summer. We had a good Fourth of July weekend, and Grace got to spend plenty of time on her Grandpa's boat. She even went tubing, and loved it except for the one time her Grandpa got going a little too fast. This last week we went to Iowa City, and it was a productive trip. Going to the UI Hospitals is always a little bit crazy, because you meed with about 100 people in one trip. This time we spent quite a bit of time with a Pulmonologist, because we're looking into getting a machine called a Cough Assist. It's basically something that helps with breathing, especially if Grace would get really sick. She doesn't need it now, but we want to get it to get her comfortable with it and be ready to use it if necessary. We also met with a nutritionist, who affirmed that we're going things well as far as Grace's nutrition level. She's still very small, but she's been that way since she was born. She's actually getting taller, having moved up to the 10th percentile for height (she's still in the bottom 3 percent for weight, which she's always been). We also spent some time with a physical therapist talking about power wheelchairs.