October 16, 2011

Things are rolling along in the Nelson house.  Grace is loving first grade.  She's reading third grade-level books and really likes reading.  She really likes her teacher and classmates.  We had parent teacher conferences last week, and Mrs. Church (her teacher) had many wondreful things to say about Grace.  She loves learning and is pretty independend and unafraid to speak up for herself.  We were pretty proud of our little girl after the conference.

Grace is going to be Rapunzel for Halloween--her Grandma Colleen is hand-making her a dress.  She's been on that kick ever since we went to see Tangled in the theater last winter.  And she already has plans for next Halloween--she's going to be Luigi from Super Mario Brothers.  Grace has recently gotten in to playing Super Mario World on our Wii--and it's amazing how much better at it she's gotten.  The game fits her imagination well.

September 18, 2011

We had the Beaverdash in Des Moines yesterday.  The Beaverdash is a 5K run and 1 mile walk that is the main fundraiser for the Iowa chapter of Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  Always good to see the other Iowa SMA families, and most all of them were there.  We hadn't seen most of them since last September.  Grace enjoys being around other kids in wheelchairs--because she doesn't get that experience too often.  Grace took 2nd in the wheelchair race--I guess I'll have to look at getting her a better motor!

Otherwise things are busy with the start of the new school year.  In addition to her school schedule, Grace has swimming on Tuesdays after school, religious education on Wednesday nights, and Girls Scouts every other Thursday night.  She loves all three, but hopefully they don't drive her mom crazy getting to her to all her activities. 

August 30, 2011

First grade continues to go very well for Grace.  We're extremely happy with her teacher, and it seems like she has a good bunch of classmates.  There are already a number of girls who she wants to have over for play dates.  She wakes up every morning excited to go.  Tomorrow night she starts her weekly religious education class.  Those go for an hour and fifteen minutes every Wednesday night during the school year.  We changed churches when we moved this summer, but we assume she'll like it as much as she did last year.

Our next project in the house will be to re-model one of the mainfloor bathrooms for Grace.  We'll get a walk in shower that we can wheel a shower chair right into, and we'll get a sink with nothing underneath so she can wheel her chair right up to that.  A handicap bathroom will be a nice improvement, hopefully in the same way that the wheelchair ramps have been!

August 20, 2011

Two days of first grade underway, and things are going great for Grace.  She is back at Leeds Elementary, which is where she attended preschool.  She had no problems changing schools--probably helps that she was already familiar with the school.  She was so excited for school on Wednesday night that she couldn't sleep.

Her teacher's name is Mrs. Church, and we're really going to like her.  Grace even told her that she loved her yesterday.  Pretty funny.  Grace has the same aide this year, and that really helps as far as knowing what Grace's needs are.  We can't say enough about the kind of job that the school district has done accommodating Grace's needs. 

Grace is a new promotional video for Camp High Hopes.  Here is the link:  http://camphighhopes.com/.  It's the third video down on the right side of the page, and Grace is the third person to speak in the video.  She talks 3-4 times during the video.  Pretty cute.

July 29, 2011

Wow it's been way too long since we've posted, and a lot has happened.  We'll go in reverse chronological order.

The 5th annual Race 4 Grace has been a big success, and we continue to take in donations.  The RAGBRAI team did the Monday stretch, which ran from Atlantic to Carroll.  It was a fairly tough day with quite a few hills and a lot of sun.  The uphill climb into the small town of Willey almost killed me, but I'm still here to write about it.  As always it was an absolutely great time, and we'll work hard to recruit even more riders for next year.  Most people don't realize what RAGBRAI is until they experience it once, but once you do experience it it's hard not to want to do it again.

Our family has spent a decent amount of time this summer at Okoboji, taking advantage of my parents' home and boat.  The girls love the water, none more than Grace.  The last time we were there she swam the entire length of the pool, even though it took her forever.  Her determination is absolutey incredible sometimes.  Both Claire and Grace love to tube, as long as Daddy holds on to them tightly!

We moved to a new home at the end of June, and so far that's been absolutely great.  It's a wonderful neighborhood, a perfect yard, and a nice house.  Last weekend my brother Luke built us a ramp in the garage and a ramp off the deck in the backyard, so Grace can get anywhere anytime.  It's been amazing how much of a difference this has made even in just a week's time.  Our next project in the house will be to remodel one of the bathrooms to install a handicap accessible shower and sink for Grace.  This could be a pretty lengthy process, but it'll definitely be worth it for her in the long run!

RAGBRAI Overnight Stay in Atlantic & Into Carroll

The Roecker's are excited to see you all on Sunday, July 24. 

From our host: "Our address is 1704 Redwood Dr.  Atlantic and we live on the southeast side of Atlantic and east of the high school which is a popular spot for Ragbari campers. If you find the high school, you are close!  Todd will be riding from Glenwood that day with our daughter, Kelly and her husband Shawn along with his 2 brother's and family.  I will be their support vehicle, please come on into the A/C and help yourself with anything.  There will be some cold beverages of your choice.  Please make yourself at home.  I will arrive as fast as I can.  Have fun in the meantime. 

If you have any questions or need certain accommodations please give us a call at home 712-243-3043 or my cell is 712-249-7700.  Hope this heat lifts for all you riders.  Looking forward to seeing everyone."

VERY BIG THANK YOU TO THE ROECKERS FOR HOSTING OUR TEAM!

June 19, 2011

Father's Day, and as I'm writing this I'm reflecting on my two beautiful daughters.  Claire continues to bring a tremendous element of joy and energy to our house--she truly brightens everybody.  Grace continues to be a sweetheart with an unstoppable imagination.  She's seemingly involved in non-stop play that involves her imagination.

Grace has Challenger Little League tonight, I think she only has three weeks of that season left.  Time flies. 

We close on our new house this Friday, and we'll be making the big move a week from Tuesday.  We're really looking forward to settling in the house and making some renovations to further accommodate Grace.  The plan is to build a ramp in the garage and another ramp off the deck in the backyard.  The first major thing we'll do in the house will be to renovate a bathroom to make it fully handicap accessible. 

Last but certainly not least, RAGBRAI and the 4th annual Race 4 Grace are little more than a month away.  We are looking forward to it as always, and my sister Beth, mom Colleen, and brother-in-law Austin have already put a lot of work into it.  Can't wait!

June 3, 2011

This is a non Race 4 Grace post.  The Sioux City metro is about to be hit hard by the Missouri River flooding.  Not sure I understand everything, but I think it's been caused by damn releases and excess snow and rain up in Montana and North Dakota.  The city has spent the last week sandbagging and moving people out of their homes along the river.  Hopefully we're being overly cautious, but that's better than being under-prepared. 

May 26, 2011

A week of milestones for Grace.  She turned 6 last Friday, I'm still having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that she's that old.  She did all the usual treats to school stuff, and then Friday we took her and her best friend Madalyn to Chuck E Cheese's.  Not a fan of that place, but the girls had fun. 

Yesterday Grace finished kindergarten.  She had a tremendous school experience this past year, she had a great teacher and the school was really good to her.  She feels really good about school and is doing academic work well beyond her grade level.  We are moving (again) this summer and she will be going back to Leeds Elementary (where she went to preschool).  While we hate to have Grace leave Nodland, she did enjoy her experience at Leeds and they already know about her.

Now it's on to summer vacation.  Today is the first day and she is definitely sleeping in!

May 7, 2011

Hard to believe that Michelle and Grace only have 2 1/2 weeks of school left.  Their last day is the25th.  Meanwhile Grace's 6th birthday is on May 20.  A lot of good stuff happening in the next couple weeks.

We've started to finalize some things with our plan for RAGBRAI this year.  The plan is for the Race 4 Grace day to be Monday, July 25; which is the stretch that goes from Atlantic to Carroll.  I'm sure we'll have some team members who'll go on Sunday and some who might go after Monday, but we're going to try to make Monday the official "team" day.  More details to come!

April 24, 2011

It's Easter night, and both girls are in bed.  We headed up to Okoboji yesterday and spent yesterday and today with the family.  Grace always loves seeing her cousins.  The Easter Bunny was good to both girls, and we had the usual Easter egg hunt today. 

Some good pub for members of Race 4 Grace Austin Scott and Crystal Recker.  Austin (Grace's uncle and also the designer of this website) is in charge of Carroll's RAGBRAI website, while his significant other Crystal designed the Carroll RAGBRAI T-shirts.  We decided this weekend that the official Race 4 Grace date will be the Atlantic to Carroll leg on July 25.  This is a Monday and goes against our tradition of starting on Sunday, but we figured the opportunity to end in Carroll where we have so much family was too good to pass up.  More details to come.

April 9, 2011

Saturday morning, both the girls are woofing down some oatmeal.  Grace is having a friend over to play this afternoon, so her whole focus is on that right now.  Claire's whole focus is on making as big of a mess as she can with her oatmeal. 

Grace went out to one of the TV station in town on Wednsday to film a promotional interview for Camp High Hopes here in Sioux City.  We've written about this before, but Camp High Hopes will be a new camp for kids and people with disabilities.  She did very well during the interview, and hopefully we'll be able to get that out to everybody once they finish it. 

We went to Iowa City last week Grace's annual appointments with all her specialists.  She did very well during a pulmonary function test with her lung doctor, and everything there looks good.  We spent some with Dr. Mathews, who is he main doctor there who wev'e known since Grace was diagnosed.  Finally we saw an orthapedist and had some x-rays taken of Grace's spine.  The curvature in her spine has increased quite a bit, and we're going to try a brace for awhile.  The goal is to keep her spine as straight as we can for as long as we can.  Kind of scary to think about her eventual spine surgery, but we'll do the best we can to delay that as long as possible.

March 26, 2011

Saturday night in Sioux City. Both girls are tucked into their beds. We head to Iowa City this week for Grace's annual appointments there. We'll meet with Dr. Mathews, who is her neurologist and the one who the specialist with SMA. We'll also meet with Dr. Starner, who is her respiratory specialist. Lastly, we'll meet with a new doctor (Dr. Dietz) who will deal with her spine issues--she'll eventually get curvature and scoliosis. Hopefully it'll be a good trip, always good to get down their to see the docs.

We had Grace's annual IEP meeting and her parent-teacher conference this week. Both went really well. The people at Nodland have really taken to Grace, and they do a great job taking care of her. We talked about how things will go in first grade, and they also told us they're going to put a special swing in their playground just for her. Great news there. She's doing very well in school. She's reading at an end of first grade/start of second grade level, and she also really enjoys the math they do. Still, however, she maintains that her favorite class is art.

Finally, much to my chagrin, Grace refuses to watch the NCAA Tournament with me. She told me the other day that she hates basketball unless it's a Briar Cliff game. I guess I can live with that.

March 13, 2011

We're going to try to get some emails out this week to start promoting Race 4 Grace and our 2011 RAGBRAI ventures. Like always, we hope to get previous riders back and find some new riders. We haven't decided yet on some of the logistics of the week. We have traditionally started RAce 4 Grace on Sunday (the first day of RAGBRAI), and if we do that again we'll be starting in Glenwood. We are considering starting later in the week because we've got connections in some of the other overnight towns. Michelle has most of her family in the Carroll area, which is the overnight town on Monday night. And we know people around Boone and Altoona, which are the overnight towns on Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll see.

Otherwise things are good with Grace. We've been busy this weekend making a leprechaun trap, which is an assignment they have for school this weel. As usual Grace has thrown herself fully into this assignment (hopefully she'll keep that mentality when she's doing Algebra and Chemistry homework down the line).

We had to get a new part for her Dani because she'd gotten too tall for the original part, so we've been without her Dani for a couple weeks. You don't realize how much you rely on mobility until you don't have it! Thankfully we were able to get it put back together yesterday, and she's back in full motion with her Dani. The problem when we don't have her Dani is that we keep her wheelchair at school, which means she often doesn't have any way to get around in the house.

February 26, 2011

A cold, snowy Saturday in Sioux City. Grace is just up for her rest time, which consists of her lying on the couch watching whatever her current favorite cartoon is. Right now that is My Little Pony Friendship, which is on some station called Hub.

We found out this week that Grace is going to be in a TV commercial. They're making one to promote the new Camp High Hopes here in town, which is a huge camp they're starting in town for kids with disabilities. It'll be the only one of its kind in the region, and it's a pretty cool thing. Anyway, we have to go to the TV studio sometime next week for Grace to shoot the commercial. She's pretty excited.

Otherwise Kindergarten is going really well. Grace has made a lot of new friends, and she really likes her teachers and the other staff at school. Even the custodian (Mr. Troy) is a pretty cool guy who really looks after her.

February 8, 2011

Grace is home sick today with what we think is a sinus infection. Michelle is taking her to the doctor this afternoon, and hopefully it's nothing too serious. She's been really health all winter, and this doesn't appear to be anything major. She's spent much of the morning playing computer games--she's really into games that require logic and/or creativity.

January 30, 2011

They announced the RAGBRAI overnight towns yesterday, which is always a big day for the start of Race 4 Grace planning. It'll start in Glenwood this year, get to Atlantic Sunday night, Carroll Monday night, Boone Tuesday night, Altoona Wednesday night, Grinnell Thursday night, Coralville Friday night, and Davenport Saturday night. Not sure what we'll do this year. Basically all of Michelle's family lives in the Carroll area, so I'm sure we'll try to do something connected there. Also there is probably a chance that Tuesday's route will go near or through Ogden, which was where I taught and coached for two years right out of college. We don't have any real connections to Glenwood or Atlantic, but I assume there is still a good chance we'll start on Sunday anyway. We'll see. More information to come.

January 22, 2011

Winter is rolling along in our house. Grace got a little bit of the flu bug yesterday at school and had to come home early. She's doing a lot better today, and overall her health has been really good this winter.

Grace has been pretty busy with a number of things. She's in Girl Scouts now, and they have a Monday night meeting once a month. She has the Girl Scout pledge memorized, and she has managed to see a few cookies.

She's also had a couple music programs at school in the past month or so. They had a huge Christmas (or is it winter?) program at East High School, and then the other night they sang at a soup supper thing.

Grace is eligible to go to MDA camp this summer for the first time, and we're kicking it around. It's the premier camp in the country for kids with disabilities, and everything we've heard about it is really positive. On the other hand, we're not sure we're ready for her to be away from us for a whole week. Grace, however, says she'd be fine with it. Not surprising.

January 8, 2011

Been awhile. We had a good Christmas, and now we're settling in for winter. Santa was good to the girls, and he even left a note for Grace thanking her for the milk and cookies. Grace was excited to go back to kindergarten this week, and we were happy about that. The neat development over the last couple months has been Grace's reading and writing. She's reading full books, and she can write pretty well. She'll always ask when she doesn't know how to read or write a word, and she seems to remember it the next time it comes around. At school the other day they had to say their goal for the new year, and Grace told us that she said she wanted to learn how to write more big words!