With the desire to bring closure to things in Indy, Jenny has begun the mass e-mails of things that need to be accomplished before the move. My favorite was her desire to see our water frog (that we are not taking with us) one last time. Appearantly, it was in a place that she could not see it easily. I would have considered not seeing that mutant frog a blessing. Anyhow, I brought it down to the table and I had her eat breakfast with it one day. She also took advantage of our last testimony meeting in our current ward to have me read her testimony over the pulpit. Jenny is a bit nervous about the move- mostly because she will be without her power chair and computer for a few days.

She continues to make micro improvements with her speech. She still makes her best sounds in the morning, so I try to quiz her when she wakes up. She does not seem to know what to say, so I give her things to try. In a few months she will be so good at saying “Mark-is-cool”, and “booger”. Maybe I need to change up what I have her say.

Since Jenny has been using the computer, we have always joked about her going crazy on e-bay, but she has rarely done more than checked e-mail, played games, or written in her journal. For some unknown reason, Jenny woke up and immediately stated that she wanted to go on the internet. She immediately began shopping and spending. I would not have known this except our credit card has a new expiration date since Jenny used it last and she needed help when it did not work. She first hit Deseret Book to get supplies for our Primary class, Zach’s upcoming baptism, and some church tapes to listen to. She hit a music web site to get new tunes to listen to. E-bay was most likely drained of it’s goods, and she even researched some cool party ideas for Sophia’s upcoming “Dora the Explorer” birthday party. Jenny read her e-mail and maybe even wrote one (which she hardly ever does). I hope this was a matter of getting it out of her system since she was been holding out for a year. However, it was good to see her desire to be more independent and assertive. What I really think is that she just wanted to get more mail.

Jenny survived her first plane trip this week. We just returned from visiting where our new home will be in Austin. The actual time on the plane was no problem at all. As a matter of fact, I finally realized who they built the plane seats to accomidate. Jenny fit good in them and was well supported, so you can blame her for uncomfortable seating if my theory is correct. The other stuff was not so smooth (cancellations, rerouting, late arrivals, missed planes, blizzard conditions etc…). Several years ago, Jenny had her bags lost and she stated, “To have my bags lost is by biggest fear of anything.” A much wiser Jenny remarked a couple days ago, “After a stroke, most problems that occur seem small and are not worth worrying about.” The real difficult part of traveling was being without her assistive equiptment such as her power chair, accessible van, accomidated bathroom, and so on. She had a rental chair that tilted back and folded up (since her other chairs do not travel well). It turned out that the chair actually made her work so hard to stay up that it wore her out.

We did attend what would be our new ward. As it turns out, a few families (all with kids our kids’ ages) live on our short street, so our kids will know their neighbors better since they will get exposure at school, church, and the neighborhood. Jenny’s favorite part was that since it was a new building, there was a ramp that led to the podium. The members were just as nice as those in Indiana, but the building its self felt more accomidating. Overall, Jenny loves the area and would love to move there! that was a big relief for other family members and myself (mostly since we are starting construction there). The weather was wonderful. Jenny has a difficult time with the cold now, so being that Austin was in the 70’s and Indianapolis was having a blizzard, it proved to be a good place to go.