Ella’s eighth year

This is a weird year if I try to sum it up. It’s one of our hardest years because we lost Bill, Joe’s dad, to a tragic heart attack. It doesn’t get easier and it’s still such a shock. The hardest part is that there are so many moments of the kids lives now that he would love to be a part of…especially the boys and their sports. He and Ella had the sweetest bond…I mean, she was the first grandchild and only granddaughter…so her light shined bright, but he would sing songs just for her, I can still hear it now as I think about him.

At the same time Ella was making huge progress. We started her on some products a girlfriend told me about and it flipped a switch on her health. She went from constipated and really sick from it…to no more UTIs and doesn’t even get what the boys bring home. So, I decided to share those products with the world…and I was off and running with a whole new activity…a surprise business!

Oh, I can’t forget…this is the year we bought the Sprinter “the elephant” and outfitted it with an elevator lift for Ella’s wheelchair. For those of you who remember our run ins with the squirrels…it was quite a time! After a couple of months of my new business we realized that I could put half of my checks towards a “new house fund” and that someday we might look at building a handicapped accessible house…wow, God is good, even we don’t know how it’s going to look. I still fought with Medicaid for Ella’s services, we attended a lot of moves at Studio Movie Grill and both Ella and Jon had allergic reactions that landed us in the ER, but both ended up being fine.

Ella made some GREAT advancements in her physical therapy, but even a big advancement in our world seems so small on the developmental scale.

As we go into the next year, it feels like we can breathe a sigh of relief. It feels like our new normal is happening. I pray that you can feel the HOPE that even in the hard, God is a God of redemption and He loves us. He just loves us so very much.