Archive for the 'Updates' Category

The Miracle of Laughter…

January 26, 2010 | Updates

Samuel nearly drowned in July of 2005.

He didn’t smile for 6 months.

When he first started to smile again, the smiles were few and far between.

But eventually, they came daily.

This summer, he started laughing.

It was a rare thing to hear him laugh at first.

Now, he laughs daily.

Here’s a small example…

Password is museum.

Password is museum.

They say you can only heal from a brain injury for the first 6-12 months.

This laugh returned 4 years after his brain injury…4 years!

It was a long time in coming and it is music to our ears every.single.time we hear it.

A miracle…

Love,

The Jewkes

October - the month from h.e.double toothpicks…

January 6, 2010 | Updates

October was a difficult month. We scheduled a trip to ABR for a personal evaluation with the founder, Leonid. The appointment was set in stone since Leonid is no longer doing personal evaluations and we only got one due to specific circumstancs. The appointment was scheduled for October 22nd.

October 6th - I buy our nonrefundable plan tickets.

October 7th - Our office secratary gives us 1 week notice that she is leaving and I find out that due to misunderstandings and scheduling issues, Tom will be out of town from the 15th thru the 20th.

October 8th - I frantically begin interviewing people to fill the secretary position.

October 12th - Wes gets the flu and I beg God to keep us healthy so we can somehow make this trip.

October 15th - I start training our new secretary in a 4 day crash course hoping she can handle the office while we are gone. At the same time, I am left to run the office by myself since Tom is out of town. It is such a juggle to find babysitters for all the kids that I literally have to write the schedule down each day so I don’t accidentally leave one somewhere he isn’t supposed to be.

October 16th - I attend a 2 day girl’s camp 2 hours from our home that I committed to attend long before this whole mess became apparent. It was fun and so worth the trip, but set me back in sleep and time, for sure.

October 20th - Samuel gets the flu and I decide that we are going on this trip no.matter.what. I stay up the entire night packing for the trip and am literally ready just in time to leave for the airport.

October 21st - We fly out towards Montreal. Our flight is late and we only have 30 minutes to make our connection. We make the plane, but our luggage does not. In Montreal, we spend 5 hours in lines for Declarations, Immigration, Customs, lost luggage and finally, a rental car. When we finally arrive at our hotel late that night, we only have with us a diaper bag, a computer bag, my purse and Samuel’s stroller. Missing are all our clothes, coats, Samuel’s crib, Samuel’s food and chargers for nearly everything - including our cell phones. We fall into bed at midnight and Samuel proceeds to scream bloody murder for the next 2 hours. At this point, I hadn’t slept in over 40 hours so in desperation, I strapped Samuel in his stroller and put a movie in my laptop for him to watch. He finally fell asleep and so did we.

(I have to note here that although I brought our GPS with us, it apparently doesn’t work outside of the U.S. When I explained our situation to the salesperson at the rental car counter, I asked him to please give me a good deal on renting one and you know what, he gave us one to use FREE for the whole week. He was most certainly the brightest moment of our day!)

October 22nd - We go for our evaluation at the ABR center after contacting our brand new secretary to let her know that our cell phones are nearly dead and we have no chargers so she is completely on her own. Oh, and we can’t get our voicemail messages because the lady on the other end of the line only speaks French. Ugh. BUT, the evaluation was great and I’ll post more on that later.

October 23rd - Our luggage arrives 30 hours after we did and just after we had returned from buying each of us a new set of clothes because 3 days in the same clothes is really yucky.

October 24th-25th - We complete our ABR training.

October 26th - We fly back home. Again, our first plane is late. Only this time, not only does our luggage miss our connecting flight, but so do we. Four hours in an airport and we are able to board another plane and finally make it home.

Moral of the story…I never, ever, ever want to go back to Montreal. Ever.

But I’ll leave you all with cute pictures from Halloween. We threw together costumes from stuff in our basement because I was fried and completely behind on everything by the time we got back and Tom had to head back out of town for another 5 days - leaving me with the office again. But, the kids had fun and I was just glad to see October on its way out for another year.

I’ll post good stuff from our evaluation with Leonid later.

Love,
The Jewkes

A few random activities…

January 4, 2010 | Updates

The second half of August was full of school registrations and stocking up on school supplies. There were 3 different school registrations - high school, junior high school and elementary school - along with 3 different back to school nights and lots of fees. Add that to a day in Park City getting the kids school clothes since we really haven’t shopped since Christmas and I was tired and broke! At the same time, we had both of our secretaries leave at work, so there was a lot of training to do. Not my favorite end to summer, but we got by.

September brought a Labor Day camping trip, which I missed because I was so far behind on work. But Tom and the older boys had lots of fun with some good friends and family of ours. Since then, we’ve signed the 9 year old up for violin lessons, watched the oldest boy go to Homecoming and Girl’s Choice and attended a Brad Paisley concert (which was lots of fun)!

My favorite activities in September, though, were watching Tanner turn 18 and taking a trip to Lake Powell. Tanner’s birthday party was a surprise and included golfing and boating with his friends. I hope I never forget the look on his face when he realized all his friends were there to take him for the day. I had told him he would be hanging around the house all weekend babysitting his brothers and a few of his cousins. He was much happier to be going golfing! Sad thing is that I only got one picture of the day. Ah, well, at least Tanner had fun.

Our trip to Lake Powell was eventful, unfortunately. It included a blown tire on our motorhome and me freaking out that the motorhome might catch on fire if we kept driving with the remnants of the tire still around the wheel rim (it is a dually, so we’re not entirely crazy). Turns out, I wasn’t entirely right, but close enough. The tire remnant broke the propane line and disconnected the gas line, creating all kinds of fumes and, of course, friction. Luckily, we stopped before we were up in flames, yet again!

But, after the long trip there, all proved to be worth it. It was my first trip to Lake Powell and all I want to do it go back. It even got hot enough one day that I put Samuel in the water and he enjoyed the trip as well. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I don’t have many pictures. Oh, well, the memories are great!

I’ll tell you about the rest of our year over the next few posts and then we can get on with the new year!
Love,
The Jewkes

Thanksgiving Pictures

December 4, 2009 | Updates

This post is sort of just for my family (sorry), but the rest of you are welcome to browse the pictures. So, to those of you featured in the pictures below, let me know which ones you like best and we can edit them up in Photoshop so you can get copies ordered if you so desire. So far, we’ve had votes for numbers 4 (except some little person is missing from that one), 6 and 11. Let me know which ones you guys all like.

Love ya,
Teresa

P.S. There are no numbers 1 thru 3. Those were test shots. And, you can click each picture to enlarge it. The actual pictures are even bigger, but I couldn’t easily upload them to the site, so I had to make them smaller.

NUMBER 14

NUMBER 13

NUMBER 12

NUMBER 11

NUMBER 10

NUMBER 9

NUMBER 8

NUMBER 7

NUMBER 6

NUMBER 5

NUMBER 4

With all our love…to Tori - UPDATED

November 9, 2009 | Updates

One of our dearest friends, Tori Schmanski, passed away yesterday. Her website is www.pray4tori.com if you would like to learn more about her.

Honestly, I can hardly hardly see through the tears as I post this, but I wanted others who know her to know of her passing and pray for her family. Tori’s accident was exactly 1 month before Samuel’s. Their accidents were similar. And their brain damage similar. We met her and her family during our original 2-month stay in the hospital. And we have since followed her website closely - keeping in touch with her parents through email. We’ve seen them many times at the hospital and Samuel and I were even privileged to visit her at her home a year or so ago. She and her family are amazing.

I didn’t know Tori before her accident, but have heard so much good about her. And even after her accident, she was extremely beautiful and could steal your heart in an instant. The Schmanski’s have shared so much of the same pains and trials that we have experienced that Tori’s passing hits very, very close to home. I can hardly bear to imagine how difficult this is for her family.

Please keep them in your prayers. And I pray that Tori is truly dancing again - well and whole - as she was before.

Our love to the Schmanski’s,

The Jewkes

UPDATE: Many of you have asked if we know what caused Tori’s passing. All I know is that she died of a viral infection in her home last Saturday. Her website has also been updated with her funeral information if anyone needs it. KSL did a short news story on her today, I believe, and that link is on her blog as well.