We had 2 of our closest friends from MN, Mike and Tiffany Krueger, drive out from MN to spend a couple of days with us. It was incredibly relaxing for us to have them in town. We quickly realized how much we truly do miss them.
On Thursday night, we all took in a Rockies game.
As you can see, it took a lot out of the boys as they caught a snooze as we rode the light rail home.
On Saturday we headed out to Estes Park to spend some time hiking and sharing the scenery with our visitors. We hiked up to Alberta Falls and got a chance to get some fresh air.
Sunday, our friends drove back home to MN. It was sad to see them go, but we will be seeing them again in August when we take our trip to MN for our summer vacation.
Sunday and Monday were filled with recovery. Jake did awesome on the hike on Saturday, but his feet and legs took a beating and he was ready for some time to relax and give those muscles a little break. We did some swimming late Monday afternoon and he swam like a fish. It is great to see him not only getting out and doing things, but doing seeing him do things at a level that he was accustomed to a couple of months ago.
Today we also received a gift from the Minnesota Twins called a "Smile Box". The box contained a hand-written card from the Twins along with a number of Twins items: A hat, a Delmon Young autographed baseball, some Twins player magnets, a bobblehead doll, a couple of books on the history of the Twins, and a Joe Mauer fishing lure. Jake talked at great length about all of the fish that he plans on catching with this lure.
Thanks to Rick and Diane for taking the time to get this for Jake.
It still amazes me at the lengths that friends and family have gone to in order to help Jacob know that there are people out there who are thinking about him and praying for him.
As we continue to save all of the emails and all of the cards and all of the blog postings/comments, we look forward to the day when Jake can finally look back at everything he has been through and he will have an amazing story to tell. At 7, it's difficult to truly understand all that he is having to deal with and the seriousness of his illness. He is being forced to grow up a little quicker in certain areas right now. With a birthday coming up next week, it is encouraging to start to see the almost 8 year old in him start to come out and to watch him slowly start to become that "kid" that he was a few months ago.
I have said it many times - Jake, you truly are MY Hero!!!!
