Missing Bill

It has been over a week since my college friend, Bill, passed away.  He was just 46.  Left behind a wife and four kids.  Aortic dissection, they said.  All I know is that one minute he was here with us and the next he was gone.  Actually that is not exactly the way it happened, but it seems that way. 

I knew Bill in high school, but it was those first years in college that we became friends. Everything I did, I did with a core group of friends that included Bill.  We all watched Magnum PI and Simon and Simon on Thursday nights.  We watched M*A*S*H after the late news.  Bill harassed me to no end about going home from college on the weekends to see my mom.  Once in a while he would win, and we would stay in town.  He was always sure we were out partying with him if we stayed.  He wanted everyone to have a good time.  We attended many football games together.  I can remember painting a sheet in his garage one Friday evening and watching him carry it around the stadium the next day.  It was a game against Notre Dame and the sheet said something about God and the ten commandments, and of course something about beating Notre Dame.  I can remember following his little gold Honda to Birmingham to football games.  His was the only car I ever saw that was dressed up to look like an elephant!  That was Bill.       

After college the get togethers were less frequent.  We lived only about 20 minutes away from each other, but you know how that goes.  Everyone gets a job and gets wrapped up in the day to day stuff.  We were at his wedding in 1990 and he was in ours in 1992.  Well......until the bachelor party hangover required him to have a seat in the nearest pew.  He gave me grief for months about scheduling my wedding day on an Alabama football game day-Alabama vs Southern Mississippi, I think.  I was actually surprised I had not thought of that, but he could not believe that I had forgotten to consider that in my wedding plans.  Some friends were angry with him for thinking like that, but I wasn't offended.  That was Bill.

In the mid 90s, Bill became a Dad for the first of four times.  Mike and I packed up our household and moved to Texas, and our family started not too long after that.  Needless to say, there were even fewer times that we connected in those years.  Our little college group of friends started turning 40.  We were in contact with friends as they started planning ways to embarrass each other at "Over The Hill" parties.  Mike and I were in Minnesota, so we could only listen to the funny stories after the parties were over.  Wish we could have been there to celebrate with them.  Sounds like they went all out for Bill's big day!  A big party for a guy who loved to have a good time.  That was Bill.

In 2004 we moved to Florida.  Finally we were in a place where people would actually come visit, and our kids were getting old enough to actually travel around.  After many long years of not seeing each other, Bill came to Florida with his family twice.It was great to reconnect again.  He also came down with "the guys" for a long weekend of deep sea fishing.  My  kids still talk about how high "Mr. Bill" could splash water when he did a jack knife jump into the pool!!  You could always count on him to be the big kid!  That was Bill.  

Bill decided to organize a regular get together with the old college buds in Alabama.  He named the annual reunion the Redneck Regatta.  For two years in a row we packed up the family and headed to Alabama for a few days on Lake Guntersville.  What wonderful times we had hanging out together.  It was really neat to see our kids form friendships with our friends' kids, and for them to get to know our old friends.  The girls LOVED those trips because they got to hang out with Bill's kids and got to tube behind Bill's boat.  At one point during the last visit, all the kids ended up sitting on one of the boats.  When Bill noticed that they were all out there together, he got the jet ski and started spraying the kids on the boat.  The kids loved it.........that was Bill.

As Facebook gained popularity, Bill became a part of my everyday life again.  It was always fun to read his status and banter back and forth with him about anything and everything.  Our core group of college friends were together again and it was a lot of fun.  One of Bill's last posts was, "Come on feel the noise..."  He would throw a line from a song out there, and everyone would try to come up with the next line.  There won't be anymore of those games on Facebook.  There won't be anymore commentary between Bill and his fellow political enthusiasts.  There won't be Redneck Regattas with EVERYONE there.  There won't be anyone to splash water up to the top of the pool enclosure.  There won't be anyone to spray the kids with the jet ski.  There won't be anyone to help his wife raise those four kids.  Bill, we miss you terribly.  It was fun while it lasted.          

In Memory Of Bill

This digital slideshow customized with Smilebox

We Love Our Wildlife!

Earlier this week Allison caught the smallest lizard I have ever seen.  After the cold winter, we did not see any lizards for a while, but they appear to be making a comeback.

Allison caught her first bass this morning in the lake behind our house.  She was proud of herself. 

The kids started throwing lunch meat in the water to feed a soft shell turtle.  It was lots of fun watching him come up to eat. He kind of blends in but he is the brown circle toward the top of the picture.  

Leah decided it would be fun to drop the hook she had been fishing with in the water to see what the turtle would do...........he took the bait.  Literally.  He had been cautious to not come too close to the shore so I was sure when Leah dropped the hook in, he would not come up to it because it was pretty close to us. In seconds, he saw the bait and grabbed it before I could get it out of the water.  Poor guy.  I had to work pretty hard to get that hook out. 

We found this grasshopper on the pool screen.  I used to see these all the time growing up, but this is the first one I have seen here in Florida.  The girls thought he was really cool and had to have their pictures made with him.

Summer Is Winding Down

Summer is quickly coming to an end here in Florida, well as far as school is concerned.  The girls will go back to school on August 9th.  Wish the heat would go away when the kids head back to school, but no such luck.  It will probably be around till December.  I feel for the kids having to trudge back and forth to school in the heat and humidity..........makes them tough, I guess.  This 105 degree heat index may kill them before they toughen up, though. 

We had a very laid back summer.  The girls did not go to any camps, so the summer consisted pretty much of hanging out with neighborhood friends and swimming in the pool.  Sometimes it was hanging out with the neighborhood friends in the pool! There were days of staying in your jammies until you changed into your swimsuit, and mornings sleeping in.  The big girls will actually sleep past 9:00am sometimes now!!  Not Rachel though, no matter how late you keep her up.  There were days of camping in the Keys, building tents in the bedrooms, visiting with cousins, celebrating the 4th of July with neighbors, playing Wii games, playing cards, getting haircuts, and going to the dentist for checkups (the girls LOVE doing that on summer vacation!)  I managed to get Rachel to the orthopedist to get new orthotics.  I also got her started with a new speech therapist here in town.  The trips to the Orlando therapist were just getting to be too much, and I was only going twice a month.  Now Rachel is going once a week.  I miss the therapist in Orlando, though.  She was really good and worked well with Rachel.

Next week we are going to drive over to the other side of Florida and spend a few days on Sanibel Island.  We will be leaving Monday and coming home Thursday.  I have always wanted to go there for the great shelling.  We have really wanted to go to the Gulf with the kids, but with the oil spill, we were afraid to try the Panhandle this year.  The girls are looking forward to it, and I think Rachel will love the Gulf since it is so much calmer than the Atlantic.  We even found a place that takes dogs, so Cookie will get to go along for the ride.  I may learn a lesson here and he may never go on another trip with us.  We will see how that works out.     

Building tents in Rachel's room.  Did you notice that they even have a fan in the tent?

Face painting on the 4th of July.

Rachel attempts to Wii bowl.  She didn't know that her remote didn't work, and I was actually bowling for her.  She has not figured out how to work all the buttons yet, so we just let her think she was bowling.

Cookie and Leah hang out at the pool. Wow....look at that paint job on that pool deck!  ;-)

The big girls practice their snorkeling skills. 

Rachel enjoyed playing with the water hose as we filled the pool.  Usually in the summer it rains enough that we don't have to do that, but this has been a dry summer.

Rachel was such a big girl when she got her hair cut this summer.  It was the first time she did not sit in my lap.  I did have to move in and hold her head at times, but she did pretty good on her own.  At times it looked like she was going to fall asleep in the chair.

Rachel has been learning how to swim deeper into the pool this summer.  It has been so funny to watch her try to get below the surface.  Her little butt pops up in the air every time. 

This is what happens after the butt pops up and she begins her descent.  She is actually making it almost to the bottom of the pool in the deep end, which is eight feet! 

eReadingPro Reading Program

When I was at the National Down Syndrome Congress Convention, I purchased a reading program for Rachel called eReadingPro.  Listening to the speaker, it just made so much sense. It states children with Down syndrome are visual learners (and Rachel is) To teach them to read with phonics is not the best way.  Also trying to teach a child with Ds sight words such as and, that, the, etc are difficult because the child has no mental picture they can associated the word with.  She stated that showing the child flashcards of words that they can get a mental picture of allows them to quickly memorize the word.  The program works through lots of repetition with lots of flashcards (LOTS of flashcards, the book states that to complete the program I will need 700 sheets of card stock!)  At first the child is just memorizing words, but the program builds and the flashcards get more difficult.  As the child progesses, you add in the site words like and, is, the, etc.  At first the child is just spitting out memorized words, but over time they start to associate the words with meanings and the program states that at that point you can start to work on phonics.

This program seems to be meant for Rachel, because she to love to memorize things.  She loves to watch movies and listen to songs so that she can repeat the lines with them.  I am hoping that she really likes this program.  It gives you a daily calendar that is 14 months long.  I started with the first four cards this morning.  It says to make it fun and only do the cards when the child is happy.  It also says to do each set of cards three times a day........not sure if Rachel is going to be happy every time. As a matter of fact, she was not thrilled with the first round of flashcards this morning.  She is a creature of habit, and I am sure that as it becomes part of the routine, she will be happier to do them. 

Below are a few of the over 100 hundred cards that I have printed out this week.  I did go ahead and change some of the cards, because the program come with ready to print cards with names that Rachel has never heard.  It seems that woud be the same as asking her to memorize the site words that have no meaning to her, so I made my our cards with family and friends names copying the size, font, and color used in the program. 

Here is our beginning schedule.  Seems straightforward enough to start out (you put a label on the back of each card that shows a letter and number on it to correspond to the schedule below)

But it seems to get a little confusing as it progresses.......

Hopefully, it will all start to make sense to me as I work my way through it.  Wish me luck.  It will be REALLY cool if it works.  I am excited to think that a year from now Rachel could be reading.  Another possible plus is an improvement in Rachel's speech.  That would be even better!!