Monument Lake and a report on my walking abilities

Well today is the day--the day I've both been dreading and excited for.  Today is the first day I'm alone with the kids since my surgery.  Tomorrow marks six weeks.  It's been a difficult six weeks and I have a long time ahead of me before I'm fully recovered.  Everything I've been told by doctors, physical therapists, and people that have had the same surgery is to plan on a full year.  But we are now past the most difficult part so now I just get to look forward to each day getting better.  I haven't been officially cleared to walk but Mike had to go back to work and so I told the doctor that I had to be walking by today and he said I could "cheat a few days early."  He didn't tell me how to cheat though so on Friday the physical therapists taught me how to cheat the right way.  That sounds funny but I knew I wouldn't just be able to ditch the crutches and begin walking.  We practiced walking with one crutch and that was pretty scary.  I was wobbly and my leg was like a noodle.  They told me to practice shifting my weight between my legs over the weekend so I've been practicing since then.  I am still not able to walk with just one crutch but I am getting better and more confident.  Next week I really need to be able to get rid of the crutches because I will be completely on my own.  Right now the boys are home for Fall break so they can carry Piper up and down stairs for me and get her in and out of the car but next week I won't have them to help me.  So I'm hoping for rapid improvements this week.

Yesterday Mike was home so we went for a drive.  We wanted to go check out Palmer Lake.  We drove to the "lake" and discovered not a lake up a mostly dried up marshy area.  The boys were disappointed so we all piled back in the car and drove to another lake nearby.

Palmer "Lake"

Mike is demonstrating skipping rocks to the boys

Practicing their rock skipping

Monument Lake

The boys practiced skipping rocks and Piper practiced standing on her own--she is getting good!