Settling in St. Louis

We've arrived! Elizabeth did beautifully on the plane. (for those of you who prayed for us specifically...we had an open row on the first leg which was delightful. The 2nd leg was jam packed, but Elizabeth was a perfect angel and I couldn't have been more proud.)


Our arrival was not without its bittersweetness...On July 11th, My grandpa (who has been living with Alzheimer's) passed away on his 88th birthday. We are overjoyed that He followed Jesus and is now whole in body, mind and spirit, but sad over the loss of someone we love so much. My sister wrote a beautiful tribute to him on her blog: www.worthtenthousandwords.blogspot.com. We will miss him.


Since arriving, Elizabeth has certainly flourished in her gross motor activity. She's crawling everywhere, pulling up on everything and exploring her new world. After only 3 days her daddy thought it was high time for her to tackle the stairs...check out these videos of our super-climber! http://picasaweb.google.com/saraharms/ElizabethClimbsStairs

We're now in the process of setting her up with her new medical team and getting her scheduled for early intervention and her Physical, Occupational, Speech & Feeding Therapies. While she's flourishing in her gross motor development, as is to be expected, Elizabeth regressed quite a bit with her feeding during our 3+ weeks of upheaval. I hear this is normal for toddlers, but when the stakes are so high, it can seem even more dire. I've been trying to restrain my anxiety and slow the pace of progress a bit and thank God, we're beginning to recover some lost ground. If you're interested, the following is a short video about feeding disorders that may help you understand what our life has been like and what the future would be if she wasn't learning to eat. http://www.kennedykrieger.org/video/cnn_feeding.wmv

Matt is enjoying his job more and more as he gets acclimated and most of all we're loving our new life of evening walks, grilling on the back porch & chatting with our SUPER friendly neighbors (everyone out here talks to you!) I'm still wrapping my mind around the fact that I can actually pack away all those sweaters, jeans and coats we used year round in SF, because we won't be needing them for a good 3 or more months! The humidity hasn't killed us yet though, and we're eager to explore free zoo, the science center and the huge park a few blocks away. Bring on (sub)urban life!