Quick Update

Hi All, I thought I would post a quick update since I have a couple of minutes. After spending almost a month in San Jose with my girls I am now back in Las Vegas. It was a blessing that my boss was so flexible in allowing me to go on a moments notice and also that I was able to do some work at Beale AFB that allowed me to stay for an additional two weeks.

During the past couple of weeks I have been busy working with our realtor trying to find a home in Sacramento where I will be working for the next three years. Although this is considered a buyer's market we are finding it to be very difficult to find a house that we can put an offer on. As of today we have placed offers on 6 houses, 5 of which are Short Sales that are already in Contract with someone else (we essentially are backup offers). The 6th house seems to a possibility as it is a short sale also but it is not in contract yet. We are hopeful that we will hear on Monday if our offer was accepted or not. I even bidded $16,000 over the asking price just to try to ensure that we would get the house.

At this moment it looks like we will not have a home in Sacramento before it is time to move. As a result we will be moving all of our stuff to my parents home in Chico until we are able to find a new home in Sacramento. In the mean time I will be looking for a bedroom to crash in for a couple of months while I'm working at Sacramento State. If you know of anyone in the Sacramento area that might have a room they would be willing to let me use for a couple of months please let me know.

Speaking of Sacramento State I have gotten the chance to visit my new job assignment. I am pretty excited about my new assignment but also pretty nervous about it. I will be teaching an introductory course to the Air Force to an estimated 50+ students. Although I don't really mind public speaking it will be different for me to be teaching for over an hour versus just giving a ten minute brief.

One exciting bit of news is that we finally have a travel trailer that was delivered to Rachael's parents place today. Rachael is very excited to have a place of her own with a bed and storage options. It has been pretty tight in her parents house so having the trailer will make this process much easier for everyone. For those of you that haven't heard about us getting a trailer our insurance company has agreed to pay for the cost of the trailer (in lieu of a hotel room) since she is the attending parent to Mia. It took a lot of work to find a trailer that would both fit and work for our needs but we were able to find a trailer at FamilyRV.com which is just a few miles from Willow Glen. The folks over there where really awesome at trying to make something work, we even had the owner of the business helping us out. Currently we will be able to have the trailer for up to a year but we can extend longer if necessary.

So on to more important things... Mia is doing very good now. It's amazing to see how big she is growing, she is no longer a tiny baby anymore. I haven't seen her for close to a week now but Rachael has told me that she has been doing very will with her occupational therapy sessions. Apparently in past sessions she has been either asleep or falling asleep so the therapist wasn't able to do much. It is interesting that when Mia is sleeping you can't do much to wake her up.

The last couple of therapy sessions Mia has been awake so they have been doing things like neck muscle strengthening, rolling over, and taste testing. About two weeks ago Mia almost rolled onto her side by herself which I was very impressed to see. She often is quite content to lay in bed but sometimes she gets energetic and starts kicking her feet and moving her hands around. Rachael and I are working on coming up with ideas to get her out of bed and stimulated so she has to move herself. Although we know that Mia is behind developmentally we do not know how much is because of her and how much is because she does not get stimulated as much. The next 6 months or so should give us a clearer picture of what Mia's needs are going to be for the long run.

On the breathing front she has been pretty inconsistent so far. Sometimes she initiates breathing on her own but most of the time she is riding the vent. One thing that Rachael and I have been wondering is if the vent is not sensitive enough to pickup her attempted breaths. The vents at the hospital where she does end up usually breathing consistently can be set for small infants. The vents at the recovery center though are setup mainly for adults so it may be they are not sensitive enough to pick up her very small attempted breaths. One thing that Rachael and I are grateful for is that Mia normally does not require supplemental oxygen to stay saturated. Since her lungs are working just fine we are hopeful that if Mia's respiratory drive does not normalize that she eventually might be able to have a breathing pacemaker installed.

Some things to continue praying for:
* Mia and her therapy sessions, especially that she will be awake for them.
* Rachael and her energy and time management
* Me for a temporary place to stay in Sacramento
* Mercedes for her potting training!

Thanks again for all of your support and prayers. A lot of people have told us they wonder how we have been able to go through all of this and our answer is it's because of all of the people that continuously lift us up to the Lord everyday.

Robert