Rachel's Injured Foot

Rachel sprained her foot six weeks ago. She was playing basketball at half time. She was competing for a ball with a teammate, landed oddly and had her foot kicked at the same time. These actions caused her toes to touch her shin, in her words. I cannot imagine how that happens, but since that point in time she was unable to put any weight on it.

We took her to the ER that afternoon. Here she is sitting in a wheelchair at the UMASS pediatric ER. She and Carmen had so much fun trying to maneuver the wheel chair in and out of the room. The nurses were surprised at how well Carmen and she got along.

At the time of initial injury 6 x-rays were taken. Rachel did not break any bones, thankfully. The ER doctor thought she would be walking within a few days of using the crutches. Not the case, Rachel had to use crutches for 3 weeks. Still unable to put much weight on her left foot. I contacted a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon. We had more x-rays taken.

Here is her beautiful long foot.  They looked to see if there were any signs of breaks.  Sometimes a break cannot be seen until healing has occurred.  But again, no signs of bone breaks.  We were told of a few anomalies in her foot.

First, she is missing a joint in her pinkie toe.  If you look at her toes there should be three joints, but the top bone of her pinkie toe is solid without the joint.  No issues with this, just an interesting fact.  She is also missing a bone in her foot that the metatarsals attach to. 

Really cool photo of her foot. 

The only possible explanation the surgeon gave for her continued pain and inability to place weight on it is that she may have cracked a growth plate between her third and fourth toe.  That is where most of her pain has been.

After seeing the surgeon she was given an air cast. It took her a day or two to be able to walk with out the crutches and just the boot.  Two weeks after getting the boot on she would play soccer and basketball in it.  We went back for a final check up, 8 days ago and was told to ween her off of the boot within the week of vacation.


Here is Rachel using the boot to walk around Boston.  That was Marathon Monday, April 18th.  After that day she barely used the boot and now is boot free.  She has started wearing two shoes for the first time in over 6 weeks! 

When we would tell people she sprained her foot they always wondered why she was taking so long to recover.  I learned that sprains happen in levels:  1st, 2nd and 3rd degree sprains.  The more severe the sprain the longer it takes to heal.  She didn't break a bone, but tore her ligaments and injured a growth plate so her recovery time was similar to a break.  It took Abram's elbow 3 months to fully heal. 

 Now the question is:  when will she be OK to play soccer.  She stopped all sports once this injury happened.  She missed multiple play-off games for basketball and soccer.  I'm sure she will be playing soon; my tough cookie.

More flights with Abram as Pilot

Since my last blog about flying with Abram, we have flown with him several times. 
Here are some of the pictures from Feb 6th; a flight to Windham, CT.

Carmen and Rachel came on this flight.

I gave Carmen the camera to use during the flight.  She took over a hundred pictures!  Here is the view from the back seats.  Each seat has their own headset jack.  One great feature a plane has is that you can press the cockpit button so you can hear the people in the backseats.  If they are too loud, which Carmen and Rachel can be, we can turn them off from us in the front.  They can speak to each other, but we don't have to listen to their giggly banter.   This is a feature I want for the car!

This is what a majority of the pictures were:  Eyes, noses and mouth close ups! 
This is Rachel:

Here's Carmen:

This is a nice picture of the levee surrounding the airport we landed in.

The highlight of the flight for Carmen and Rachel was getting free Fruit Snacks at the airport in Windham, CT. 

Carmen did capture some good photos of the sunset.

On some runways there are four lights on the right side to guide you in.  They are arranged to show a white light when you are high, and a red light when you are low.  When you are on the desired 'glideslope', you will see two red lights and two white lights.  In this photo you can see three red lights and the runway number.  You can also see the runway edge lights, which go from white and then orange and red as you get to the end of the runway.  Abram had been asked to make a short landing so he could be off the runway for a jet who was next to land.  He was successful with the short landing, we got off the runway with plenty of time for the jet to come in behind us!  It is nice when the tower controller compliments you on your landing as they did after this landing.

On March 20th, Abram and I flew to Springfield, VT.  This is the airport that is near the Inn at Weathersfield that we stayed at in February. 

As we traveled we passed a hill covered with windmills.  I thought this picture was neat.

This was one of the only signs I saw that winter was disappearing - melting ice on the river. 

After we landed the airport was much more alive and I captured someone taking helicopter lessons near the area where we park the planes.

The following weekend, we traveled to Lebanon, NH to see Leah.  We flew by the same windmills we saw the previous weekend from the opposite side.  I think this photo is better.

 Carmen took this group photo of us. 

 Here's the budding photographer approaching the plane.


  Rachel had crutches, which added difficulty getting into the plane.  I will tell her foot injury story in my next blog. 

Abram is enjoying flying to many places, some of which we get to join him in.  On April 17 he flew to Provincetown, then to Nantucket, to Martha's Vineyard and back to Bedford, MA. He did this flight with his instructor.  This was good because he had to negotiate >50 mile an hour winds at Nantucket. 

Tobin is 17!

I'm late by two weeks, but Tobin is now 17!  I cannot believe he's that old. 

This is a momentous year.  He is getting his driving license; he is just waiting to have the driving test scheduled.  He's looking at colleges and many are writing to him about his running talent.  He is now captain for both fall and winter running. His Confirmation is in a few weeks. 

There is so much for me write about.  I'm so proud of the person he has become. It is a joy to see him grow and mature into a wonderful person with many talents. 

Sarai began his birthday with a Goldfish wish on the island.  He religiously takes Goldfish in his lunch daily.

Rachel made a sweet card for him on the computer.  She wanted to use it as wrapping paper.

Sarai is taking a Photoshop class at the High School She made him a cool birthday card with great memories on it.  She printed the page and then colored the rest of the designs in.  I cropped a few of my favorite parts. 

Here Tobin is a chocolate cow.  He has always like cows and Sarai loves chocolate milk.

Tobin is captain for both cross country and winter track next year.  His roll as cross country captain has already begun with planning summer practices and PT time for the varsity runners. 

This is a photo of Jacob, Abram and Tobin.  I laughed when I saw that Sarai created a thought bubble of baby Tobin dreaming of running later in life and loving it.

My mom and Lawrence joined us for dinner with Tobin on his birthday.  Jenna, Isaac, Aidan and Sierra came for dessert. 

Grammie, my mom, gave Tobin this great running jacket.  Now he will be seen while running on the roads.

A few dress shirts and ties.  Shrewsbury High has fancy day 7.  Many upper classmen dress up on that day.  He wore this shirt and tie the next fancy day 7.  He looked great.

I laughed so hard when Isaac and Jenna gave this to Tobin.  During cross country season the varsity boys decided to have "No Shave November".  Basically the guys grew scraggly mustaches, if we could even call them mustaches.  So here's to teens trying to grow mustaches!

Sarai had fun decorating Tobin's cake.  Happy Birthday Tobin!

Flying with Sarai and Rachel

It has been a long time since I've made a post. There are many past events to write about.

This one is about the day we tried to visit Leah for breakfast. On January 7th, we were all excited when we arrived at the Bedford airport, but our plans needed to change due to fog and risk of icing on the wings. Thankfully, Abram is a cautious pilot and will not fly into risky weather. In the end we took the girls up and flew around Worcester.

Here's Rachel sitting in the back row of seats on the plane.

Sarai came with us, but didn't want her picture taken.

We found our house and took a picture from the plane!  We are flying at 4000 feet at this point. 

Here's the dam on the Wachusett Reservoir.  Abram and I bike by this often on our bike rides.

When I looked through the photos I took, I realized that I also took a picture of Rachel's school.  It is hard to believe that I will be done with elementary schools in 3 months.  Shrewsbury elementary schools only go through 4th grade.  She will be in middle school next year!

The winter scenery is very bleak.  This was the only bit of color I saw from the plane.  A water tower next to a Lowe's.

While Abram and I tied up the plane, Rachel climbed into the pilot's seat and pretended to fly!

Someone was taking helicopter lessons when we landed. 

Here is the plane I want!  I has 6 seats and it's orange.  What more can you ask for?  Ha ha, we don't know who it belongs to, but it isn't a plane you can rent.  Someone must have been storing it at Bedford while there was too much snow at their normal airport.  It was there in January, but is gone now that the snow has melted and it is March.

Flying offers opportunities to go places, but you must always be flexible and cautious due to the weather.

Escaped to Vermont

Abram and I were granted a rare opportunity to escape for two days and a night to Vermont.  We booked a room at the Inn at Weathersfield.  Abram had originally found this inn through a flying forum recommending great places to fly to for dinner.  There is an airport a mile away, but we decided to drive to this destination.

We arrived on Thurs afternoon.  I feel as if we ate most of the time we were out!  We arrived in town around 2ish and ate a late lunch. We had dinner reservations at the inn at 6:15 which made it difficult to do anything after lunch.  We found a used bookstore, bought a book and settled into our room to relax and read!
Here is the front of the inn. It is a historical carriage house from the mid 1700s.  The owners have renovated it and made it a green inn. 

This is the side view of the inn.  The glass doors on the far left is where we had breakfast. I took these photos on Friday as we were leaving.  They were getting 10 inches of snow that day!  It was beautiful to sit in an open area, warm due to radiant heat in the floors and watch the snow fall in the morning. 

Our room was on the top floor. We walked up a spiral staircase to enter it.  Over the bed are pictures the owner has taken from her gardens.  She is an avid photographer.  The inn had many pictures taken by her and also art work from local residents as well. 

The rooms are heated by gas fireplaces. We used it only while we were in the room.  It was so toasty and romantic.

Our room also had access to a balcony with chairs.  It was too cold to appreciate it.  We would have gone out at night to see the stars, but because of the pending storm the night was overcast.  We borrowed a movie and watched it in our room after dinner.

As you enter the bedroom, you encounter a sitting room. 

This redcoat monkey was in the dining room.  We had to walk through the dining area to get to our room.  He caught my eye when we first walked in.  We also sat beneath him for dinner.  Dinner was amazing!  I'd venture to say we had a gourmet meal.  They had been voted best restaurant in Vermont for 2010! 

A shot of our snowy exit.  It has snowed a good three inches that morning before we left.  We were going to the base of Okemo mountain to cross country ski.

It snowed the whole time we were out.  The snow was so wet, we couldn't see the street sign nor the sign for the entrance we were looking for.  It is always an adventure traveling with Abram!  Took this photo of him while we were skiing. 

I have only cross country skied once before in high school behind my house for a short time.  Abram and I were out for a good 2 hours.  We went on most of the trails, although so many of them were hidden under 6 inches of snow.  I enjoyed cross country skiing.  Abram had tried to calm my fears by saying no falls doing this kind of skiing.  Of course I proved him wrong!  I learned you cannot lean backwards to counteract dips in the trail. 

We had a wonderful time.