New Lansing Hollow farm site

New driveway, the house site is actually over to the right and not in the picture. Can you say snow plow.
This will be our new view. Yeah mountains. Yes the pasture is part of the property. The horses don't know it but they are in for a treat.
Not sure why this one came out mini but it is the clearing that is by the creek. We are going to build a barbeque and a gazebo etc. etc. etc. in this area for entertaining.
And here is the gorgeous creek that runs in the hollow behind that wonderful clearing.

So I got the call this morning that our offer has been accepted. Of course everything hinges on the sale of our current home so all good thoughts towards that end are highly appreciated.

I will post pics of Joe when he falls asleep. I have to go upstairs for that.

Love you all Nikki

Change of plans

The property that I posted pictures of is not going to be ours. To much money would of gone into the septic system. So we are still looking. There is a beautiful place in Medusa five minutes from us. We are waiting to get info on the septic system that is installed? before we make an offer. I am also going to check into what the costs would be to make changes to this house so we have a clear idea of options. Personally I favor the property in Medusa. It has a great creek running through it and nice pastures for hay.

Joe had his core evaluation and they are lining up a teacher and speech therapist for him. We should be getting started with all that in the next couple of weeks.

I better get going, Ed needs to get some stuff done and Joe fell asleep early tonight.

Love you all, Nikki

New property?

Potential new driveway of property we are looking at. This view is looking towards the road.
This is as you are driving from the road about mid driveway on the left. It was a stream at one time until some beavers built a damn. We want to clean it up and make it into a nice pond.

This is at the property line, the pond to be is out of sight on the right.

We are going back out tonight with a neighbor who does land clearing, ponds and foundation work to get his opinion.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Love ya Nikki

Happy Birthday to a whole lot of folks!

July is a busy birthday month. So I am going to send a blanket happy B-day to everyone and best wishes for your special day.

Joe's intervention program sent out a person to collect info and get Joe enrolled. Her name is Kelly and she is a very nice lady whom Joe was very interested in. He was very helpful in taking her pens and playing with them. Our next move is to wait for the actual evaluation to take place. I should be hearing from them by the end of next week. Joe is doing well, we keep encouraging him to play with his puzzle box. He gets better everyday. He loves his books even if he doesn't always wait for me to finish reading them before he wanders off to get another toy. All in all we are looking forward to getting started so we can get some real communication skills started.

As some of you may know we have decided to start looking for property. This house is not set up to deal with Joe very well so we have decided to buy property and put a modular on it. I am hoping that the piece we are seeing tomorrow will be a good fit. We have both been out to see it but the owner was unavailable to show us the actual property lines so we will find out tomorrow exactly were they lie. The next move will be asking a neighbor of ours who does land clearing and ponds to come take a look at it. The area to the left of the driveway was a stream that was damned up by beavers. The beavers are gone but Ed wants to make it into a large pond. It would be great for fishing. I will get back to you all with the news there when we have more to share.

Work is about the same for both Ed and I, necessary. We are pretty much just maintaining the lawn and gardens as best we can. The lawn looks way better then the gardens right now but maybe I will get some time to catch up.

Our road is getting resurfaced, Yeah and Boo. Scratching your heads again, I am glad my poor vehicles will not have to bump along over shoddy patch work but shiver to think how much faster the local idiot is going to be flying past the house. I guess you just have to take the good with the bad.

Joe seems to be stirring from his nap, so farewell, so long auf wiederzehn.....

Nikki

Joe's Dr appt.

Some of you already know that Joe had an appointment on Monday with his developmental pediatrician. This appointment was one that I scheduled because I was concerned with his lack of language and even regression in some cases and certain behaviors that he was displaying.

Joe has a diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified. Alright I know I have just caused more then a few of you to scratch your heads. Some of you because this terminology is bizarre bordering on terrifying others because Ed e-mailed you about autism. Well, you are all right it is scary and in a way it is autism. But please keep in mind it is only scary because for the most part all of us are not familiar with it, Joe is going to be just fine. Autism is now considered to be a disorder that is really a wide spectrum and all people who are autistic do not have the same symptoms. There is high functioning autism at one end and full blown autism(patient does not communicate with the world in any way.) Joe is in the middle of this. He does not attempt to speak to us or point at objects to make his needs known to us. For example when he has dropped something and cannot retrieve it himself his brain does not connect the fact that mom and dad always provide what he needs. So he does not get one of us to help him by coming to get us and pointing at what he wants, he simply screams in frustration. He also is not good with eye contact and occasionally flaps his hands. He will sit and stare on occasion retreating into his own world (not very often). These behaviors are all the pervasive developmental disorder, but the good news is he also has not otherwise specified. (This is a good thing) These are the normal interactions, when he plays puzzle with me, when he brings me brown bear to read to him, when he looks up and makes eye contact and smiles, when he laughs at the critters and claps his hands, When he listens to daddy play music and helps strum the guitar while daddy makes the chords, etc.etc.etc. . OK so now you are all asking what the heck happens now, well we are waiting for a letter or phone call from the intervention program that will include language therapy along with some behavior modification I imagine. I will know more when I hear from these folks and promise to keep you all up to date with the blog as we get started on our new adventure.

It has taken Ed and I a couple of days to digest everything even though I had a tiny voice in the back of my head saying wait a second didn't you learn about something like this in nursing school. But I didn't like that voice very well so I ignored it until Monday when I had to face the reality of life. Well reality is I can't wait to get started so Joe and I will be more able to communicate with each other. Fact of the matter is the same day we were in the office there was a four year old with the same diagnosis whose parents told us he had been in the same boat as Joe but now he speaks in full sentences and no one would ever know about his PDD,NOS. It's always nice to see that light at the end of the tunnel when you are just starting down it.

We appreciate all the well wishes that have voiced by so many of you. Thanks for your thoughts of well being as well as prayers.

Love Nikki and Ed