Midwest Traveler

Still on a high from his trip to the Lake of the Ozarks and Branson last week, James headed to Minnesota on Friday with me and our mom and dad for a weekend with our niece, Evelyn, and her parents. During the drive James wanted everyone in the van to look at his brochures from his two favorite shows in Branson, Presleys' Country Jubilee and the Baldknobbers Jamboree Show (even the driver). Once we arrived James made himself comfortable and spent the rest of the weekend glued to the TV watching the Olympics. He was delighted to find that his favorite swimmer, Natalie Coughlin, was competing. James did find time in his busy schedule to read to Evelyn and whiz around the house with her safely strapped in her stroller. 

Electric Scare

Yesterday I checked out the AWAARE Collaboration, an initiative working to prevent wandering incidents and deaths within the autism community (http://awaare.org/index.htm). According to AWAARE, "Because children with autism are challenged in areas of language and cognitive function, it can be difficult to teach them about dangers and ways to stay safe." No kidding, James almost electrocuted our dad this week. Our dad was putting in a new ceiling fan in the kitchen and had turned off the electricity to the house from the garage. When the electricity went off, James was watching TV and yelled, "HEY!" While our dad was busy with the ceiling fan, James made his way out to the garage and turned the electricity back on. He must have watched my dad at some point and figured out how to do this. Luckily, the ceiling fan was installed to the point where our dad couldn't electrocute himself. Just another day in the life.

Val is Back in Town

On Friday James and I were finally back on schedule after a month of me being gone on the weekends. He was content to bake cookies at my house and supervise Mark and I clean. The highlight of the night was talking to Evelyn with FaceTime on my iPhone. James said, "My name is James Boland. Do you live in Minnesota?"