Respite Weekend

Last summer we scheduled Jack for Ryan House weekends through the end of the year.  This weekend was one of his Ryan House weekends, so we took advantage of the opportunity and headed up to Sedona.  Sedona is one of the most beautiful places there is and I realized this weekend that I really need to be better at taking advantage of having such a beautiful and peaceful place practically in my own backyard.  I always worry when Jack is at Ryan House and we are far away, but when we picked him up this afternoon he look good and he was happy.  I usually call a couple of times to check in on him, but also realize that they aren't ever going to tell me anything other than "he is doing good" when I call, so it's not really anymore reassuring to call and check on him than to not.  If there really is a problem, they have my phone number and they will call, right?!

Ryan House has become so popular that they are now limiting the number of weekends each family can have per year to three.  Three.  That's a bummer because who needs respite during the week?  Oh well, three weekends a year are better then none.

I dragged Hilary out of the house and made her go with us.  She hung out at the hotel on Saturday and Mark, Eric and I went hiking.  We also drove into Flagstaff after our hike and met Mary for lunch.  Today, Mark and Hilary went to "Out of Africa" wild animal park and Eric and I walked around Sedona and enjoyed eating, shopping and people watching.  It was a great weekend all the way around.  

Below are a few pictures from our hike on Saturday through beautiful Oak Creek Canyon.  The trail we took is about 3.5 miles into the canyon for a total of about 7 miles roundtrip.  We turned around at about the 2.5 mile mark.  There are a lot of places along the trail where you have to cross the creek.  Our walking sticks came in handy helping us keep our balance when we walked on the rocks across the creek. 

It's my hope to one day gather up a group of my fellow trach moms and somehow get them all to Arizona for a weekend retreat in Sedona. Wouldn't that be awesome?  Who's in?