We have been working our butts off since we moved to our new home in February to make it a place of rest and recreation. We have kids with various medical and mental challenges so making our home a place that we love to be is better than any vacation we could ever think of taking. No vacation spot could ever accommodate all our and our children's needs so it wouldn't be very enjoyable to "get away" for rest and relaxation. A huge plus of making our home our own custom made vacation spot is that it is way cheaper and every day has the opportunity to be a little vacation from our problems (Love the movie "What about Bob?").
It's also been raining forever this summer so we finally had a few good days in a row this weeken to enjoy all our hard work!
If Pat looks tired it's because he is. He has been working hard at work and coming home and working hard on making our apartment a home. Stephen started summer school this week and it is going much better than last year. Yay!
Here is our second attempt at grilling Friday night. Pat did a great job with the kielbasa. Yummy : ) Stephen is not liking being outside while we grill. All of his favorite things are inside the house-his book collection, his computer, the Internet, his music collection and his favorite movies. I tried grilling chicken legs last night and they got fried. I wasn't convinced they were safe to eat so we removed the meat from the bone and nuked it in the microwave. We are all still alive....but if you never see another blog post..
Another safe thing to grill-marshmallows. Stephen doesn't like marshmallows : ( 
This amazing grass was grown from pure grass seed. This was dirt two weeks ago!
Another safe thing to grill-marshmallows. Stephen doesn't like marshmallows : ( This amazing grass was grown from pure grass seed. This was dirt two weeks ago!
Olivia and Pat enjoyed the "hammock" feature on the porch swing. Pat tried to get Stephen to try it out but he wanted to go back inside to his favorite vacation spot-our house! I laid down on it too and almost threw up with how hard Pat was swinging it. He slowed it down and the world stopped spinning and we watched the birds and clouds go by.
It's amazing how good you can look with the right camera angle. Thanks to the hubby for making me look good!! 
Our landlord had someone repour the stairs. Here is what they looked like before.
After
The guy who did the stairs let Olivia put her foot in the cement at the top of the stairs. She felt like a superstar!
Do any of you have children with Autism or other special needs that just don't like the outdoors very much? Have you done more than most other families with children to make your home your own little vacation spot?
AfterThe guy who did the stairs let Olivia put her foot in the cement at the top of the stairs. She felt like a superstar!
Do any of you have children with Autism or other special needs that just don't like the outdoors very much? Have you done more than most other families with children to make your home your own little vacation spot?
5 comments:
Hi! Sorry, with my kids home for the summer I'm having some trouble keeping up with reading blogs.
The house is really shaping up nicely! Oh - the grass picture isn't showing up btw.
We don't go on vacations... but we have a lot of other things going on other than the developmental disabilities (severe food allergies, sun allergies, etc.) which would make that difficult. There is a vacation place specifically for people with sun allergies, but the food problems and DD would be a problem there (for us anyway).
My son (autism) has such a severe bug phobia that the outdoors is difficult for him when my daughter and I actually CAN go outside with the sun allergies. He also was reacting to bug bites like Olivia does, but this year doesn't seem to be as bad, thankfully... though I think the memory of past years has fueled his bug phobia. He often will go outside just to come in 2 seconds later when he sees a bug, completely terrified and screaming as if someone was chasing him trying to kill him! The ironic thing is he enjoys watching bugs through the windows. I am hoping that watching them 'do their thing' on the flowers/bushes will help him to understand that bees really are NOT "out to get him" lol. I'm also worrying that this may be starting to border on paranoia, it is getting so bad!
Tripletmom-I have to get caught up on reading your posts also! There is so much going on here as usual, LOL : )
Our family is in the same situation. We've tried a few real vacations but came home frustrated and frazzled. We love the stay-cation idea. Your yard looks lovely! Even with a trampoline and pool, it's hard to get our boys outside!
Betsy-My son has no interest in our pool but loves swimming at school. He also loves the trampoline at school but won't use ours!
If I remember correctly, you did a post on one of you sons who likes to escape the house and yard. My son is a flight risk when he is in the yard. So maybe it isn't such a bad thing that our kids don't like being outside!
When we take vacations, it can be a lot of work. Some people (the ones who don't "get it,") sometimes say, "You should go to Disney World." Yeah, right...
The only vacations we do go on, which aren't many, are to visit family.
When our kids were younger, they would play outside. Now that the boys are older--17 and 15, there's not much for them out there. We did, though, recently get a great deal on a used pool...John's just about done getting it set-up. We had one at the other house (we moved here last summer), and it was the one thing that could get Kyle outside willingly. They used to shoot hoops, too, at the other house, but it was something I had to "make" Kyle do...lol
And, before Evan came along, I took them somewhat frequently to "play" tennis...that was interesting...
Post a Comment