I have a job offer from a hospital in Covington! It's a bit of a drive but its a job and I'm thankful. Although, the day after they called with the job offer I got called for a phone interview at another hospital for an Outpatient Dietitian position and the pay would be about $13,000 more per year plus awesome benefits. I had the phone interview yesterday and feel good about it, but probably won't know until the end of next week. But it is just so comforting to know for sure that I will have a job when we move. The Lord keeps opening doors and blessing us so much! Luke had his evaluation from the staff at Emory who also found he has autism and he qualifies for their program. He was such a trooper all day that day, we were there for 3 1/2 hours, he had to entertain himself for much of that time while I spoke with various people and answered questions. Then he had to eat in the car, got no nap, and had to go to the doctor for an hour and a half because he had been running a fever on and off and had red watery eyes and runny nose. He was a really good boy though, I am so proud of him. They did say at Emory that he has a lot of good skills that are typically hard to teach children with autism. He did respond to his name a couple of times and had some joint attention. You probably don't know what joint attention is but it's very important for socialization! We are excited about our move but I know it will be hard on all of us, especially Luke and my parents. Mimi is like a second Mom to Luke and sometimes I think he prefers her to me! So it will be hard for him to understand we will be living in not only a separate house but a separate city! But in more good news my parents are seriously considering moving to the Atlanta area as well, probably the beginning of next year. Hooray!!! So continue to keep us in your prayers, I know the Lord will lead me to the job that will be the right one.
Here are some pictures of our new house that if all goes according to plan we will be living at in a couple of weeks. Well, it's not new but it is new to us. Our first home! It's in Snellville.
Check out the backyard!!!
It's really cute. I love the front porch and the huge backyard. I bet Luke will love it too. I'm glad things are going so well and I hope that they continue to. Glad Ryan could help Eric out.
Cute house! I remember how exciting it was to buy our first house! I am happy to hear all is coming together for you all! I hope we can see you guys every once in a while since you are living in the atl. area.
Luke was accepted into the Emory Autism Center in Decatur, GA!!! We prayed long and hard that it would work out. There was one person ahead of us on the waiting list who was trying (and taking their sweet time) to decide whether they wanted the one open spot available in his age group. I don't know if they decided "no" or if the Emory Autism Center was just tired of them ho-humming around to make a decision. So he got the spot! Of course they have to do their own evaluation to confirm that he actually has autism, then he will begin the program on October 1st. So the next few weeks are going to be a whirl-wind for us. I had originally given my last day here at work as October 3rd. Well that obviously had to change, so now I will work up until Sept. 30th, the day before Luke starts "school." So that Tuesday night we will drive down to Atlanta and most likely stay with my sister in her one bedroom apartment (with her huge pitbull mix dog) Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and come back to NC for the weekend. We put an offer down on a house and the closing date is Monday October 6th. We plan on packing up the rental truck and moving the weekend of the 4th and 5th, closing on the 6th and start moving in that night. Then on Thursday we fly out to Las Vegas for my brother's wedding. We had planned this trip several months ago before we knew all of this craziness would be going on. So we will be gone to Las Vegas and Los Angeles for 7 days. Then it's back to a new house and Luke's new school. And to top it all off, I still don't have a job in Atlanta yet. I do have faith that the Lord wouldn't have opened the door for this opportunity and then not provide a job for me. But please keep us in your prayers that I find something soon! Luke's school alone is almost $2000 a month. So any of you reading this in the Atlanta area we will be moving there very soon! We are very excited about our first house.
I'm so happy for Luke and for you guys too! How exciting! All the stuff going on to get you there sounds so crazy! It shows alot about your love for him that you guys are willing to go through all of that to help get him where he needs to be. I'll be praying for you!
I'm sorry we won't be seeing Eric after all. I hope that all goes well with your move. Believe me, I know what crazy and hectic are like at this point and I feel your pain. :)
Just wanted to share something funny that happened to me yesterday. I was on my lunch hour and of course went shopping at Wal-Mart (those of you who have read my posts previously will know of my love for Wal-Mart excentric clientelle). I had a buggy full of merchandise and stopped over in the Blimpie sandwich shop in the store to grab a sandwich to take back with me to work (because of course people don't eat on their lunch hour, they shop and run errands and eat at work). I'm in line and deciding which bag of chips I want with my sandwich. There were several people in line behind me. I'm comparing the baked version of different chip flavors to the non-baked regular version and decide upon baked Cheetos. The lady behind me squeezes my arm and tells me to choose the one I like and not to limit my choice to the baked chips. She then asks when my birthday is and I tell her July. She says "so you're a cancer like me, my birthday is July 4th. Well you are free, a free spirit. Choose what you want because if you don't you are living inside the box." I told her I was a Dietitian and naturally would compare the Nutrition Facts labels among the various products. She then said she was a nurse for 20 years but now she doesn't believe in germs. I'm assuming she means she doesn't believe that germs exist. WEIRDO. So I slowly start edging away and luckily about that time my sandwich was ready and I paid the cashier. She bought a soft-serve icecream and as she walked away reminded me to not be boxed in to "the box." Not exactly sure what that means or would I ever realize that my decision for lunch side item would have been such an important one.
A few days ago while buying a AJC at the gas station a young gentleman in front of me turned around and apologized for not wearing a shirt. He told me he is very tired b/c he is an EMT and he usually wears a shirt.
HA!!! She probably didn't remember!!! I might just do that. I'm kinda over it now. Just don't have the time to mess with it either!
You are right about Noelani. She is a very sensitive girl. She didn't want to see the pictures or talk about it either. Frederic went to clean our the car. Since they are probably going to total it out he wanted to make sure he got everything. Noelani was upset that he was going back to his car.
As for that crazy lady....I agree with her. Isn't she choosing to live in the box of "living outside of the box"?
We are asking God to grant us wisdom and we are asking all our friends and family for their prayers and support. A few weeks ago we took Luke to see a Child Psychologist because we had some concerns about his development. He has been diagnosed with autism. If you are not familiar with autism spectrum disorder I encourage you to go to autismspeaks.org to learn more.
In order for Luke to have the best opportunities for learning and growth we have decided to move to the Atlanta area in the very near future. We love where we live right now in the mountains of North Carolina but it is such a rural area that unfortunately there aren't adequate services or therapy for autism.
Again we ask for your earnest prayers as we have some major decisions to make concerning where to live, where to work, where to worship, and of course where to take Luke for therapy.
We will be praying for you all. What a difficult diagnosis. I know a little about the autism spectrum and have wondered about the treatment center here in Cumming with naturopath, Dr. Sloan. They have a great success rates in helping autism patients. I have gone to him for various reasons and have been very impressed. Here is the website and the link for Autism therapy is upper right corner of webpage in red. http://www.thegenesiscenter.com/ Well, we will continue to pray and of course, we hope you will come to Mtn View!! Let us know how we can help, in any way, helping you move to Atl. You know our door is open if you need to stay while looking for a place to live, work, etc.
I'm praying for you! I work with autism, so don't let the name scare you. I'm really glad that you have found out at an early age. I'm here if you need any help.
It was good to see y'all. I'll be emailing you my sister-in-laws info so you can talk to her about real estate. Hope all goes well on the move. Believe me, I know how crazy that can be. And I feel sure that everything will work out well for Luke because y'all are such good parents to him. You're trying to do what's best for him and that's all you can do. We'll keep y'all in our prayers. Love ya!
We have puppies at our house! Well, we've had them for 6 weeks now actually. My parent's Minature Pincher "Gina" had 4 puppies back in June - three boys and a girl. Right now they are so cute but so rowdy and messy. There is one little boy who is so meek and sweet and cuddly. And the little girl gets in there and plays rough with the boys! If anyone knows me well they know I am not a dog person so it is a stretch for me to compliment dogs like that but these puppies are an exception. Luke likes the puppies but he preferes to watch them from the other side of the screen door so they can't lick his toes! I did get a couple of pictures of us playing with the puppies a couple of weeks ago (see below). We might get stuck with some of the puppies though because it seems that with times as they are people don't want to buy a $300 dog. We may end up at the Wal-mart parking lot selling them for cheap while they are still extra cute!
Silly puppies!
Aren't they cute?
Luke enjoying the warm summer weather outside on his slide
Those puppies are adorable. Noelani said to tell you I like Luke and those puppies too. I showed Maleia the puppies and she started laughing so hard. She just loves puppies!
Hey! We will be in Hickory, NC and then for the wedding, I think it is east of there in Statesville. I don't know how close you are to Hickory...if it were close enough we could stop in for a very quick visit.
it's hard to keep track of lots of people on here, so you have it good only having 6 or 7!! I think your little boy looks darling. I had no idea you were married and had a child!!! I'm so glad you are on here. Where are you living now?
