“Here’s a rest stop with a big field for Courtney to run. I’ll run with her.”

5 years ago when he first took me Mackinac Island, MI I was almost 7 months pregnant with Courtney. We were on our “baby moon”. Joe talked back then how we would do this trip annually with our family just like he did growing up. He talked about how perfectly well behaved our kids would be all the time. I always chuckled knowing that no child could possibly by “perfect” 24/7.

If you haven’t read it before, you need to read “Welcome to Holland”.http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html. It describes so perfectly how I feel about raising a child with a disability. No, this is not the journey we imagined 5 years ago but I love this journey! I’m so glad we are on this journey.

5 years ago we didn’t talk about how our long car rides are going to need to include a stop at a park and or field for Courtney to run. We didn’t talk about the big Rubbermaid container we were going to have to pack of Courtney’s food. We didn’t even consider having to bring a cooler just for 3-1/2 gallons of special milk. But life barely ever turns out as you planned, right? We may have planned for Italy 5 years ago, but our wild trip to Holland is beautiful! Even more beautiful than Italy!