Happiness is...

... an unexpected and unplanned trip up to see family!  I just got back from a very quickly organized drive up to Mom's house to visit with her, David, Samantha, Hannah and Riley.  An extra bonus was seeing Sue and Lori and Lori's new little one as well.  It was a good visit with lots of laughs, lots of serious discussion, sights seen, Chicago pizza and hotdogs, a very fun round of golf with David, some great Scrabble games, and one of Mom's home-cooked meals.  I was apprehensive about making the drive alone but I kind of surprised myself and made the trip both ways without stopping for the night and continuing the next day.  The drive up was very bad because it rained for the first 600+ miles.  Coming back it was sunshine all the way... until it got dark.

Amongst the many happy events was seeing Riley demonstrate the progress she's making working with the physical therapist.  It really was exciting and heart-warming to see her standing up, kind of crawling, and just venturing out a bit.  Although she's only just begun working with it, she's now got a walker to work with as part of the program.  I figured that I just had to have a picture of Riley with her walker, and great-grandma with hers.  So, as out of focus as they are, some happy shots:

There is an awful lot of good in this picture!  First, grandma doesn't really use hers much, so that's good.  Second, Riley is wearing her brand new shoes which the therapist thinks will help her.  The fact that Riley is standing is icing on the cake.  Of course she just had to look around and, now that I think of it, she may never have seen her great-grandma with a walker before.  Cool!

And now that Riley looks straight ahead, grandma isn't!  Of course no one wants Riley to need this thing but it is the cutest little walker.  David got it adjusted pretty well for her and the handles are no more than shin high, even compared to grandma's shins :)

And it's very appropriate to have Hannah in this 'therapy' shot because Hannah goes to all of Riley's sessions and takes such good care of her little sister at all times.  Way to go Hannah !!