Smiles! Yay for smiles! :)

Tuesday when we arrived back at the hotel around 4pm, Cale was so exhausted! He was asleep by 4:30pm and then didn’t wake up again until 7am Wednesday morning. I had woken him up to take his meds and after swallowing all 6 pills, he rolled over and was out again! No dinner that night!

It was a good thing he had gotten so much rest because yesterday was cycling. I had been told that we were going to have a tandem bike like what we had used in Palo Alto when we rode side by side, but when it was time to hop on a bike, the only ones were tandem that are back and front. I knew Cale wasn’t ready to hop on one of those! He doesn’t have great balance or control of his right foot. Eventually that might be a good idea, but not yet. The next option was him alone. Oh man. The last time we tried this while still at Palo Alto, it didn’t go too great. Cale had fun, but steering and control was a struggle. We decided with his vision issues and lack of his hands working together that tandem was going to be the way to go. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Cale not only rode by himself, but did it amazingly! We even had to ride on the street with cars, cross streets, AND did a total of 11 miles!!!!!!!! Yes! He did! Can you believe it?! I think the only reason he needed to turn around was because he needed to use the bathroom. I really think he could have done the full 14 miles. Either way, it surprised-shocked me that he went so far! GO Cale!!!

One of the other things that we all noticed a change in was…

Smile…


Smile…


Smile…


He loved it!

As many of you know, Cale lives very much in the moment. Even if the whole day had been absolutely perfect, if you ask him how the day was and in that moment he’s bored, then his answer for the whole day is going to be that it was boring. If his stomach was killing him in the morning and a few hours later it stopped, when you ask about his stomach hurting that morning, his answer will be that it didn’t hurt. This also happened with surfing on Monday. While Cale was surfing, he had a huge smile and loved it, but when he wasn’t surfing he was cold and miserable. So, his answer for how he liked surfing would be that he didn’t.

Yesterday he actually would say that cycling was good! This is going to be my new mission once we’re home; to get him a bike! We’ve been trying since March to get the tandem bike for us and now that we don’t need it, we can work on getting him a bike!

Funny story about my bike…

So, while Cale was in his single bike, I followed behind (or in front for part of the time) in case something happened and to help guide him. They had a ton of bikes to choose from but when I went up to get fitted, the lady had me sit on a dozen different bikes and none would work! Even with adjusting the seats, my legs were just too short! Haha! Uh…we finally found one though and I was good to go!

Every day after the events, Cale has been coming back to the room and passing out from exhaustion. We really are on the brink of it being too soon and all of this too much and then it being perfect timing. Yesterday after all that cycling, we had time to get to the room and have a couple hours before going to a big block party for the event. Cale kept trying to fall asleep and I kept being the annoying unwanted obnoxious woman and kept him awake.

Between the time of getting back to the hotel and leaving for the block party it had gotten extremely cold outside. Extremely might be a little exaggeration, but it makes my point. After getting our delicious plates of food, I scarfed mine down and Cale couldn’t eat! He was so cold! We ended up leaving pretty quickly after getting there and headed back to the room so we could crawl under our warm blankets!

This morning we got up and ready and then headed for some kayaking! Some of you might remember we did this in Seattle when Cale was going through radiation. He enjoyed it, but didn’t love it. The paddling takes a lot of coordination and strength which is very challenging for the Boy. Today we went in a double that had foot pedals! This was brilliant! We had a blast!!! At first we all hung around in a group to get everyone in their kayaks and make sure everyone was comfortable. When we were all ready, the whole group headed about 1.5 miles out and then back on a long ride. Cale and I were the first to the buoy on the way out! This of course made him smile so big because he’s really competitive. On the way back we switched it up and tried paddling…yep, that’s not our thing. We ended up going back to using our feet! :)



All was good and Cale was happy until we switched to the games after lunch. Instead of me going with him for the football game, a volunteer went with him. It started out really well with Cale still smiling and ready to win, but it didn’t take too long for it all to be too much. There was a small outburst of frustration so John brought him back in and I was able to remove him from the situation and he cheered up. He was still really tired though!



The rest of the day has been great! We’re ready to cuddle in bed and enjoy sleeping in a little tomorrow! So far it’s been all early mornings, but tomorrow we don’t meet up with the team until 10:45! Woohoo!!

Cale has been wanting ice cream since after the bike ride. Finally today there was some for all the guys and he enjoyed every drop of it! He even tore off the top of the little cup at the end and licked the entire inside! Haha!