Tuesday was a very busy day for us. We moved Piper back to New Jersey in the morning. The move seemed to go pretty smoothly. Piper was still in a good mood, even after they completed all of the intake pestering. Later in the evening, we picked up Reagan’s parents from the airport.

Wednesday, when we visited Piper, she was sleeping when we arrived. When she woke up, she puked right away. Poor little squirt. But once we got her cleaned off and everything, she eventually livened right up, and we had a really fun time hanging out with her.

Inspecting Grandma’s chin:

Inspecting Grandpa’s ear:

Go here for a couple more photos.

for another great sunset.

Wally and Pete flew in late Wednesday night (late). That didn’t stop us from getting up with the Sun, on Thursday to pack in a full day. We started out (after seeing Piper) in lower Manhattan. Here is a shot of My dad and brother Pete, at Alexander Hamilton’s grave (at Trinity Church). How funny is it, that I have walked down that street in the back ground of the photo, countless times, and never even realized that Hamilton’s grave was right there. So nuts. We checked out all of the churches monuments and batteries in lower Manhattan, on Thursday. Then, Friday morning, we walked across the GW, into NJ, so that we could check out Fort Lee.

We had a crazy-good time, all in all. We wanted to try to make it over to Prospect Park, and see a couple of other Sites in Brooklyn, before they had to leave, but the weather kind of crapped out. It was ok, though, because we had plenty of fun filling the rainy hours just hanging out and goofing off.

Here are the other volumes (and I mean volumes) of photos from the historical sites.

The DJIA closed in the positive. I had a burrito for dinner. I just found out that my dad and both of my brothers (both of which will be meeting Piper for the first time) are coming to visit next month. NJ hooked us up with a great sunset. Life is pretty good, at the moment.

Phew. Today was a big day for Piper (and for us). The move went fairly smooth. There was an issue during transport, that caused her to be in a lot of distress when we initially arrived at the new hospital. We were getting kind of worried for a while, because her heart rate was staying so high, and she was visibly working very hard to breathe.  Eventually she did calm down, and seemed to be acting like her normal self again by this afternoon. So far, all of the people we have met at the new place have been very kind. They seem to like Piper, also. I hope that they bond with her the way that her previous nurses have, so that we can have that extra level of comfort while entrusting her in their care. Distance-wise, it is about the same as going to Blythedale. It will be a bit more expensive paying the $8 toll over the GW each time. On the upside, there in an Ikea, and 2 malls in between. Actually, those factors will probably make the commute even more expensive, hahahah.  The photo below is after Piper was able to calm down and start playing again, like the cute little monkey that she is. We greatly appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers for Piper in connection with her latest transition. We have felt an incredible amount of support, and I’m sure that she has too.

I am totally pumped about this show. Beastie Boys are playing the opening day. You can enter to win free tickets by filling out this form. So… Like it. –Jake

I recieved a call from Piper’s social worker today. Barring any unforeseen kinks, Piper will be moving to New Jersey next Wednesday the 15th of April. I have a lot of mixed emotions about this transition. On one hand, we are really going to miss all of the people who we have come to know and have befriended at Blythedale. On the other hand, this feels like a step towards normalcy, being the place she is going, is a long term facility. Keep your fingers crossed for the little squirt, that she handles the transition smoothly.

Reagan informed me that during her visit with Piper today, she found out that Piper will most likely be moving to a long term care facility in NJ, in the coming weeks. I still don’t know how I feel about it. It isn’t like we didn’t know it was coming. It is also really good news that she will be going to NJ, instead of Smithtown, in Long Island. I’m sure that Reagan will give more details when she writes about it. Anyway, it got me to thinking about what the transition might be like.  I was looking at some of the old pictures of Piper, and it is strange how just seeing them brought back memories of so much fear, worry and stress. It really is amazing how far along Piper has come. I love that little girl, like crazy.

I have been so excited to go riding tomorrow, that I can’t really stop thinking about it. It will be the first time in 2 seasons. I didn’t go once last year (redundant redundancy). Anyway, some of our friends came over last night and I made everyone watch snowboarding videos for about 3 hours. Everyone was a pretty good sport about it. Today, as fate would have it, we got a storm. In fact it is still snowing out side. How great would that be, to get a little fresh covering up the ice tomorrow? It will most likely be overcast with flat light, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could get a day like the one in the pic above (Jake/Snowbird/ circa 2003)? I have my fingers crossed for the sun to come out tomorrow. But in all honestly, I will take what I can get, and be pretty happy about just getting out, at all. Wish me luck. I haven’t been in so long that it is likely I have forgotten how, and will come back in an ambulance. Hahahah

Yesterday afternoon, I was in a conference room before a meeting and there was this huge plume of smoke out in NJ. I took this crappy picture of it with my phone. I read today that it was an overturned tanker. It was pretty crazy how much smoke was coming out of that thing. I was pretty amazed to see that the driver survived, albeit barely. I guess he is still in critical condition.

On a much, much lighter note: I watched that Sunrise show that I wrote about. It was pretty awesome. I’m not going to lie and say it was action packed or anything. In fact, it was super slow moving, just like an actual sunrise, hahahaha. I didn’t have a whole hour of time to dedicate last night. So I admit that I just FF>>ed to the good parts. I also discovered that it is on at 7 A.M. and 10 A.M. So maybe I can trick Reagan into having it on in the morning instead of the usual line up of DVR giddy girlie shows. Just a thought, hahaha.