Had a great birthday yesterday.  We went to dinner at Spencer’s in Palm Springs.  It was David, Donovan, Blade and me.  The food was good, and the company was even better.  Also got lots of wishes on Facebook which was nice.  Anyway, it was a good day.

The pool has been moving along at a pretty good pace, so I think we will be ready by the end of the month or at the latest, early March.  Just in time for the weather to heat up.  I am looking forward to having it all done.  Now I get a sense of what it will look like, and how the spa fits into the picture.  Still a cement hole in the back yard, but coming together.

We had speech this morning with Holly, which went really well.  She started working on gestures with David and trying to pair them with words, and I think that it is helpful.  Any tools we can use to get more speech back I am game to try.  We then we went to Cedric’s group. It was a bit subdued because the sisters had to leave. There are two women who come to this group who are sisters, and one is a widow and the other one has a husband in a nursing home, and they had to leave because they called to say her husband had taken a turn for the worse, and that they should come. I was a bit depressed by this. Just sort of sad. I hope it all works out for them, and it was a false alarm.

We also had the speech group at Eisenhower, but Arlene was in NY visiting family (great timing, right??!!) so it wasn’t as smooth as it normally is.  I really like this group.  The folks are very nice, and I think it is good for David.  He did a little reading in the group, but it is tough.  I am just happy that he can follow along and does get a word or two.  The other part of the group I like is the variety of issues that folks are dealing with.  They are not all stroke survivors, but include people who had TBI (Traumatic Brain Injuries) and Parkinson’s.  Basically, anyone who has speech problems.  I also felt a little bad when one of the clients told us that his partner had given him an ultimatum after he had his stroke in July last year that he needed to be walking by New Years, or he was leaving, and he is now dealing with being alone.