Day 5....Goodbye for now...

 It's taken me a long time to write this post because ... well ... re-living saying goodbye and leaving her there is not exactly fun times. I still get teared-up when people ask about it. However, we have some beautiful pictures from that day that I want to share, so here they are.

Resting with Papa watching Sesame Street. This is one of my favorite pictures of them.

Our girl loves the sensory input of hanging upside down. She wants to stay in this position for far tooooo long!

Here she is standing in her brace. This picture shows how it goes from under her feet all the way up around her waist.

She is practicing standing straight up against the wall here.

Time to walk!

We snuck in a picture of her room. There are four twin beds, two against each wall. And this is sweet Katya! My experience with Katya deserves a post of it's own.

After wanting to take her braces off inside, we were able to talk her into keeping them on. While we were outside, she wanted to stand while eating granola.

She drank lots of water we gave her - which is important for kiddos with Spina Bifida. She goes through her typical day only having drinks at scheduled meal and snack times.

Our family picture before we left with her wearing the coat we bought her. We were worried it might be too small, but it wasn't! Yeah!

When it was time to say goodbye, I cried. I couldn't help it. They told her that we would come back after fall and winter had past and spring was coming (hopefully it won't take that long!). She told me, "Don't cry Ma'ma"

I always knew she was tough - now I know she's tougher than me!