Grateful for Uncle W

Like I said the other day so much has been going on these last two weeks that I have not had any time to sit down and blog about it. Uncle W was on all of our minds and in all of our prayers because of his accident last week. So here is the short synopsis of what happened and I hope I managed to get the details correct.


What can I say Uncle W?
The only thing we keep saying is how grateful we are that you are alive so that we can have more happy times with you in the future!
Uncle W -- aka "The Favorite Uncle" as he so named himself from the beginning, and by the beginning I mean ever since HJ was born. He was in a horrible accident almost two weeks ago. He fell from his apartment balcony while trying to get into his apartment and landed on his head. And of course this happened very late on a Sunday night, in Keystone, Colorado. (His apartment apparently sits on a slope so in the front he is on the second floor, but his balcony is on the back and it appears to be on the third floor. This is the best description I have.) He fractured his skull and fractured several of his bones on the left side of his face, one of his arms (radius and ulna) and fractured a wrist. He was in ICU for a hand full of days (where it was touch and go because of the bleeding he had in his skull.) After he was out of the woods with that complication he had reconstructive plastic surgery to repair the bones in his face.
Everyone has been praying for his speedy and comfortable recovery. My boys were very upset about the accident and continue to pray everyday that Uncle W will be better soon.



The one thing about Uncle W is his love for life, he is always ready to have a good time. This is how I know he will recover and be as good as new. My boys have spent countless hours playing with him, giggling, getting into trouble with him, and having some quiet time like reading the same book over and over again. He has been so patient with them. They remember so many "good times" and because of the accident we have been discussing how we should always be grateful and not take our time with each other for granted.



And now I am sure you are wondering "Why this picture?" because it makes us laugh and remember the day we spent with my mom and Uncle W on Navy Pier in the beautiful Windy City (Chicago, for those of you who have never heard it's nick name.)
That was a good day. We spent it at one of HJ's favorite places. We worked hard at digging up dinosaur bones, running through tunnels, building simple machines, making styrofoam objects that we dropped from the sky and hoping ours would be the best at catching some air. After spending so much time at the Children's Museum we were not tired (don't ask me how, because my mom and I were - I was pregnant with CJ.) We stayed and ate lunch and then rode the enormous Farris Wheel and felt the cool breeze on our faces from Lake Michigan. Finally later that day Uncle W, HJ and WC all decided to go swimming in the freezing cold lake in nothing but their undies or in WC's case nothing (he was still only 2 and did not mind being naked, in fact he quite enjoyed it!)
We hope that Uncle W will recover quickly and in as little pain as possible for his circumstances so that we can have some more fun times when he gets back from Colorado. We also want to say that we are so thankful for all of his friends and the many emergency personnel that took care of him during the accident. I know that it brought some comfort to us to know that he was being taken care of before any of the family could get to him. (I feel like I need to say this even thought I know these people will probably never read this and they were just doing their job or being a good friend. But many of those people do their job everyday and don't get much of a thank you - so to all of you who help save lives-----Thank you!)