Second poke

 

The five of us who are 16 and older got our second dose of the Pfizer vaccine today. We're taking our chances that we (me and Matt) won't both feel too icky tomorrow. :) Otherwise Rose is going to have a busy day! Above you can see us waiting the mandatory 15 minutes to make sure we don't pass out!

Gillette purchased and remodeled a dingy old one-level warehouse two blocks from their main campus for a vaccination clinic for their patients and all family caregivers of their patients. One of the nurses there today said, "Oh! You're Mira's family!" She's never actually worked with Mira, but, in her words, "You can't work at Gillette without knowing Mira." I guess I knew that Mira-girl was a big deal, but didn't realize what a big deal she is over there! 

Owen, actually, got to do this outing on his first day out of sixteen days of isolation due to his friend (the one family that he's spent time with over the last year!) getting a postive COVID test. Owen got to come home and go right to his room - we'd already removed Krassimir's things and set up the large pack n play that we use for him when we travel in the playroom in the new basement - and that's where he spent the next sixteen days. Well, there, or on the soccer field - I told him as long as no one else was on the fields he could go outside and kick his ball around. When, a few days later, Owen took a mail-in saliva test and got the positive result the next day, he was glad that he could at least now have his friend that he got it from join him on the soccer field! Owen went through the whole thing with no symptoms. Possibly because he's young and resilient, and possibly because he'd had his first dose of the vaccine already. Anyway, he then had ten days from the test, which ended up falling out to a total of sixteen days of isolation. Not exactly how he'd planned to spend his spring break OR the first two weeks of his new part-time job! But he made it through, and is now good to go. We were sure glad we got him stuck away so soon, because he was isolated before what they consider his "contagious period" (two days before he tested b/c he was asymptomatic) so the rest of us could go about our business as usual.

So that's the excitement around here, lately! (Tomorrow the completed Bobbette shows up - that's some *real* excitement!!)

more about the Bobbette

 Four and a half years ago we took our little family on a trip up north to the North Shore of Lake Superior.

In the background is Split Rock lighthouse. In the foreground is our means for hiking with a non-mobile child.

Perched on a rock

At Gooseberry Falls (which is wheelchair accessible until you get right down by the falls themselves)

...at which point Dad can carry down the rest of the way.

Another method for carrying someone who is not yet mobile!

All of us outside of the hotel we stayed at, which is made from converted railcars!

 

We've been talking seriously for the last year about doing it again, but this time around, it's a little more complex. First of all, Krassi is bigger than he was four and a half years ago, and though we still do the "sack of potatoes" carry with him a lot, it's a little tougher now than it was...and Bobbi doesn't work as well that way! Tsvetomira can stay with Crescent Cove, but we wanted some way to have both Bobbi and Krassi be able to be involved with the active parts of our days if we made the effort to take a family trip!

So, we researched, and found this, which is pretty much amazing in pretty much every way: the Joelette.

But the price tag was a little (significantly!) steep for us, particularly because although we have three kids who could potentially use it (Bobbi, Krassi, and likely Reuben some day, too), it's not like we go hiking every weekend!! So, we thought, can we rent it from someone? Nope - closest we could find is in Colorado, and just wasn't feasible.

So, we researched some more and found this, which is not as amazing: (link here). But it has a much more accessible price tag. But would it be worth it for the cost? No foot rest, and, more significantly, would really require ALL carrying, and not have the benefit of the wheel to roll along and support weight during easier/smoother stretches of the hike.

Months passed, and then we remembered that we knew someone (distantly) who makes custom bicycles!!! So we thought, why not? We sent him an email asking if he thought he could rig something up with the more important features of the really nice vehicle with a price tag more reminiscent of the not so nice vehicle, and he said...yes!!!

His family passed through the Cities on their way to Wisconsin last week and left the in-process "Bobbette" as they've named it, with us to try out so he can make any last adjustments before powder coating it (in Bobbi's color of choice - espresso - like her beloved coffee!!)

It works SO WELL. It's so well balanced that when you're just running it along on the ground, both the front and the back person feel like the other must be doing all of the work because it's so easy to work with. He's got a great cushion incorporated in as well as a nice secure harness. The footrest needs a bit of adjustment, but otherwise, we can't really think of anything that needs to change! It's so perfect! (And he managed to figure out a way to get it to fold down small, which was a feature we said we didn't need to have, but because it DOES fold, we can take it in the back of Big Blue without needing to hook up the trailer or take Owen's pick up truck!)

It's so easy to use that even Rinnah is sufficient to be the front "sherpa" when we're going on fairly straightforward terrain.

Here we are this past weekend down by the Mississippi River at a hiking spot (Pike Island) we've enjoyed in the past...but not ever with Bobbi! We paused a bit to throw rocks, so Matt's just holding it on his own. There's an option to flip the wheel back so it can sit stable on four legs when we're stopping for any length of time, but it wasn't worth doing for this short pause.

Set up and take down is pretty quick.

We managed to do a lift over some driftwood at the shore, and even to go up a rough cut flight of stairs. There are two mini-handles on either side of the chair, too, so if we needed to we could easily have four (or up to six, if each person took one handle) people to lift and move if/when the terrain requires.

North Shore, here we come! We have reservations at the same hotel for the first week of June, and we're really looking forward to an adventure. We're bringing Rose and her husband along, as well as our adult niece (and her two-year-old) to stay with Grandma who can't really be left alone anymore, and the girls' best friend, Hope, who we consider to be our seventh daughter. And probably our nephew (Owen and Krassi's age), because even though he's not really into hiking, he and Owen will enjoy the time together, and we've got the rest of the family anyway! (The two of them are our kids' only cousins on Matt's side.)

Go ahead and check out Randy's web page (click on his logo below for the link) - he's the one creating and fashioning the Bobbette for us!

meet the Bobbette...

 

...our new (in process) all-terrain hiking machine!

I'm not up to typing more now, but we're so excited about this that I wanted to share a little taste with you, and will get you the rest of the story soon...(er or later).