Last First-Day-Of-School

As is tradition in our home and likely in the homes of many of you, we take a first-day-of-school picture of our kids out in front of our house. This year marks what will likely be the last of those pictures as Nick embarks on the home stretch of his studies at JWU! He was kind enough to provide this selfie outside of his apartment yesterday before departing to his first class. Our pride continues to overflow, as not only does Nick expect to graduate with his bachelor's degree at the end of February, but he has set many personal goals for himself in preparation for his future in restaurant and hospitality management. Again, we'd like to thank all of you, Nick's family and friends, who have continued supporting Nick and giving him the strength and determination to live life to the fullest!





Also, for those of you wanting to see the final product of Nick's Red Rocks tattoo, here you go...

One year stronger

Not that we would ever try, but this kid just can't be held down! Today marks one year since his fall and Nick continues to show us just exactly how strong he really is, every single day. His Instagram post below illustrates this point better than I could hope to. It shows off his fresh ink of Red Rocks, a way of celebrating his own courage and triumph.

Thank you all, once again, for all the love and support that you have given to Nick and our family. We could not have gotten through this last 365 days without you!

***Update***
Thanks to a wonderful longtime family friend pulling some strings, Nick had the opportunity to meet Above & Beyond backstage at Red Rocks last night!

Stepping Out

Well. folks, what can I say? The last nine and a half months have been... I can't even come up with a word. Let's go with triumph, as triumph can only come after a lot of hard work, along with running the gambit of all other prerequisite human emotions. Today we are happy to announce that Nick moved out of our guest room to resume his life where he left off back in Denver! We could not be prouder of our young man as he takes this next big step in his recovery. Gosh, that sounds good! Did you hear that? "His next big STEP!" Nick has actually been taking many steps lately. With several weeks of physical therapy under his belt and a fancy new cane, he has become quite unstoppable! After cruising through his first, senior trimester at JWU, PT became the main focus for the remainder of the school year, as it should. He is of course planning on finishing his degree starting in September and with his new apartment being only 10 or 15 blocks away from JWU, he will have an extremely short commute.

We want to offer a huge "Thank You" to (from left to right above) Tyler, Kevin, Jeff, and Jake for doing the heavy lifting. And thanks of course to the man himself, Nick who hit up Burritos To Go early this morning in order to fuel up the moving team. You all took time away from your busy lives to make today go extremely smoothly, and we appreciate you!

As for Maura and me, we agree... it was lump-in-our-throats difficult to send our baby out to fly for the second time this morning. We will persevere, of course, because it's absolutely the right thing for Nick to be doing at this moment, perhaps even ahead of schedule.

To this kid... Go forward, child, we love you, you've got this!